At Fanshawe House, Angelica Fanshawe now Countess of Seacourt, strives to protect her daughter Beth and Catholic husband John Francis from a country once again on the brink of chaos. But when outlaw and idealist Abe breaks into Beth's sheltered world he jolts her into consciousness and asks whether she can stand by as the liberties won with her father's Civil War blood are destroyed. Meanwhile, in New England the colonists struggle to throw off the distant but steely control of the English Crown.