Off the coast of Liguria, 1713 - accompanied by his valet Thomas Noon and tutor Lucius Jelborne, young aristocrat Lord Stilwell is bound for Genoa and that essential part of an English gentleman's education; the Grand Tour of Italy and its artistic treasures.
The English who visit eighteenth-century Italy normally consider it only for its past: Jelborne, as Noon is to discover, is different. For there is a new king on the throne of England - a German, a protestant - and not all of his subjects are loyal.
As the Grand Tour weaves its way to Venice, Rome and Naples, Noon finds himself drawn into a deadly world of intrigue, danger and double lives: a world where nothing and no-one are as they seem. And though Noon would like to unmask the mysterious Jelborne, his attentions are drawn to the delectable Natalia Silver, and the unmistakable lure of love . . .
