When survival demands sacrifice, can love find another way?
Governess Annabel Chase has learned that genteel poverty offers little mercy. After her father's death stripped away her comfortable life in Bath, she's desperate enough to accept a position at the remote Wintermere Hall in Devon-sight unseen, employer unknown, with winter closing in and nowhere else to go.
She expects an elderly lord and conventional duties. Instead, she finds:
- Edward Carmichael, Lord Wintermere-barely thirty, devastatingly handsome, and carrying the weight of an estate drowning in debt - Catherine-his brilliant twelve-year-old daughter who challenges every assumption about women's intellectual capabilities
- A house haunted by secrets-including the tragic tale of Sister Margaret, who chose duty over love three centuries ago and still walks the grounds in ethereal sorrow
The Victorian era demands strict boundaries between employers and servants, but passion recognizes no such rules.
As forbidden attraction ignites between the impoverished governess and her tormented employer, Edward faces financial ruin that threatens everything: his ancestral estate, his daughter's future, the livelihoods of everyone who depends on him. Lady Pemberton offers salvation-her vast fortune in exchange for marriage to a man she's never met.
The choice seems impossible: marry for money and lose his soul, or follow his heart and lose everything else.
But Annabel refuses to accept defeat. Armed with progressive educational philosophy and Catherine's brilliant mind, she proposes a radical solution-transform Wintermere Hall itself into England's most innovative school for young women. It's ambitious, untested, and completely contrary to everything society expects from a Victorian estate.
Stakes escalate when their secret romance is discovered, threatening not just their reputations but the fragile community they're building. With supernatural guidance from Sister Margaret's restless spirit and their own unshakeable faith in each other, Edward and Annabel must prove that love combined with intelligence can overcome any obstacle-social prejudice, financial ruin, even centuries of tragic precedent.
A sweeping historical romance that combines forbidden love with social revolution, Gothic atmosphere with progressive ideals, and proves that some happy endings are worth fighting for across lifetimes.
外文書商品之書封，為出版社提供之樣本。實際出貨商品，以出版社所提供之現有版本為主。部份書籍，因出版社供應狀況特殊，匯率將依實際狀況做調整。
無庫存之商品，在您完成訂單程序之後，將以空運的方式為你下單調貨。為了縮短等待的時間，建議您將外文書與其他商品分開下單，以獲得最快的取貨速度，平均調貨時間為1~2個月。
為了保護您的權益，「三民網路書店」提供會員七日商品鑑賞期(收到商品為起始日)。
若要辦理退貨，請在商品鑑賞期內寄回，且商品必須是全新狀態與完整包裝(商品、附件、發票、隨貨贈品等)否則恕不接受退貨。
