In August 1642 Charles Stewart King of England raises his standard at Nottingham, and a bitter war starts between King and Parliament over the Divine right of Kings to rule unimpeded by commoners. Jonas Stalker, as proud and haughty as any King, fights an unjust duel that leaves his opponent bleeding on the ground and sets in motion events that will eventually tear his whole world apart. A friendship broken, a woman scorned and abandoned, and an unwanted child litter Jonas' wake as he eagerly joins the Kings war. But three years of fighting forges a changed man, a better man, and after the carnage of the Battle of Naseby it is a different Stalker that finds a true love at last with a beautiful woman. Emma Holness is left a widow at the start of the war by the death of a brutal husband. A beautiful but sad woman she hides her torment by dedicating herself as the stewardess, to those less fortunate, that depend on the struggling Holness Estate. Caught in the web of a destructive family, Emma has no expectations of ever finding happiness, until she decides to help a wounded soldier called Stalker. But before they can build on a new future, she must navigate through the violent insanity that is the Holness family, while he must deal with the mistakes of his past, and with the aid of the trusted Moor Obediah, escape from the hangman's tightening noose before it chokes the very life out of him A turbulent story set against the backdrop of the English civil war that portrays two peoples journey to love, against all the odds.