After the Glorious Revolution, Annunciata follows the deposed James II into exile and leaves her grandson Matt to manage Morland Place. Gentle and inexperienced, Matt is drawn into an arranged marriage with the beautiful but cruel India Neville. Her manipulation drives him between desire and despair at the moment when the family most needs stable leadership.
The return of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Chevalier, in the Jacobite rising of 1715 reunites the scattered Morlands around a dangerous political cause. Defeat places Annunciata’s sons on trial for their lives and threatens the estate once again. The novel binds an unhappy marriage to the failure of the Stuart restoration, testing whether family loyalty can survive dynastic obsession and political ruin.
