Scent of Cloves (The Hodder & Stoughton library of great historical novels)

Julia Ashley was born to a life of dramatic twists and tragedy. Her future and any possible lasting happiness depended entirely on a "glove marriage" to a man who was no more than a name. The Dutch East Indies, in the seventeenth century, were the lands of legendary riches; of "nutmeg princes"; of fortunes built on barbaric plantations and slavery. And amid the extravagance, the cruelty, the bizarre customs, perhaps the strangest events of all were the curious weddings that sent girls half-way around the world to husbands they had never seen. Julia took her "glove" - of yellow, pearl-sewn silk - and began the journey to the island of Rua, to a land of seeming paradise where nothing was exactly as it appeared.