The Second Duchess

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A dazzling tale of love, sumptuous splendour and conspiracy in the Italian Renaissance court of Ferrara, from the brilliant author of The Flower Reader.Barbara of Austria is plain, quick-witted and sensible. She also desperately needs a husband, for unmarried at twenty-six, she is about to be packed off to a convent, like her sisters before her.So it is that she seizes what seems to be her last chance – a proposal of marriage from Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, Lucrezia Borgia’s grandson, clever, handsome, powerful – and widely believed to have murdered his first wife, Lucrezia de Medici.Barbara goes into her marriage clear-eyed, fascinated by her dangerous, enigmatic new husband – and increasingly – recklessly – driven to discover the truth about the death of his first duchess.

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