Marianne, now the Princess Sant'Anna following her strange Italian marriage, returns to Paris to find Napoleon settled in almost bourgeois comfort into his marriage with Maria Theresa and her old foe Fouche discredited and exiled from the Ministry of Police following a scandal. Then at a festive ball attended by all of imerpial society she rediscovers, in the midst of soaring flames, her true love.

There follow seemingly unending struggles against all manner of foes - a time when men who love often prove more dangerous than those who hate. A malevolent plot threatens the one man to capture her heart - Jason Beaufort, he who seeks adventure in the four corners of the world. It is a well-concealed trap, all the more dangerous because it is intimately concerned with Napoleon himself. Bound by their love, but forced apart by the exigencies of life, Marianne and Jason find the means to defeat the forces unleashed against them. But when justice finally strikes, it threatens to destroy their love along with their enemies.

In the dazzling Paris of Napoleon's Empire at the height of his power, in the sleepy calm of the country estate where Talleyrand nurses his rheumatism, it the morning mists of country farms and the depths of Breton fogs, Marianne each day learns a little more of the hard facts of life.