A Difficult Dilemma

North Devon 1887

Lady Eleanor Fellwood has never acknowledged Annie as her daughter-in-law or forgiven her son, Robert, for marrying a former servant. However, when the two women are trapped together on a cliffside following a freak accident, home truths are aired, and Lady Eleanor realises she has misjudged the younger woman. Fortunately, both survive the ordeal, but Lady Eleanor is shocked by revelations about her husband's past behaviour, and tells him their marriage is over.

When a growing friendship develops between the two women, Annie agrees to allow Lady Fellwood to meet her grandchildren. However, Sabina Webber, Annie's mother, is horrified at this development as she suspects the noble lady has an ulterior motive. Seven years earlier, Lady Eleanor rejected her newborn baby because he was badly disabled and she wanted him adopted, as far away as possible. However, she was unaware that the child had been taken in by Sabina, who lived not a stone's throw away, and had been raised as her son, Danny. Eventually, having noticed the child playing in the garden, Lady Eleanor recognised her son and is now desperate to have him back - an impossible situation for all concerned.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Chugg, another resident of Hartford, is worried about Nell Patterson, his wife-to-be. Nell has been nursing her Aunt Meg in The Tucker's Arms, a disreputable brothel in Barnstaple, and it is only Meg's fragile influence over her husband, Noah, and two sons, Abe and Reggie, that is keeping Nell from a life of prostitution.  

Knowing she is dying, Meg is determined to save her niece and gives Nell an envelope that, she says, can be used as leverage against Noah to gain her freedom. She says the envelope contains evidence of a crime so serious that it would see Noah and his sons hanged. Nell gives the letter to Jimmy for safekeeping, telling him she has promised not to open it until after her aunt's death. When Meg Berryman dies, and Nell and her daughters have not been seen for weeks, Jimmy is distraught and decides to open the letter, but he is unprepared for the enormity of the truth it contains.