Court beauty, Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, feels frustrated by life with her weak husband. Poverty stricken, they are confined to their country estate and excluded from court life in London after he disastrously allies himself against Elizabeth I.
Now, some years later, James I is seated on the English throne. His daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, former confidant of Lucy, has married the King of Bohemia. The precarious political situation in Europe is fraught, setting father against daughter. When Elizabeth and her husband are deposed, exiled and forced on the run, James is in no mood to come to his daughter’s aid.
Hearing of Elizabeth’s predicament, Lucy sees an opportunity to re-establish the Bedford name and offers herself as a peace envoy between the two parties. Setting out on a daring mission across the channel, Lucy discovers she is being manipulated by unscrupulous men, not least the calculating and darkly handsome Duke of Buckingham.
Can Lucy tread this most dangerous path, or by risking everything, will she pay the ultimate price?
Christie Dickason was born in America but lived as a child in Thailand, Mexico and Switzerland. Harvard-educated (followed by Yale), Christie worked as a former theatre director and choreographer in England, with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at Ronnie Scott’s, among others. She now counts London as her home, having lived there much longer than anywhere else.