The Healing Hand

Tania, the lovely daughter of the late Lord Amesly, leaves her school in Paris and is travelling by train to Boulogne when her train crashes into another one. She is helped and befriended by a charming young Englishman – Captain Rupert More – and with him she reaches the ferry and unexpectedly meets two friends of her parents, Charles and Selina Bracebridge. Rupert becomes captivated by Tania, but since he is a soldier he may be sent away to war at any moment and cannot declare his hand. Back in London Tania finds that her stepmother is extremely hostile and only wants to push her out of her own home and as she is now Tania's Guardian she insists she marries Lord Watford a widower who wants a son and heir. Terrified at the idea of having to marry someone she does not love, Tania runs away to the Bracebridges and begs them to hide her. The Bracebridges are close friends of Florence Nightingale, who has just accepted the task of reorganising a small Hospital in London and the Secretary for War is determined that Florence should look after the troops wounded in the Crimean War. How after hiding with Florence Nightingale, Tania escapes from England. How she works with the wounded soldiers in the British Military Hospital in Scutari. And how after the Battle of Inkerman she finds happiness at last is all told in this unusual romance by BARBARA CARTLAND.