Young Anne Garland is being wooed by three suitors: John Loveday, a gallant soldier (and trumpet-major), Bob Loveday, his reckless but sexier younger brother and Festus Derriman, the pompous nephew of the local squire, a milos gloriosus figure.

With the constant fear of invasion by Napoleon's troops affecting everyone in the small Wessex village in which the action is set, Anne finds her fortunes ever bound up with historical events as she fluctuates between her lovers, before making her surprising final choice.