In 1884 her father inherited and moved the family to Fyvie Castle in Scotland, but he subsequently went to live with a mistress, whom he later married, and Lina was sent to a Catholic convent school in Paris.

Fanny Duff-Gordon died early in 1890, and after Lina wrote that she was being pressured to become a nun, in December she moved into the Ross' residence, Poggio Gherardo [it] in Settignano near Florence.

Her father gave permission for her adoption early in 1891, and she spent the rest of her childhood there, finishing her education with friends of her aunt's such as the artist Carlo Orsi and Guido Biagi, the head of the Laurentian Library.

In 1897 on a visit to England she met the painter Aubrey Waterfield, whom she married in London on 1 July 1902 despite her aunt's objections; her adoptive father, Henry Ross, died 18 days later.

[18][19] J. L. Garvin, the editor, ultimately ended her position with The Observer in 1935 over the strength of her anti-fascism; he believed Britain must maintain a relationship with Italy to forestall its becoming allied with Nazi Germany.

After the End of World War II in Europe, Lina returned to Poggio Gherardo in January 1946, having been invited by Ian Fleming to be the Italian correspondent for The Sunday Times.

[22] She continued as correspondent for Kemsley Newspapers until 1950,[1] when she sold the estate and moved back to the Fortezza della Brunella; in 1952 she returned to England to live with her daughter Kinta in Kent.

[30] In 1993 her daughter and grandson sued Joanna Trollope on the grounds that her novel also titled A Castle in Italy, written under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey, paralleled Lina Waterfield's memoir overly closely.