Dark Inheritance — Carola Salisbury

"Landeric," he had gasped as the storm raged around them. Then, after a whispered "Forgive me," Susannah Button's father died in her arms.

Landeric-the great estate of the Dewaine family and visible symbol of its wealth, power and arrogance. Susannah knew the place well, as did every inhabitant of the Cornish village of Pennan Haven. Some had been touched by its wealth and power, and not a few-Susannah among them-had felt the lash of its arrogance. Why, then, with his dying breath had her father breathed the hated name into her ear? What connection could there possibly be between her and the Dewaines?

It was a long road that separated a tavern-keeper's daughter from the gilded beings who called Landeric home, but it was a road Susannah was to travel to its end, and every inch of the way was to measure out surprise after surprise, some of them answering a young girl's wildest dreams. . . and some of them putting her life in danger.

Sir Tristan Dewaine ruled Landeric with an iron fist. Given to wild outbursts of temper, he was respected and feared rather than loved by family and servants. Why, then, had he greeted Susannah so graciously when she came to Landeric as governess to the youngest Dewaine girl?

That was only the first surprise to overcome Susannah in her new home. There were others: the contempt, even outright hatred, she read in the eyes of the oldest and beautiful Dewaine girl; the strange incidents of the ruined straw hat, the dead rat in her bed, and the mysterious fire that started in her room. But the greatest surprise of all was that she had allowed her foolish heart to fall hopelessly in love with the handsome young scion of Landeric, Mark Dewaine, who treated her with such brusque hostility that she wondered why the lordly Dewaine's were taking so much trouble to humiliate a humble, lowly-born governess.

Not until fate has taken her to Venice and brought her back once again to England does she discover what part events in the fabled Italian city played in the lives of the prideful Dewaine's and how, along with them, Susannah herself in caught up in what is indeed a… Dark Inheritance