Cocoa Beach

The novel alternates between wartime France (1917–1919) and Florida in 1922, following Virginia Fitzwilliam as she untangles the truth about her estranged husband's life and apparent death. It opens with a letter from Simon Fitzwilliam to his wife Virginia, dated May 1919, in which he declares his intention to travel to Cocoa, Florida, to revive a family shipping business and prove himself worthy of her trust.

In June 1922, Virginia arrives in Cocoa Beach with her nearly three-year-old daughter, Evelyn, to settle Simon's estate. Simon reportedly died in a house fire on February 19, 1922. His lawyer, Mr. Burnside, confirms that Simon's brother, Samuel Fitzwilliam, identified the body; Virginia later learns from Samuel that the identification relied solely on her wedding ring, which Simon had kept on his person. The will leaves Virginia citrus groves, the Phantom Shipping Company, a hotel, and a Packard roadster. At the shipping warehouse, she detects the scent of brandy, hinting at illicit cargo. She encounters Samuel in the company offices, where he has been serving as temporary director.

Flashbacks reveal how Virginia, a twenty-year-old American Red Cross volunteer, met Captain Simon Fitzwilliam, a British Army surgeon, at a casualty clearing station in northern France in February 1917. Their connection is immediate, but a fellow nurse warns Virginia that Simon is married with a baby son.

Back in 1922, Samuel shows Virginia the wedding ring recovered from the fire, triggering her first tears in three years. Clara Fitzwilliam, introduced as Simon's sister, arrives and is warmly affectionate, a contrast to the pale, exhausted woman Virginia met once in Cornwall years earlier. Virginia decides to drive to Miami, and Clara insists on joining.

In further flashbacks, Simon finds Virginia in a Paris hotel and reveals the truth about his marriage: His brother Samuel was secretly engaged to Lydia Gibbons, a shipping heiress. When Samuel was reported killed early in the war, Lydia came to Simon pregnant. He married her to give the baby a name, a union never consummated, and plans to divorce her. During a day at Versailles, Simon and Virginia become lovers. Simon proposes, but Virginia refuses. She confides that her mother was murdered when Virginia was eight, a trauma that has left her terrified of marriage. Simon accepts her terms.

In Miami, Virginia learns Simon took out a hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage on his plantation, mysteriously paid off shortly after his death. A stranger identifies himself as Marshall, a Prohibition agent with the Bureau of Internal Revenue. He reveals Simon was involved in bootlegging through the shipping company, a scheme Samuel initiated to cover debts. Simon had agreed to help the bureau but died before completing the work. Marshall warns Virginia to leave Florida. She refuses, withholding a crucial discovery: Simon's monthly letters, which her father had intercepted, were all empty envelopes. The last was postmarked February 28, 1922, nine days after Simon supposedly died, leading her to suspect he is still alive.

At a speakeasy on Cocoa Beach, Virginia slips outside to observe rumrunners on the darkened shore. Someone attacks her from behind. Before losing consciousness, she glimpses hazel eyes in a face she recognizes as Simon's. Clara proposes they recover at Maitland Plantation, Simon's estate fifty miles inland. There Virginia meets Portia Bertram, the housekeeper, a Black woman educated at Radcliffe who has managed the plantation for years. The house contains a children's wing prepared for the family Simon imagined with Virginia. She finds a note in Simon's handwriting: "Everything you seek is here." A rag doll sits on her dresser. Clara departs the next morning, claiming a telegram calls her away.

Virginia's health collapses. Bedridden for weeks, she eventually realizes her nightly pills are not aspirin but an opiate.

A flashback to August 1918 reveals Virginia's first meeting with Samuel near Château Thierry in France. He tells her he was not killed but held as a prisoner of war for three years, and he accuses Simon of knowing the truth all along, of seducing Lydia, and of marrying Virginia for her father's millions. Virginia inadvertently confirms her family's wealth. She also learns that Simon and Samuel are twins. Shortly after, her ambulance crashes and she is severely injured.

In another flashback, Virginia and Simon marry in London in March 1919. At the family estate in Cornwall, Samuel accuses Simon of poisoning his parents and Lydia's father for their inheritances and insists Simon married Virginia for money. Pregnant and devastated, Virginia flees to New York without telling anyone about Simon.

Samuel rescues the drugged Virginia and Evelyn from Maitland, bringing them to the Phantom Hotel. Virginia discovers that someone used Simon's name to extort a hundred thousand dollars from her father, reinforcing her belief Simon survived the fire. "Clara" reappears, battered and bruised, claiming she escaped from the Ashley gang, a Florida bootlegging family that held her captive.

The rag doll contains Simon's hidden letters, his full confession. He admits to a single intimate encounter with Lydia after Samuel's reported death but doubts he fathered Sammy, Lydia's son whose paternity remains uncertain. He reveals that Lydia's father had two illegitimate daughters, Portia Bertram and Clara Fitzwilliam, fathered during his time in Borneo. Lydia refused the divorce because the settlement would direct the fortune to them, and she poisoned her own father to prevent this. In exchange for his silence about the murder, Simon bargained for Lydia to relinquish the business, surrender guardianship of Sammy, and disappear. Instead, Lydia faked her death, making Simon possibly a bigamist when he married Virginia. She then extorted money from Virginia's father.

A woman appears in the doorway and introduces herself as the real Clara Fitzwilliam, just arrived from England. She explains that the woman Virginia has known as "Clara" is actually Lydia, Simon's first wife, impersonating his sister with Samuel's complicity. Lydia orchestrated the drugging, the staged kidnapping, and Samuel's manipulation.

Virginia goes to the shipping dock to warn Samuel that Simon is alive and working with Marshall to trap the Ashley gang and Samuel. Gunfire erupts on the beach. Simon appears, carrying Virginia. She puts a gun to his head but cannot pull the trigger. Samuel shoots Simon and drives Virginia away. During the escape, Lydia, who has been working alongside Samuel, seizes Evelyn as a hostage and demands Virginia sign over her inheritance. She reveals that Virginia's father did not kill Virginia's mother as Virginia long believed, and that her father has since been killed.

At Maitland, Samuel ties Virginia to the kitchen range and throws a kerosene lamp to start a fire, but secretly drops a pocketknife at her feet. Virginia cuts herself free. Hearing screams, she reenters the burning house and rescues Portia and young Sammy.

The epilogue, set in April 1924, is told from Simon's perspective. He survived the shooting, losing only part of his ear. The real Clara found him and drove him to Maitland during the fire, where he snatched Evelyn from Lydia. Samuel then shot Lydia dead and vanished. Simon and Virginia have rebuilt their marriage and are expecting another child. Evelyn and Sammy live with them as siblings. Clara and Portia jointly own the hotel and shipping business. The novel closes with Marshall arriving at dawn with a bruised woman and a small child, asking Simon to hide them.