Secret for a Nightingale — Victoria Holt

She had the gift of healing others. If only she could heal her heart...

IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND, A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOME. SHE DARES TO BE DIFFERENT...

As a young girl in India, beautiful, high-spirited Susanna Pleydell first becomes aware of her special gifts to soothe the sick. But she puts aside her dream of helping others when she meets the dashing and sophisticated Aubrey St. Clare.

But Aubrey is not at all what he seems. Back home in London, Susanna finds that the man she has married has a weakness--for opium and the occult. Even more frightening is his strange association with Dr. Damien Adair, a powerful man with a sinister hold over her husband...

When tragedy strikes, it is Damien whom Susanna holds responsible. Even as she fulfills her ambition of becoming a nurse, following Florence Nightingale to the Crimea, it is Damien who haunts her dreams and fills her mind, who holds the key to the most sinister secret of all...