Sir Tristan Dewaine ruled Landeric with an iron fist. Given to wild outbursts of temper, he was respected and feared rather than loved by family and servants. Why, then, had he greeted Susannah so graciously when she came to Landeric as governess to the youngest Dewaine girl? That was only the first surprise to overcome Susannah in her new home. There were others: the contempt, even outright hatred, she read in the eyes of the oldest and beautiful Dewaine girl; the strange incidents of the ruined straw hat, the dead rat in her bed, and the mys- terious fire that started in her room. But the greatest surprise of all was that she had allowed her foolish heart to fall hopelessly in love with the handsome young scion of Landeric, Mark Dewaine, who treated her with such brusque hostility that she wondered why the lordly Dewaines were taking so much trouble to humiliate a humble, lowly-born governess. Not until fate has taken her to Venice and brought her back once again to England does she discover what part events in that fabled Italian city played in the lives of the prideful Dewaines and how, along with them, Susan- nah herself is caught up in what is indeed a...