1689 and the wife of English East India Company Governor Elihu Yale risks the six-month sea voyage from old Madras to her home in London with her youngest children. But after twenty years away, it's a city Catherine now barely recognises - built anew after the Great Fire and occupied by William the Third's soldiers in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Yet some things never change, and the secrets she thought she'd left behind in Fort St. George soon return to torment her. An old rival, a long-lost friend and a bitter enemy soon draw her back into a world of espionage, revenge and brutal...

1700 and East India Company Governor Elihu Yale is back in London, seemingly intent on reconciliation with his wife Catherine after ten years of separation. But those ten years have given her a taste of independence that she's not ready to easily surrender. The ghosts of her previous life continue to haunt her, however - yet another former foe returned with her husband and seemingly still intent on revenge. And a more evil enemy still, in the shape of that Jacobite Colonel John Porter who had caused such damage to her youngest daughter. Drawn back even further into espionage on behalf of her...