“His two-month search for Charlotte had led him to Hampshire, a place of heather-carpeted hills, ancient hunting forests, and treacherous valley bogs. The western country was prosperous, its twenty market towns abundantly filled with wool, timber, dairy products, honey, and bacon. Among the Hampshire’s renowned estates, Stony Cross Park was considered to be the finest. The manor house and private lake were situated in the fertile Itchen River valley.”
