Love Under Fire

Waif-like beauty Elvina is tiny and immature after years of malnourishment and indeed she looks far younger than her seventeen years.

Weak, however, she is not. Hardened by years of beatings and abuse at the hands of her half-crazed Portuguese stepmother and sickened by her father’s constant drunken behaviour, Elvina is determined to escape Lisbon and flee to her native England.

Despite the dangers of the Napoleonic War, which is raging in Spain and Portugal, she dyes her skin to make herse...