The Wages of Virtue

The year is 1914. Sir Montague Merline, officer in the French Foreign Legion, has left his young wife Lady Merline in the care of his oldest friend, Lord Huntingten, while he answers the call of duty in North Africa. But on an East African safari, something forbidden blooms between them: a tenderness that neither can name and both cannot deny. As hunting parties give way to honest conversation, as sunsets blur into intimacy, the three find themselves trapped in a triangle of longing where every honest feeling feels like betrayal. Then the letters arrive, carrying news of mutiny in the ranks, and Merline's duty calls him back to a world of violence and discipline. What follows is a stark examination of what virtue costs, and whether the wages of doing right are ever enough to heal a wounded heart. This is a novel about the cruelty of honorable choices, the loneliness of command, and the terrible math of love when duty demands everything.