October 1800: a foreigner, accompanied by his wife and their young daughter, stands before the Tuileries, waiting for an audience with Napoleon - the only man who can understand his wretched plight and the Vendetta that has driven him here. When Ginevra Piombo falls in love, fifteen years later, with a young Corsican officer hiding from the authorities in the aftermath of Waterloo, she does not realise that this one moment from her past will force her to make the greatest decision of her life: a choice between two loves, a choice of life or death.