After the bloody death of her uncle and lover, the Yorkist King Richard III, at Bosworth Field, Lady Cicely Plantagenet is grief-stricken, alone, and with child. Clinging to Richard's memory, and ensconced in the court of his Lancastrian successor - the dangerous, enigmatic Henry Tudor - Cicely faces a strange new England, where her bitter elder sister, Bess, is to be Henry's queen. And Henry is advancing, with a serpentine charm and lascivious determination, to lay claim to both Plantagenet sisters, threatening harm to her loved ones if Cicely resists. But Henry killed Richard, and poses a mortal threat to her secret son. How can it be possible to find pleasure with this ruthless and relentless man?