Head of the household is Lucille, red-headed, forceful, determined to make this family a going concern.As a year’s experiment, Lucille parcels everyone out, while she herself takes a job as companion to an old lady. Eleven-year-old Simon and nine-year-old Dominic go to an aunt and uncle. Ten-year-old Julie is popped into convent school. Nicholas is finishing off his army service and gentle, whimsical Roselle is making a muddle of being a secretary.Suddenly news from Lucille throws all the other Waynes into an uproar and precipitates a sensational family reunion. Converging on Lucille by bus, foot and bike, they proceed to shatter one of her dreams and help her to start another.Young and unexpected loves paves some of the way; an Italian Fuller Brush man and a retired school matron add a bit; and the indomitable small-fry clean up what’s left.

    But when Charity arrived at their hotel in the picturesque French town of Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Most of it had already been played. There had been love--and lust--and revenge and fear and murder.Very soon her dreams turn into a nightmare, when by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage. She becomes enmeshed in the schemes of a gang of murderers. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

    It was a time of decision for many people, among them young Lancey Quist, daughter of the best fisherman on the river. Half tomboy and half the eternal Eve, she was torn between two lovers--Dirck van Zandt, the wealthy, assured son of a patroon; and Justin Pattison, the rebel and rogue, tempered by war and trouble.Their love story is played out against the background of the scheming and the tensions before the Constitutional Convention. Lancey's two suitors are in opposing camps, and it isn't until a bloody duel between them that she knows where her true love lies.The high-spirited Lancey is as enchanting a heroine as you'll ever encounter; and even the most minor characters, from the Dutch landed gentry to the poorest fishermen, are drawn in the round in this immensely readable and appealing novel.