The Court of Queen Elizabeth I teemed with intrigue and treachery, lust and greed. It made halots of its women; unscrupulous rogues of its men. For Kate Marchmont, it was a world of deceit she was helpless to change. And the man she loved was caught in it, the powerful force of his ambition driving him without mercy, without shame. But who was she to tallk of shame, she who had disgracefully lost her claim on chastity? Her indiscretion doomed her to a destiny of loneliness - and yet each day, every night, she tormented herself over a man who, like herself, was being consumed by The Durable Fire