Publisher's Synopsis
Hugh Walpole's Wintersmoon turns the romance novel on its head. Janet Grandison and Wildherne Poole marry for companionship and convenience. Love isn't part of the arrangement. Janet wants to give her sister Rosalind a home; Wildherne wants an heir to his title and estate that the married woman he loves can't give him. Nothing goes according to plan. Rosalind and Wildherne can't stand each other. She marries a man she doesn't love to get out of living at Wintersmoon. Janet gets on the wrong side of Wildherne's mother and her entourage. Then she finds herself in love with her husband and pregnant with his child. Wildherne has grown to love Janet as well, but neither says anything because they agreed to a loveless marriage. Their son's death brings their marriage to a crisis that has far-reaching repercussions.'I am asking you again to marry me as I did a fortnight ago.'Janet Grandison turned towards him and said: 'Yes. You've been very honest.''I believe, ' he said, 'honesty to be the only thing for us. From the beginning I have always known that you valued that-honesty I mean-more perhaps than anything. I value it too.'She smiled.'I believe you do. But we all do. We make a fetish of it. It seems to me sometimes almost the only good thing that has survived the war. Well, ' she went on, 'I have had the fortnight I begged for. A fortnight ago you asked me to marry you. You said you weren't in love with me but that you liked and respected me, that you thought we would get on well together.... You want me to be the mother of your childre
