The Dark Intruder Is he an emissary … a destructive force … a charlatan? Or the charmer … the love activist, liberal in his devotion, blown in to steal her heart away? The year 1853 nears its end; a spoilt, rich girl is suddenly impoverished. The Italian Risorgimento is in full swing: soldiers … brigands … cutthroats. Victoria receives news of her father’s economic ruin, and she must return to Rome, a home she barely could remember. The long expedition begins, fraught with danger. Country to country she journeys—steamship to steam locomotive, past to present, encounter to encounter … Down the line, a deadly encounter: Th e Dark Stranger—Enrico Maria De Martis. Who is he? She arrives. She’s plunged into confusion. And progressing through events that will lead to romance, Villa Dorothea becomes the element in which the main part of the story moves, conditioning the transformation of both characters in a tangled web woven together by fate and passion—two opposing natures brought together for disaster by the catastrophic force. Wartime distress does not decelerate the process of the ever-growing involvement in attitude towards love … the dangerous game played, the charade … the atmosphere that radiates amid the sanguinary atrocities of mid-nineteenth century Italy. The Dark Intruder reflects an urgent, passionate subject born, as in romantic bargains, of a tangled web woven by intrigue, charm, fear … It bears a message: a stranger could come into your life and steal your heart away.