The Heart of Rome: A Tale of the "lost Water
1903
In the shadow of the Colosseum, a noble Roman family crumbles. The Contis, once resplendent in their ancestral palace, have been reduced to silence and dust, their servants fled, their fortunes vanished, their name a whisper in the salons they can no longer afford. Young Sabina Conti mourns a dead canary while her mother abandons her to the cold mercy of social climbers. Into this diminished world steps the Baroness Volterra, trailing both compassion and complicity, for her husband is the man who brought the Contis low. When the mysterious architect Malipieri arrives to excavate ancient secrets beneath the palace, searching for the legendary lost water of Rome, he finds something far more dangerous: Sabina themselves. One night trapped together in his room, and the girl who symbolized the family's last dignity becomes the toast of Rome. In 1890s society, a ruined reputation is a death more final than poverty. Crawford writes with sharp observation about the rituals of aristocratic decline, the cruelty of social climbing, and the particular trap of being a woman without fortune in a world that values women only for their spotless names.
