Six months after her husband's sudden death, Leonora Galloway sets off for a holiday in Paris with her daughter Penelope.  At last the time has come when secrets can be shared and explanations begin...<br><br>Their journey starts with an unscheduled stop at the imposing Thiepval Memorial to the dead of the Battle of the Somme near Amiens.  Amongst those commemorated is Leonora's father.  <i>The date of his death is recorded and 30th  April, 1916.  But Leonora wasn't born until 14th March 1917.</i><br><br>Penelope at once supposes a simple wartime illegitimacy as the clue to her mother's unhappy childhood and the family's sundered connections with her aristocratic heritage, about which she has always known so little.<br><br>But nothing could have prepared her, or the reader, for the extraordinary story that is about to unfold.<br><br><br><i>From the Paperback edition.</i>