This "finely crafted romantic novel" set in a nineteenth-century England narrates the fortunes of the youngest daughter of a wealthy English family (Yorkshire Evening Post).

Jessica Hawthorne grows up a strange, isolated child in the sumptuous beauty of her family home, Melburn New Hall, in the nineteenth-century Suffolk. She is surrounded by all the grandeur and respectability money can buy—but without the furnishings of affection.

Robert Fitzbolton, a young aristocrat, is the companion of her lonely childhood, her comfort through family tragedy and the heartache of young love. But is the support of Robert's friendship enough?

Together they flee to Florence searching for freedom and fulfillment. Robert finds what he is seeking, but Jessica is a true Hawthorne and is drawn—inevitably—back to Melbury, to her destiny. . . .

"A pleasant winter's night companion." —Publishers Weekly<