In southwestern Ireland during the Great Famine, Lady Clara Desmond first regards herself as bound to the passionate and unconventional Owen Fitzgerald, but her mother the Countess...
As Herbert and Clara’s attachment becomes firm, the family lawyer Mr Prendergast arrives at Castle Richmond and Sir Thomas finally reveals the secret that Lady Fitzgerald appears ...
Sir Thomas dies believing that his family’s honour and inheritance have been destroyed and Herbert and the Fitzgeralds prepare to surrender Castle Richmond, but Prendergast and He...
Lord Hampstead and his sister Lady Frances place personal conviction above aristocratic convention and increasingly clash with the Marchioness, and when it becomes known that Franc...
Hampstead tries to create circumstances in which Frances and Roden may be accepted by the family, but the Marchioness continues to oppose the match on grounds of rank and uses Gree...
Greenwood attempts to exploit the Marchioness’s fears and ambitions for his own advantage, while she becomes increasingly preoccupied with the possibility that one of her young so...
Once Roden’s noble birth becomes known and it is revealed that he may inherit the title of Duke of Crinola, the objections of the Marquis and Marchioness to his marriage with Fran...
The ailing Mr. Scarborough shocks his family by declaring that his debt-ridden elder son Mountjoy is illegitimate, apparently stripping him of the inheritance and making Augustus t...
Mr. Grey becomes increasingly disturbed by the way Scarborough manipulates law, property, and family relationships while continuing to involve himself in the tangled affairs of the...
Mountjoy’s return alive removes much of the mystery surrounding his disappearance but leaves his debts and creditors unresolved, while Scarborough’s correspondence and further ma...
As death approaches, Scarborough launches his final scheme by overturning his earlier declaration and restoring Mountjoy’s legitimacy and right to inherit, destroying Augustus’s ...
After the death of her brother leaves Clara Amedroz without a claim to the Belton estate, she faces an uncertain future with her impractical father, and when the new heir Will Belt...
After becoming engaged to Aylmer, Clara visits Aylmer Park only to be treated with coldness and contempt by Lady Aylmer and to discover that Frederic will not defend her against hi...
After George Bertram distinguishes himself at Oxford while Arthur Wilkinson falls short of expectations, the two young men begin their adult lives from very different positions, wi...
As the years pass George works to establish himself in the legal profession, but Caroline continues to insist that marriage requires sufficient income and social security, and beca...
During her marriage Caroline gradually realizes that Harcourt is more deeply interested in old Mr. Bertram’s fortune and inheritance than in her own happiness, and when his attemp...
