Captain Esmond Clyde-Dalton is as shocked as the rest of the village of Markinch when English soldiers arrive to arrest Philomena Clunes and her father Magnus Clunes on charges of treason in the early spring of 1708. Esmond soon learns the truth of the Philomena’s entanglement with the Jacobite cause as he is commanded to find a copy of a treasonous Jacobite document outlining the Highland Lairds support for James Francis Stuart’s first invasion attempt.