'Rich and entertaining' THE TIMES Lady Cecily Fitzhenry was ruined in the South Sea Bubble. Her husband, whom she was forced to marry by her arch-enemy Sir Robert Walpole as punishment for her support of a Stuart rebel, has speculated with her dowry. The only property left to her is a crumbling public house on the Great North Road. Cecily makes it into one of the great coaching inns, spies for the Old Pretender and fights to save her people from the gallows of Walpole's terrible Black Acts. Thanks to a wily Scottish lawyer, Cecily becomes the saviour of her country in a way she hadn't expected...