Suzanne Downes

Yield Not to Misfortune Suzanne Downes

When Cadmus H Underwood is asked to look into the case of Lydia Woodforde, he knows from the outset that it is not going to be an easy mystery to solve. The young lady in question was kidnapped by her father at the age of five and kept from her grieving mother for twenty years. Now she has returned, conveniently just as she is due to inherit a vast fortune left by her grandfather. Mrs Woodforde is happy to welcome home the prodigal with open arms, but she is cautioned by her friend Lady Hartley-Wells, who points out that they have no proof that Lydia is who she says she is, or that her father is now dead as she claims. Underwood is given the task of investigating both Lydia and her supposedly deceased father and their life in Barbados from whence the young woman has just arrived, bringing her black slave Sabrina with her, scandalizing Hanbury society, who are suddenly made aware that though slavery has been outlawed in England, it still holds sway in the Colonies. In the meantime Underwood has also been asked by the crippled Waterloo veteran Jeremy James Thornycroft, to help the man who saved his life. Rutherford Petch has been found guilty of stealing a valuable diamond necklace from his Great Aunt Jemima and has been transported to Australia for seven years. Thornycroft is utterly convinced that the man who saved him from certain death on the battlefield could not possibly sink so low as to steal from his own family. Underwood agrees to take both cases, but he cannot know that the greed of three men is to bring him to the brink of death and even those who are closest to him most face the loss of their beloved Cadmus.