The Ipswich coach which arrived at the Fleece Inn in the autumn of 1817 carried a strange, ill-assorted company, who were destined to change forever the lives of those who lived at the Fleece. Will Oakley, landlord and host, with his two daughters, one very beautiful and one astonishingly ugly, waited to receive the guests  – the farmers, the merchants, the ‘quality’ – and those who fitted into none of these categories…such as the handsome foreigner with the scarred face – or the fat man who appeared to be gloating over some malicious secret of his own… Don’t be put off by the ‘bodice-ripper’ style cover; Norah Lofts wrote a brilliant, historically well-researched story every time.