num_pages: 372
description: Miss Annabel Ashton is a teacher at the Rogers School for Young Ladies in Winchester when she takes a brief visit to her family home Highcliffe Hall at Milford-on-Sea. She believes her stay will be short but soon learns that she will not be returning to the safety of the school. Instead she remains at Highcliffe at the mercy of her cousin Edward Everedge.Annabel protests but as the illegitimate daughter of a woman who died in an insane asylum she has little say. Edward is running out of money and puts the house up for sale to avoid financial ruin. He insists that Annabel marry promising her to a sinister frightening man. But as the house gets packed for sale it begins to reveal disquieting secrets. Jewelry artifacts and portraits mysteriously appear suggesting that Annabel may be the true heir of Highcliffe.She has only a few months to prove her legitimacy perhaps with assistance from the handsome but troubled Maltese Captain DellAcqua. But does he have Annabels best interests at heart?And then a final most ominous barrier to both her inheritance and her existence appears: a situation neither she nor anyone else could have expected. Will Annabel regain her life and propertyand trust her heartbefore its too late?
language: English
title: Bride of a Distant Isle
publisher: Howard Books