Charlotte Tremayne is an independent eighteenth century woman, a clandestine novelist, creator of a famous picaresque hero. She has little sympathy for the defeated Jacobites who languish in her uncle's cells after Culloden, but her interest is piqued by tales of a prisoner who claims to be from the fifteenth century. His far-fetched story might provide material for her next novel. Braden Ogilvie drowns in 1436 and wakes up in a jail cell accused of Jacobite sympathies. He comes to realize he has been transported more than three hundred years into the future. Drawn to the woman who eventually believes his story, he must nevertheless return to his own time to establish the innocence of his sister accused of a crime she didn't commit. If he leaves, will he ever find his way back to Charlotte?