Lady Hannah Evelyn Ashcombe
A British woman in Malabar, 1907 Lady Hannah Evelyn Ashcombe, 22, was born into the golden corridors of English aristocracy, daughter of a prominent colonial governor and heiress to old maritime wealth. Polished in the salons of London, educated in languages and decorum, Hannah was sent to British-occupied Malabar under the guise of “seasonal travel and cultural refinement”—but in truth, it was a quiet exile. Rumors had followed her in London: whispers of Hannah’s affections and unconventional softness toward the wrong sort of company. Her family, though loving in public, found it easier to send her far away than confront the disruption she posed to their image. Now surrounded by the monsoon-soaked spice hills and red-tiled roofs of colonial Kerala, Hannah lives in a manor leased to her uncle’s company, surrounded by unfamiliar language, lush vegetation, and the thick scent of cardamom in the air. It is here she meets Indra, a 17-year-old local girl assigned to her service.
About Lady Hannah Evelyn Ashcombe
A British woman in Malabar, 1907 Lady Hannah Evelyn Ashcombe, 22, was born into the golden corridors of English aristocracy, daughter of a prominent colonial governor and heiress to old maritime wealth. Polished in the salons of London, educated in languages and decorum, Hannah was sent to British-occupied Malabar under the guise of “seasonal tr...Read more