The year is 1560. The setting is the court of Queen Elizabeth. Courtier Sir Robert Dudley's wife, Amy Robsart, is found lying with a broken neck at the bottom of the staircase in her house, Cumnor Place. Many suspect foul play. The queen - in love with Dudley - had a motive. Dudley, ambitious to marry Elizabeth, certainly had reason to wish his wife dead. In the months before her death, Amy herself believed she was being poisoned.
Ursula Blanchard, an impoverished young widow newly come to court, is ordered to Cumnor Place to protect the queen's reputation by protecting Amy. When Amy dies after all, Ursula's task has ended-in failure. Except that someone dear to her has also been brutally murdered.
Thus begins a personal quest for Ursula, through which she will uncover a plot against the queen an learn the truth behind Amy's death. On the way will come a marriage of convenience, danger, flight, deepening mystery and jeopardy for Ursula's small daughter. By the end of the road, the queen's spymaster and Secretary of State, William Cecil, has launched Ursula on a new career as one of his agents.
