Summer 1686. Wintercombe. Louise and Alex mourn the death of their baby son. In the aftermath of tragedy, grief and guilt cast their once happy marriage onto rocks. Louise sinks into depression and Alex seeks comfort in the arms of another woman. Then Alex does the unthinkable and Louise can no longer bear the sight of him. Alex finds refuge and revolutionary intrigue in Holland while his cousin Charles, long desirous of Louise and the family home, returns from exile, intent on fulfilling his ambition at last: to be master of Wintercombe. All affairs of the heart, however, are caught up in a larger swirl of events as James II is about to be dethroned and as anti-Catholic, nationalist sentiment swells--a movement clandestinely aided by Alexander and a courtier who proposes to Alexander’s plain-looking and plain-spoken spinster sister Phoebe. The final installment of the Wintercombe saga.