Alena wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with her childhood friend, Rob. However, Rob's wealthy father tries to force them apart and they run away together. When they are discovered life becomes even harder—Rob is sent away to school and Alena has to start work in a bobbin mill.
When Lily's beau Dick is mowed down in a boating accident Lily vows to take revenge on the family involved.She does this by tricking into marriage the Clermont Read's son Bertie knowing it would devastate the family socially coming from the lower classes herself.But ultimately this causes not jus...
1905. Rosie Belsfield feels as if her life has ended when she is rejected from Ellis Island and put on the next boat back to England, leaving her family behind. But fate gives her a second chance when she befriends Lady Rosalind. Having boarded the ship with one identity, fate decrees that Rosie ...
The woman insisted on absolute discipline at all times, would poke the boys with a stick if they didn’t jump to it when she issued an order, or stop their noisy banter when she told them to shut up. Batty Brenda liked peace and quiet in her ward, and would make them stand with their hands on thei...
She wished now that she’d waited a bit longer before taking on a third loom, even if the manufacturing side of her business was doing well. It was the retail part which troubled her. Charlie was perking up, insisting on getting out and about more as the pain subsided a little and Polly was glad a...
At first she was pleased. Hadn’t this been what she’d dreamed of for so long? But she’d forgotten how much mess her sister created, how she expected to be waited on hand, foot and finger, and never think to help with the cooking or the washing up. Having Pearl live with her was not at all as Ruby...
It became his task to keep his eyes open and his ears to the ground-or to people’s back doors - and to search out any other likely source of new stock. This was heady stuff for Benny. It certainly made a change from delving in the mud of the Rochdale canal whenever the locksmen lowered the level ...
‘What are you doing? Where are you taking her?’ she shouted. But there was a Ford motor car waiting at the door with its engine running and, within seconds, the social worker had climbed in and the driver roared away. Cathie ran after it the entire length of the street, screaming for the car to s...
‘In return I have agreed to release France from its indebtedness, the balance to be given in cash to a total sum of six hundred thousand livres, which will represent your dowry. The Ambassador has this very day been dispatched to Paris with the signed articles of marriage. What think you of that?...
Why would someone leave a baby on her doorstep? It wasn’t a new baby, probably about three or four months old, a girl, and though she seemed somewhat fretful, the shawl wrapped about the child was clean enough. Tucked inside was a feeding bottle, sadly empty. Perhaps this was the reason she’d bee...
Only the eyes were visible, gleaming still with youthful vigour. Yet try as he might to lose himself in the crowds, none were unaware of his identity. The cries went up as he strode amongst them. ‘Vive Guise!’ Pretty ladies took off their masks to smile at him. People tried to touch the hem of hi...
Peggy took her revenge for what she deemed a public humiliation by checking all Bette’s papers and quizzing her on her home background, on when she’d met Chad and how she’d managed to get transport to the States. When Bette explained about Barney finding her a billet on a transport ship, she was ...
How brave she was, but also vulnerable when it came to Stefan’s charm. She smiled. So now it was her turn to step into her grandmother’s shoes and prove she, too, was up to a challenge. Abbie looked about her with a sigh of pleasure, enchanted as always by the wildness of ...
They are come!’ Madame de Curton rushed into Margot’s apartment all in a flurry to inform her mistress of this stupendous news. Pausing only long enough to catch her breath, she continued, ‘The bridegroom comes riding into Paris, attended by the Prince de Condé and eight hundred Huguenot gentleme...
Mr William Smith, an actor with the Drury Lane Theatre, was coming on a visit. Wilkinson had opened the new Theatre Royal in York in 1770, and its reputation had grown since those early days. It was very often a place London impresarios such as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, or their agents, would co...
Livia kept asking herself this question, filled with shame. Was she indeed a wanton, a loose woman? Following that Sunday in the steam launch, to all outward appearances her relationship with Matthew Grayson continued as normal, on a strictly business footing. In reality they met frequently, in s...
The next afternoon Sarah decided they should make the most of the good weather and have a picnic. She dispatched Beth to make sandwiches, collect rugs and take them up to the tarn in the yellow mini. Tessa was only too willing to help since she could then meet the naked bodies in the flesh, as it...
Finally gathering her courage, she stepped onto the train. It was here, hunched in a corner of a carriage, that Archie found her. She was astonished, filled with a rush of gratitude as he flung his bag on to the overhead rack and dropped into the seat beside her, breathing heavily. ‘How did you k...
It was almost as if Rose were invisible, though she fervently wished at times that she was, certainly so far as the old farmer, whose name was Maurice, was concerned. If he wasn’t talking to her, endlessly relating tales about his lumbago, his pigeons, or how well his leeks were doing, he would w...
What have you been doing all this time? You must have been gone for seven weeks!’ ‘Six, actually, and I’ve been getting to know my grandmother,’ Chrissie told her mother with a wry smile. ‘Which has been most enlightening.’ They were sitting in the lounge of Vanessa’s London apartment and even th...
The week after, she met with no greater success. After a month or more of fruitless searching Lissa had almost given up hope of ever finding a place of her own. Everywhere was either too big or too expensive. A winter let would have been easy to find, but with summer coming, the landladies could ...
With a little jump of her heart, Florrie recognised the handwriting instantly as being Clem’s, but unfortunately it wasn’t addressed to her, it was for Rita and there was nothing she could do about vetting it before it was opened. Clem had very kindly written to say that Daisy had spent the winte...