When young Blanche Montague comes up

to London to be companion to her aunt,

the unconventional dowager Countess of

Ravenspur, she comes with no thought of

husband hunting. Just out of school, the

lovely young woman is intrigued by the

new world she has entered, and expects

neither to be a social success nor the re-

cipient of numerous proposals of marri-

age. And she certainly doesn t expect to

become involved in the clandestine doings

of the group of high born Jacobites ac-

tively plotting to put Bonnie Prince

Charlie on the English throne.

Although Blanche s father spends much

of his time in London and is an intimate of

Dr. Samuel Johnson and his bookish cir-

cle, Blanche s only brush with the Jaco-

bites has been when young Gareth

McQuahae took brief refuge from the

wicked Earl of Eriskay in the Montague s

country house. Eriskay, called by his

enemies The Earl King, has usurped the

Scottish title from Gareth s fugitive father

and is King George s most hated follower.

The fifteen-year-old lad and the young

woman are to meet again under quite dif-

ferent circumstances. Their next encounter

is in the London mansion of the Coun-

tess s nephew, Lord Ravenswood, where

Gareth and the Cockney street girl, Meg of

Vinegar Yard, are hiding and running

errands for Ravenspur and his Jacobite

friends.

Blanche is attracted to Ravenspur from

the first, although she does not admit it to

herself. The eighth earl is handsome and

wealthy, but it is not his raise s reputation,