Carla walked towards the bed and settled her rotund figure on the edge of it, patting her daughter’s rigid back with a plump hand. ‘It’s not as bad as it seems, querida,’ she comforted.

‘But I’m only fifteen! I want to marry for love, not for position. And besides, the Portuguese men are pale and scrawny and lazy. I prefer Italian men.’

‘Come now, Bel, you cannot say that. Every race has its mixture of good and bad. I’m sure your father will find someone that you like. Rio is a big city.’

‘I won’t go!’

Carla bent forwards and kissed her daughter’s shiny dark hair. ‘Well, I’ll say one thing for you, you have certainly inherited your father’s spirit. Goodnight, querida.’

That had been three years ago and not a single thought that Bel had uttered to her mother then had changed since. Her father was still ambitious, her mother still gentle, Rio society as unbending in its traditions as it had been two hundred years ago, and the Portuguese men still deeply unattractive.

And yet, their current house in Cosme Velho was spectacular. Its smooth ochre-coloured walls and tall sash windows housed beautifully proportioned rooms that had been completely redecorated to her father’s specifications. He had also insisted on installing every possible modern convenience, such as a telephone and upstairs bathrooms. Outside, the perfectly landscaped grounds could rival the splendour of Rio’s magnificent Botanical Gardens.

The house was named Mansão da Princesa after Princess Isabel, who had once come to drink the waters of the Carioca River that ran through the grounds and were purported to have healing properties.

Yet despite the undeniable luxury of her surroundings, Bel found the brooding presence of Corcovado Mountain – which rose directly behind the house and towered over it – oppressive. She often found herself longing for the wide open spaces and fresh clear air of the mountains.

Since arriving in the city, Senhora Santos, her etiquette tutor, had become part of Bel’s daily life. She’d learned from her how to enter a room – shoulders back, head held high, float – and had the family trees of every important Portuguese family in Rio drummed into her head. And as she’d received instruction in French, piano, history of art, and European literature, Bel began to dream of travelling to the Old World herself.

The hardest part of her tutelage, however, was that Senhora Santos had insisted she forget the native language of her family which her mother had taught her from the crib. Bel still struggled to speak Portuguese without an Italian accent.

She often looked in the mirror and allowed herself a wry chuckle. For, whatever pains Nathalia Santos had taken to erase where she came from, her true heritage betrayed itself in her features. Her flawless skin, which up in the mountains had taken only a hint of sunshine to darken to a deep glowing bronze – Senhora Santos had warned her time and again to steer clear of the sun – was the perfect foil for the rich waves of dark hair and enormous brown eyes that spoke of passionate Tuscan nights in the hills of her true homeland.