In the early hours of the morning, Francesca awoke.

The first thing she saw was Sir Hale’s concerned face. His opening words were: “Your grandmother has pulled through. Heaven must have been moved by your sincerity, child—dragged her right back from the gates of hell.”

“Really?”

Propped up against her pillow, Francesca burst into tears, the kind that overflowed unchecked, unrelenting, pooling at the edges of a heart too full to restrain ...