April, 1914. English Guards Officer, Captain Harry Haig-Mallory, meets the beautiful, young American heiress Athena Fenhagen at the St. George's Day ball at the British Embassy in Washington. The attraction is immediate. Three days later they become engaged. At Athena's insistence, the wedding is scheduled for August in the village church in Cornwall.
The outbreak of the First World War intervenes. The wedding is postponed, Harry's regiment sets off for France as part of the British Expeditionary Force and Athena returns to her parents' home in Cleveland, Ohio.
In France, Harry is wounded during his regiment's first cavalry charge but continues to serve. A year later the regiment is recalled to England for ceremonial duties but Harry, now promoted to major, returns to France in a staff capacity under General Horrocks-Smythe. While there Harry meets a local young French woman, Solange Grenier, and has an affair with her while her husband is at the front. Solange becomes pregnant and has a daughter, Madeleine.
In August, 1916, Harry returns to England and, marries Athena who has made her way across the Atlantic. He returns to Flanders as colonel in charge of his old regiment. At Christmas he ignores standing orders and accompanies a small squad of his men on a trench raid. He is badly wounded in the process and sent back to England to recover. On his return to the front he is involved in the battle for Passchendaele where he is gravely wounded. For his valour he receives the Victoria Cross and a bar to his earlier Distinguished Service Order.
Harry succeeds to the title, Earl of St Austell, and the family wealth. On his promotion to Brigadier, Harry reports to Whitehall and a desk job under his old general, Horrocks-Smythe.
At Christmas, 1916, Athena is now married and living in Harry's family home in Cornwall. Harry is in Flanders.
After a month at home, Harry returns to the front in February, 1917. Athena stays with her father-in-law in their London home in Belgrave Square. While there she meets Brigadier Shackleton, Harry's former commanding officer. Desperate for male company, she and Shackleton spend a night at The Dorchester Hotel in Mayfair where their tryst is witnessed by Harry's father. He confronts her and agrees not to tell Harry but declares her persona non grata in the London house and would gladly see the back of her for good if it were possible ? back to America preferably.
Athena returns to Cornwall and, when Harry returns from hospital after his Passchendaele wounds, she nurses him back to passable health. With her father-in-law dead, she moves back into the Belgrave Square house while Harry is in Whitehall.
The ending...
Harry's last posting is a return to Flanders, to the village where he was twice posted and where he had his affair with Solange Grenier, and to return to London with war orphans as a morale boosting P.R. job for the British public and the war effort ? 'Brigadier Haig-Mallory, V.C. wounded at Passchendaele rescues Belgian orphans'. On his arrival in the village he discovers that Solange has been killed in the German Spring Offensive but her two daughters, Sophie and Madeleine, survived. How will Harry react to the discovery? Will Athena react to the news favourably?
