On a hot summer’s day in 1880 the beautiful Lady Rosella is cutting a basket of blooms in her beloved Rose Garden at her aunt’s house in Hampshire. It is her seventeenth birthday and no one remembers it except for Thomas, the gardener’s boy. Later she is driven to Winchester and has an unpleasant encounter with two raucous gentlemen in the local tavern before going on to fit her first ball gown that her aunt has given her the money for just before she died.

But who is the lovely masked woman she glimpses in the mirror at the dressmakers, a glorious vision clad in rose-pink silk? And who is the dark figure approaching through the shadows of a dim and ghostly ballroom? Before she will discover the answers to these questions and to escape marriage to a most unpleasant companion of her uncle’s, Rosella must travel many miles to the glorious City of Venice accompanied by Pickle, an extremely talkative and colourful parrot.

She has left behind everything dear to her and when a mysterious stranger appears in Venice, Rosella believes that he may be the love she has so often dreamed about. This love will bring her pain and passion beyond anything she could ever have imagined. But her hopes are in ruins when she discovers the mysterious stranger to be the son of her arch enemy and once again she must flee.

Will Rosella and her true love ever be reconciled – or will the Fates conspire to keep them apart forever? Find out in this thrilling new romance by BARBARA CARTLAND, the one hundredth title in the Barbara Cartland Pink Collection. Barbara Cartland was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages. As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery. She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation. Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world. She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author. Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed. Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone’s life."