The Chinese Box — Katherine Wigmore Eyre

He had left her in mystery and guilt, years before…a strange man with a nature as fascinating as it was dangerous. He had left, but his curse stayed locked in the house…haunting the people who stayed behind.

Now he had come back to turn the screw of revenge until it broke their strengths and smashed their pride. But for Lilas he reserved the special terror -- its essence concealed in a strange Chinese box -- a riddle which could only be solved at the price of her happiness and the risk of her life.