1665: It is five years since King Charles II returned from exile, the scars of the English Civil Wars are yet to heal and now the Great Plague engulfs the land. Alethea Hawthorne is safe inside the walls of the Calverton household as a lady's companion, awaiting the day when she can return to her ancestral home of Measham Hall.
But when Alethea suddenly finds herself cast out on the plague-ridden streets of London, a long road to Derbyshire lies ahead. She must return to rule the manor until her brother's return, or else find a way to claim it as her own...
Then fortune smiles when Jack appears, an unlikely travelling companion who helps young, determined Alethea to navigate a perilous new world of militias, religious dissenters, charlatans, and a pestilence that afflicts peasants and lords alike.
