CHAPTER ONE
1897Robina Melville stared out of the carriage window and sighed. The sun was setting over the green countryside as she sped towards her Surrey home in Lucksham.
Seated beside her was Nanny – an elderly lady who had brought up her mother as well as Robina.
But Robina’s mother was no longer with her. She had died the previous year and so distraught was her father that he had sent Robina to stay with friends in France.
“It is for the best, Robina, my dear,” he had said to her on the day he had called her into the library at the rear of the huge rambling building that was Trentham House.
How she had shed copious tears as he had sat there at his desk, almost impassively telling her that he wished to be alone and that he had written to his friends in Paris, the Lamonts, asking
