The second in a tantalising trilogy from award–winning author Alison Stuart, about warriors, the wounds they carry and the women that help them heal. London 1654: Kit Lovell is one of the King's men, a disillusioned Royalist who passes his time cheating at cards, living off his wealthy and attractive mistress and plotting the death of Oliver Cromwell. Penniless and friendless, Thamsine Granville has lost everything. Terrified, in pain and alone, she hurls a piece of brick at the coach of Oliver Cromwell and earns herself an immediate death sentence. Only the quick thinking of a stranger saves her. Far from the bored, benevolent rescuer that he seems, Kit plunges Thamsine into his world of espionage and betrayal – a world that has no room for falling in love. Torn between Thamsine and loyalty to his master and King, Kit's carefully constructed web of lies begins to unravel. He must make one last desperate gamble – the cost of which might be his life.