Comte Luc de St Pierre du Vivier lost his father to the guillotine, his mother to grief, and his inheritance to the revolutionaries. He becomes Luke Peters when forced to earn his living in England. All he saves is his sister Sylvie, now living with their English grandparents in an Oxfordshire vicarage, and a rumour of jewels secreted by his father, and connected in some way to the Earl of Redditch.When the Frenchman Bossard is seen in Oxford, intent both on revenge for his fellow revolutionary's death at Luke's hands, and on forcing Sylvie to reveal the secret of the hidden jewels, Luke finds employment at the Earl's London house. He hopes to conceal where Sylvie lives. Promoted to valet, he is suspected of murder when the Earl dies. Cyanide has been added to his morning chocolate. To clear his name Luke must discover which of the Earl's unpleasant family or disaffected servants is responsible. Is it the extravagant Countess or the feebly lecherous Viscount? Might the whining...

Honour Atwell is the despair of her father, a wealthy City merchant. She is too beautiful, too lively, too rebellious. She must be married as soon as possible to a suitably sober husband, but Honour prefers the romantic Robert Reade, who sails in his father's ships. She is fascinated by the newly opened Restoration Theatre, and determines to visit it. She persuades her father's apprentice to accompany her to Drury Lane, where she is enthralled by the play. Outside, however, disaster strikes. Rescued by the charismatic Gervase Dunstone, her life changes and she begins to realise her dream.

While Isabella and her family were with King Charles II in exile, she was jilted, and has set her mind against any marriage.Instead, she wants the lovely Clare, her younger sister, to restore the family fortunes with a wealthy husband.When they visit London for the coronation festivities she decides it is the ideal time for Clare to attract eligible suitors, such as Jason Marlowe, but he appears to be destined for their cousin Frances.Meanwhile, men who are far from eligible have to be deterred.Clare, however, is unwilling to be sacrificed, especially as she has her own ideas of who will be the best husband for her.This brings Isabella into unexpected danger as she attempts to save Clare from an improvident move.

Lucy has been brought up with her cousins, and never knew her parents, or even who her father was. When she hears that her grandmother, living in a small village, is ill, she insists on going to care for her. At first all is well, but after the grandmother dies the villagers begin to treat Lucy with suspicion, claiming she is a witch. When Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, arrives, Lucy is in great danger until there is unexpected relief from the reclusive Squire and his heir.

Few convicts returned to England, but Molly Morgan was one who did. She lived in a Shropshire village, first as a maid to a wealthy farmer, then with her husband William, who was somewhat light-fingered. He escaped when they were accused of the theft of flax from a drying field, but Molly was tried and sentenced to transportation. She went with the Second Fleet, and survived being on the Neptune, the worst ever ship to carry convicts to New South Wales. Many of the convicts died or were too weak on arrival to walk. Molly found a protector on the ship, and another for whom she worked on land. After a few years she persuaded an American Whaling ship captain to hide her and take her back to England, where she lived in London and worked as a seamstress until she married a Plymouth whitesmith. They quarrelled and she went back to London, where she was accused of more theft and again transported. After a while, and the accusation of stealing Government cattle, she began farming in the...