Maria Elena is the proud and beautiful daughter of a Spanish grandee at the court of Elizabeth I. She is passionately torn between her love for a Scots privateer — the formidable Adam MacDonald — and loyalty to the men he has sworn to kill — her own father and brother. Against the turbulent background of 1586, with Philip of Spain massing his men and ships for an invasion of England and her own father secretly plotting to assassinate the Queen, Maria Elena is a fragile pawn in the political game. She finds herself facing a charge of high treason — or life with a man who has sworn he will never love her in return.