Marianne : I hate you! You cannot know at this point how I hate you!
Jason : Hate me as much as it pleases you Lady Cranmere! Does it not
say, from the lips of a woman, it has the taste of love? In fact... why
not make sure?"

Quotation from the first book of Marianne "The Bride of Selton Hall"

Marianne d'Asselnat de Villeneuve, daughter of a French Marquis and a English lady - who both perished during the French revolution. She was rescued as a baby by her godfather  Gauthier de Chazay and brought to England to her spinster aunt Ellis Selton. On her wedding night the dashing Francis Cranmere - her new husband, gambled away her virginity and fortune to an American Sea-Captain Jason Beaufort. Marianne saved herself and fled to Paris where she met Napoleon Bonaparte ...became the Princess Sant'Anna - but never forgetting Jason Beaufort...