Just as the Swiss Governess, Esther Abrabanel finishes her meal in the Normandy Guesthouse, she aware that she has been observed all the while under the disturbing watchful eye of the same mysterious man encountered earlier. One question was uppermost in her mind: "Is this by any chance my unknown paramour?" Leaving the Dining Room, she is passed by an elegant middle-aged lady. She notices that this Lady proceeds to sit herself down at the same table as the Mysterious Stranger. Just by chance, she happens to catch a snatch of their conversation: Elegant Lady: "Well John, I see you started without me!" Mysterious Stranger: "Yes. I was hungry, and didn't know how long it'd be before you came down." Elegant Lady: "And who is that young lady that I saw you staring at so assiduously when I came in?" Mysterious Stranger:"I don't know her name, mother, but our paths crossed as I was out for my walk, and I thought then what a memorable face she has! Imagine my surprise when I saw her sitting at the next table for dinner." Elegant Lady: "Beware of pretty faces, my Son, as I've always said!" 'Mother!' thought Esther Abrabanel, as she stared at them sitting together in the Dining Room. Just then, they too turned and looked back at her. 'Could it really be?!' she thought, 'and if she's his mother, then who, when , & where is the English Gentleman I'm here to meet?!' With confused thought spinning through her mind, she stopped to question the Concierge on her way to her room: Esther Abrabanel: "Excusez moi, est ce qu'il y a eut des message pour moi?" (Excuse me, are there were any messages for me?) Concierge: "Non mademoiselle, aucun." (No miss, not one.) Esther Abrabanel: "Si jamais il, y en as je suis dans ma chamber." (If there should be, I'll be in my room.) Slowly she climbs the stairs to the upper floor, her heart beating like a condemned man's as he ascends the scaffold: dread and anticipation at one and the same time warring within her. She approaches her door, and taking a deep breath, she turns the handle. Opening the door, she enters her room, -and sees him! A tall dark and handsome stranger sitting before her fire, and drinking a glass of Claret. TO BE CONTINUED! Based on the 1997 movie Firelight, by William Nicholson. BACKGROUND SYNOPSIS: In 1838, lovely Swiss governess, Esther Abrabanel, agrees to conceive and bear the child of an anonymous English landowner, in return for which he'll pay her £500. He needs an heir to carry on his line, but who's wife has suffered a serious riding accident shortly after marriage, and can no longer bear children (she's actually in a vegetative state). Miss Abrabanel needs the money to pay her father's debt, and obtain his release from prison; but she's fiercely independent, and refuses to surrender to the yoke of a loveless marriage just for financial convenience and security. So their mutual need brings them together. They meet for three days in a hotel on the coast of Normandy, during that time their relationship metamorphs from the cold mechanics of commercial contract sex, to a mutual lust & desire, to a deep and abiding love. However, in spite of this awakened feeling between them, they part ways on their return to England, ostensibly never to see each other again. At the birth of their child (a daughter),she surrenders her as agreed to the midwife to hand over to the father. However, unlike as agreed, she can neither forget her child, nor the man that she bore it to. Seven years pass, when one day she arrives at a remote Sussex estate, to be the governess of a young girl. The father of the girl, Charles Godwin, turns out to be the same anonymous landowner who met with her years before in the Normandy hotel, and the child Louisa is their daughter. So Esther has to be her own daughter's governess.