Beautiful, dark-haired Marianne d'Asslenat fled England, leaving her dastardly husband for dead in the blazing ruins of what had been their home. In France her beauty and wit won the heart of the Emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaporte, and under his patronage she found a place high in Parisian society and a new career as an opera singer. But on the very night of her debut, she is terrified by a face in the audience - the scarred visage of Francis Cranmere, the husband she believed dead.In desperation Marianne seeks someone to protect her from Francis' insane lust for revenge. But there is no one. Even Napoleon seems to slip away from her after his marriage to Marie-Louise of Austria.So Marianne must once more venture into the to Italy and the magnificent villa of the Tuscan prince whose face no one has ever seen; a villa haunted by some strange, nameless evil...