Fortune's Favorite Child — Margaret James

When Dora Lawrence met Tim Atherton at the dawn of the new Edwardian era, she found him agreeably entertaining but she did not take him seriously. So his proposal of marriage took her by surprise - as did his hurt reaction to her refusal.

Dora thought she didn't want to marry anybody yet. Then that summer she accompanied her father Stephen on a visit to the family estate in Herefordshire. Here she would meet her cousins for the first time, sample and utterly different way of life to her own. At first repelled by fox-hunting, Dora became grimly determined to embrace rural pursuits when Ralph Challoner entered her life. Ralph, tall and commanding, overwhelmed her senses. Dora's visit lengthened into months as she fell under his spell. Even Ralph's inexplicable flashes of cruelty would not deter her from her belief that she had found love.

In later years, as war threatened, Dora would feel trapped, forever beyond the reach of happiness. But fortune had yet to smile on her...