Sunny Naples is dark in the shadow of death as typhoid decimates its people, including the father lovely young Forella Claye adored with all her heart... Fleeing for her life, she arrives, forlorn, at her aunt and uncle's London house. Horrified to find they mean to offload her in marriage by hook or by crook, she flees again... this time on a horse from the stable of the impossibly handsome Hungarian Prince János Kovác. With the Prince hot on her heels, she gallops to faster and faster to freedom – until finally Forella is captured... And so is her heart.