Harnessing peacocks Book

Can a woman whose family holds a family conference to decide and plan her abortion manage successfully to steal away in the night and run away to make a life for herself and her unborn child? It appears so. Hebe lives in a quiet English village with her son, Silas, and manages by working as a private chef to a few elderly ladies for a few weeks at a time, and a prostitute to select men, a group she calls, her Syndicate. The latter career is of course, not a well known fact, and most of her clients, carefully chosen, communicate with her only through letters sent to a Pakistani store.

With her chosen lifestyle, Hebe lives a quiet but contented life, earning enough for the stiff tuition fees at Silas's private school.

Silas comes home for the holidays but goes off to spend 3 weeks with a friend whose family have invited him on a sailing vacation. As Hebe contemplates the change in plans, she decides to offer her cooking services to one of her elderly clients for the time that Silas will be away with his friend. Things start to unravel, when one of her clients learns that she is to be at his mother's friend's place, a rather shy nephew meets Hebe, a stranger meet with Silas and one of her clients becomes her friend.

Wonderfully humorous with a touch of whimsy.