A Rose For Every Month

James Rushton dominated both his thriving wine business and large family with all the style of an old autocrat.It was part of his plans that Jane, his only daughter - already thirty-one and likely to become a spinster if she wasn't careful - should marry her cousin William, not a love-match exactly, but highly convenient for the family.

But Jane, slight, plain, quiet, wanted more than William's obedient acquiescence, for she had loved her careless handsome cousin for a long time.On the point of settling for the little she could have, she discovered a shameless betrayal.Humiliated, not really wanted at home, she took the most daring decision of her life - to go and live and work in Italy.

It was to be the beginning of a long, passionate, and overwhelming involvement with the Buonaventura family, aristocratic, and torn apart by the strife of Mussolini's new Italy.To Jane, Ottavio Buonaventura and his family were a fascinating challenge.And the impoverished aristocrats at Castagnolo were to discover that the quiet Englishwoman was to revolutionise their lives.