Prue Wakefield is the third daughter of a non-conformist preacher by the name of Redemption Virtue. These were not the names he had from his family. His father was a country squire of the ride anything with four legs, drink anything alcoholic, swive any available female school. As the second son, Redemption was expected to enter the church. He did, and he found his niche.
He and his wife had two daughters, Faith and Hope, before he fell afoul of the law for preaching what they called sedition. (He said that all the wealthy were doomed to hell, and could only be saved if they gave everything they had to the poor. As if that was not bad enough, he insisted that the only king he was required to recognise was the King of Heaven.)
After he’d spent ten months in prison, his brother gave in to his wife’s urgent pleas and interceded on Redemption’s behalf, and Redemption was released on his brother’s word that he would keep the peace. Prudence was born eight months later, clearly premature. Nonetheless, Redemption, knowing the price his brother demanded for his intervention, never considered Prudence to be his daughter. He loudly and publicly forgave his wife, and they had one more child, Charity, before she died, leaving her motherless daughters to the care of a man who became increasingly radical and single-minded in his religion.
After his death, Faith and Hope continued in the path their father had set. Only 17, Prue was sent away to work as a governess, and it was in the home of her employer that she met a very young Aldridge, only 20. He wooed her with compliments and kindnesses, seduced her, and then assumed that she had agreed to be his mistress.
He could not understand how anyone could be so naive as to think a marquis, heir to a duke, would ever consider marrying the penniless daughter of a preacher. She was horrified to think she had surrendered her virtue to a rake.
After they parted, Prue found work as a spy with the shadowy figure called Tolliver. It was during a mission for Tolliver that she met and fell in love with David Wakefield, not knowing that he was Aldridge’s half brother.
The relationship caused some problems, as explained in Revealed in Mist.
