To my beta readers, A. Y. Chao, Colette Dixon, C. R. Grissom, Katy James, and Evi Kline. Thank you for your time and early encouragement.

To my cousin Katie for her unbridled enthusiasm for this story when I needed it most.

To the inhabitants of Rebelle Island for providing support and commiseration in equal measure.

To my family and friends for treating me like a professional writer long before I ever was one.

And to my husband, who has maintained from the earliest days of our relationship that I would publish a book one day. It only took thirteen years, but you were right.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

~Oscar Wilde

Chapter One

1897
A village near Pistoia, Italy

I have all the time in the world now.

It still felt strange to Lottie Carlisle to have every day stretch endlessly before her, especially with the season starting in a few weeks. But there was no rigid schedule to follow now. No social calls to uphold, no days at home to maintain, no balls, or picnics, or musical entertainments. No more stilted conversations with vapid young men trying their hardest to talk about anything other than her money. And, especially, no more sneering matrons and supposed friends asking why, oh why couldn’t she make her poor old uncle happy and find a husband. The man did worry so.

Poor old Uncle Alfred indeed.

Now on the cusp of his sixth decade, Sir Alfred Lewis was considered a veritable pillar of London society, a renowned collector of antiquities whose travels as a young man had once taken him to nearly every corner of the Empire. He had even published a popular memoir on the subject. This garnered him the admiration of many and a knighthood from the queen, but very few knew that Uncle Alfred was also involved in the highest levels of government. He delighted in playing the role of a mild eccentric in public while ruthlessly protecting the Crown’s interests in private. Even Lottie barely knew the full extent of his activities—and never would.

Lottie paused to assess the canvas before her. She had been trying to capture the soft, golden light of the Tuscan hillside that surrounded her for days now, and not once had she come close to doing it justice. She managed to eke out a few more sickly clouds, then set down her paintbrush. Hopefully that was enough progress to please her painting instructor, Signore Ernesto, when he came for their lesson tomorrow. She could already hear him chiding her hurried brushstrokes. Pazienza, signora. Pazienza.

Patience. A word Lottie had always had little use for. But now time was all she had.

She walked over to the balustrade that separated the cottage’s terrace from the steep hillside’s drop and placed her palms against the sun-warmed stone. Lottie had fallen in love with the view on sight when she first came to the village more than a week ago. The owner had been reluctant to let it to a lone woman—even one who claimed to be a respectable young widow—but was not foolish enough to turn down a full year’s rent in advance. Now Lottie woke up to this view each morning, while the large back terrace with its vine-covered pergola provided the ideal spot to work on her en plein air painting.