The Rich Are With You Always — Malcolm MacDonald

At a time when fabulous fortunes could be made through the will of a strong man or the wiles of a beautiful woman, John Stevenson's genius as a builder and his wife Nora's clear-eyed, brilliant cunning promise to make them one of England's richest families. But as their fate becomes more and more entwined with that of their friends the Thorntons-repressed and pious Arabella and secretive, sex-obsessed Walter-whispers of scandal and disgrace threaten to bring them all to ruin.

The second novel in the classic Stevenson Family Saga, The Rich Are with You Always is the epic story of two families at the height of the railroad boom, where the lives of the Victorian people rose economically and set in motion forces of passion and struggle that would define a people.