Beyond These Voices

Lady Felicia Disbrowe has spent years clinging to pride and propriety, but her hopes for restoring a fading family fortune rest on her beautiful daughter, Cara. Cara, however, falls under the spell of Lancelot Davis, a dazzling young poet whose brilliance and sensual glamour promise a life beyond class, caution, and money. When Lady Felicia rejects him and threatens to disown her daughter, Cara chooses love, fleeing to Italy for a secret marriage and four years of radiant happiness before tragedy leaves her dead, Davis broken, and their little daughter in the care of a woman forced at last to face the cost of her hardness. That child, Vera, grows up in quiet deprivation, nourished by books and imagination, with only brief glimpses of freedom and affection. A country holiday at Disbrowe opens her eyes to beauty and companionship, but her life soon narrows again around duty and her grandmother's illness, first in a lonely Riviera hotel and then amid the social stir of San Marco. There, the arrival of wealthy Signor Mario Provana and the murder of his husband shatter the stillness. As the inquest unfolds, Vera's composed sorrow, the theft of valuable bonds, and the unsettling mystery surrounding the crime draw her into a world of class tension, hidden motives, and grief that refuses to speak plainly. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.