The Ravenscar Dynasty
The Ravenscar Dynasty, introducing the house of DeRavenel, launches Barbara Taylor Bradford’s epic new series spanning a century.Ravenscar: A house, a legacy and a dynasty.On a bitterly cold day in 1904, the DeRavenel family's future changes for ever. When Cecily DeRavenel tells her 18-year-old son Edward of the death of his father, brother and cousins in a fire, a part of him dies as well.Edward is comforted by his cousin Neville Watkins, who is suspicious of the deaths. The two men vow to seek the truth, avenge the deaths and take control of the business empire usurped from Edward's great uncle sixty years before. And so begins an epic saga about an astonishing family, set in extraordinary times.Handsome, charismatic and a notorious womaniser, Edward battles his cousin, Henry Grant, for control of the family empire. Elizabeth Wyland, a young widow and a great beauty, stands by his side, and they are secretly married. She is power hungry, and ambitious. But Edward also has a mistress: Jane Shaw, a constant in his life. And as Elizabeth's jealousy damages their marriage, Edward's only solace is his work and Jane.Edward's position as the glamorous head of the DeRavenels is fatally rocked when betrayal comes from within. Soon, catastrophe threatens to destroy the family and the business…Power and money, passion and adultery, ambition and treachery – all illuminate a dramatic saga set against the backdrop of the Edwardian Era and the Belle Epoque, just before the First World War.
Читать The Ravenscar Dynasty онлайн беплатно
BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD
The Ravenscar Dynasty
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
FIRST EDITION
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2006
Copyright © Barbara Taylor Bradford 2006
Barbara Taylor Bradford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins eBooks.
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2006 ISBN: 9780007279593
Version: 2017-10-25
For my husband Robert Bradford, who has lived with these characters for over twenty-six years, and has never lost patience with them or with me. With my love.
Contents
Powerful Allies
Edward & Neville
Part Two
Golden Boy
Edward & Lily
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Ravenscar
Part Three
Glittering Temptations
Edward & Elizabeth
Chapter Forty-Five: London—1907
Chapter Fifty-Five: Paris—1908
Chapter Fifty-Seven: London—1912
Chapter Fifty-Nine: Ravenscar—1914
Bibliography
Author’s Note
About The Author
Also by Barbara Taylor Bradford
About The Publisher
‘Princely to behold, of body mighty, strong and clean made.’
Sir Thomas More
‘Yet there was magnanimity in him, and if he is not quite a tragic protagonist, he is a memorable human being. He refused to admit that there were disadvantages he could not overcome and defeats from which he could not recover, and he had the courage, and vanity, to press his game to the end.’
Paul Murray Kendall
‘Their relationship, like their division of authority, was amiable and undefined.’
Paul Murray Kendall
Edward Deravenel galloped ahead at great speed, leaving his brothers behind, rapidly gaining the advantage. He urged his white stallion forward, oblivious to the icy weather, the lash of the wind on his face.
At one moment, half turning in the saddle, glancing behind him, Edward laughed out loud, his hilarity filling the air as he waved to his brothers: George, trying to catch up, his face grim in its determination…Richard, struggling even farther behind, yet laughing and waving back. But then he was the youngest, and much less competitive, the baby of the family and Edward’s particular favourite.
For a split second Edward considered slowing down and allowing Richard to win this race, which had come about so spontaneously a short while before, then instantly changed his mind.
George would inevitably contrive to finish first, by pushing Richard out of the way in his overriding desire to be the winner. Somehow he always managed to do this, whenever he had the opportunity, no matter what the circumstances. And this Edward could not permit. Not ever. He strived to make certain Richard was never humiliated, never diminished by George, who was older than Richard by three years.
Edward continued at a gentler pace along the narrow path, glancing down to his left as he did. The plunging cliffs fell steeply to the rocks and the beach; six hundred feet below him the North Sea roared under the gusting wind, like polished steel in the winter sunlight.
The surging waves frothed and churned against the jagged rock formations, while above him kittiwakes, graceful and buoyant in flight, squawked stridently as they wheeled and turned against the pale sky. Hundreds of these beautiful white gulls with black-tipped wings made their homes on projecting ledges of rock on the cliff faces; as a child he had watched them nesting through his binoculars.
