Wise Child

Everyone knows me as Isobel now. I have not used the name I was born with for years, yet within half an hour of arriving in Macclesfield I passed my old enemy in the street and heard her say to the woman on her arm, 'My God! Lily Stanway! What's she come back for?"Silk mills and secrets. All of Lily's young life has been dominated by undercurrents among her elders that she could sense but not understand. The ties that bind the Stanways, Hammonds and Chancellors are never discussed, yet the younger generation are deeply aware of them. And when they grow up and fall for the very people they must not, cannot marry, it looks as if the delicate facade of inheritance, blood and property will collapse and draw the three families to ruin with it.