A Rainy June

A Rainy June and Other Stories opens with a glittering, epistolary comedy of marriage, then darkens into guilt, violence, and moral reckoning. At the center stands the impulsive union of Lady Gladys Cowes and the elegant Italian Prince Piero di San Zenone: a romance of beauty and passion shadowed by class anxiety, religious awkwardness, and the clash between English restraint and continental temperament. Piero mocks the damp countryside, rigid propriety, and endless rain of his new life at Coombe Bysset, while Gladys, tender and self-doubting, tries to please a husband she scarcely knows and cannot always understand. Friends and relatives watch with wit, skepticism, and alarm, debating whether love and marriage can survive such mismatched expectations. As gossip gives way to confession, the collection reveals a darker world beneath its polished social surfaces. A priest hears a killer calmly describe the murder of his employer, Tassilo, exposing greed, deception, and the terrible possibility that an innocent wife may be blamed. Ouida's stories blend romance, satire, and suspense into a vivid study of desire, illusion, and consequence. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.