Barbados Bound

1640: Kate loses her father when his local militia is sent to fight for King Charles. With her family facing destitution, Kate is sent to work as a maid to Basing House, the palatial home and castle of the Marquis of Winchester, leaving her mother to bring up her young brothers alone. Slowly Kate makes friends at the House and her skills as a seamstress are recognised. After the battles of the English Civil War breaks out Kate is cruelly treated. Instrumental in her downfall is a soldier, Stephen, who left her father to die. Stephen becomes an officer fighting for Parliament. He is steadily promoted as he fights in some of the battles of the civil war, Edgehill, Crediton and Naseby. But his experience of war is not without the loss of his friends. His certainty in the cause he is fighting for wavers as the victors fight amongst themselves. Stephen's career intertwines with Kate's as England's civil war stretches out across the Atlantic.