Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh, Australian in Paris, top-notch international lawyer, happily-married New World gentleman, is sixty-five. But arriving on his birthday is a sealed letter from Rome, bearing the arms of the ancient house of the Farnese di Mongrifone. Affectionate, imperious, it is a summons from the woman he loved - and lost - forty years previously,in the stormy, opportunistic world of post-war Europe......

At seventeen, Rose is convinced no one will ever love her, living as she does in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Diana. If Diana is the swan, Rose is the ugly duckling. But for both girls this is going to be an extraordinary summer. It is 1943 and the war has left its mark even in the sleepy seaside town where the girls have been sent out of harms way. For the first time in their lives they are free of adult restriction.