Four years after Bonnie Prince Charles had lost the battle of Culloden Moor, he and his friends are planning another Rising. The Duke of Arkrae, Chief of the Clan MacCraggan, is of great importance, owing to the strategic position of his territories. But where his sympathies lie is known neither to the Jacobites nor to the English.

Iona a lovely 17-year-old red-haired ward of a Jacobite exile in Paris, agrees to impersonate the Duke's half-sister, who was drowned as a child. Her mission: to learn whether the duke, head of the most powerful clan in Scotland, was loyal to the prince--or a traitor. In order to discover the truth, she arrived to Skaig Castle.

It was a scheme that called for wit and courage, and Iona complicated her task by falling hopelessly in love with the handsome duke at first sight! If he were a traitor, she must denounce him; and if he were not, she must disappear from his life as suddenly as she had entered it. For surely the Duke of Arkrae would not return the love of a nobody -- a pretender?