Kat Cooke's daughter, Alice, joins the court of Queen Mary I, where faith and power intertwine in dangerous ways. Alice supports the Catholic queen, but her heart is torn by her loyalty to the Protestant heir, Lady Elizabeth. Placed in a perilous position, she struggles to remain true to both royal sisters. As England trembles under religious division every friendship is suspect, every whisper may be treason. Alice is caught between two futures, one bound to Mary's fervent restoration of Catholicism and another determined by her relationship with the pragmatic Elizabeth. But she is distracted by a romance with a dashing Spanish courter. But he may not be all he seems.

Meanwhile Queen Mary is consumed by her desperate hope for an heir. Her marriage to Phillip of Spain, a political union with a much younger man, carries the weight of the nation's future. As Mary's longing for a child deepens, so does the tension at court, where nobles must decide where their loyalty lies.

For Kat Cooke and Alice old secrets begin to surface, and with them an uncertain and dangerous future.

Set against the richly turbulent years of Mary's reign from 1553 to 1558, this is a story of passion and regret, of love tested by politics and of ghosts, both real and remembered. As Alice struggles between her loyalties, she faces a very dangerous choice.