From the pomp of Victoria’s reign to the end of World War II, a brilliant panorama of life in England and Europe is the setting of the story of an extraordinary woman. Sarah Rainborough was a little girl when she was taken away from the elegance of London society to the estates of her step-father on the stormy Cornwall coast. Here she learned to know the giant sailor, Captain Rodda, who wenched and drank as ardently as he sang hymns, and his beautiful mistress, Lucy Evans. When Lucy came into Sarah’s household with the Captain’s son, no one would have believed that one day she was to involve the family in blackmail and murder, or that the boy was to become one of England’s greatest merchants. As Sarah grew older, her nurse—now a successful novelist—introduced her to the literary greats of London. Later her own husband took her into the circles of statesmen and politicians. Meanwhile the fortunes of Lucy’s family and her own were bringing her the challenge of violence and tragedy.