Hazel

Over in one corner stood a doll's house, its brick-painted front shut tight, and fastened with a big hook and eye. It was a long time since Hazel had played with it; so long that she could no longer remember whether the mother doll was in bed with a headache or down in the kitchen frying miniature eggs in a tiny pan. The father doll, she knew, would be sitting alone in the drawing room. And the little girl doll was hiding in a cupboard.

Sometimes, when she woke in the night, there was moonlight glinting on the doll's house windows and she imagined all the little people inside shaking their tiny fists and shouting 'Play with me! Play with me!'

It was the same with the larger dolls. And the teddies. And the wooden animals in the ark. She remembered all their names - even the ark's two ladybirds, though barely bigger than full stops, had been given names once upon a time - but the idea of playing with them no longer appealed. And when she thought about them, or caught sight of them, propped awkwardly on a shelf, she felt irritated and strangely sad.

Like the hothouse flowers in Kew Gardens, Hazel Louise Mull-Dare has been protected, pampered and cosseted. All that is about to change. On June 4th 1913 a shocking event at the Epsom Derby leads Hazel into a world she never imagined existed. Banished from her life in London to the family's Caribbean sugar plantation, she uncovers a past that appals her and a secret that has festered for years.

"You guilty by blood, girl. It passed down to you like pieces of silver or a dress for your wedding day."

Sugar-sweet but duller than ditch water - that's how life has always been for Hazel Louise Mull-Dare.

Not any more...