Alice Spencer of Althorp Manor believes that all her dreams have come true when she meets Ferdinando Stanley, heir to the great earldom of Derby. But she soon realises that his royal blood is a dangerous inheritance in Elizabethan England, especially when set within the context of Catholic conspiracy in their vast estates in Lancashire. Their prominence at the Court and their patronage of actors and writers, including the young William Shakespeare, is threatened by Catholic intrigue and their world becomes a menacing place of plotters and spies bringing unforeseen consequences.