As a ten-year-old in Charleston, Charlotte Savatier was traumatized when she watched her Wacataw Indian mother and French father hang for a crime they didn't commit. That day, her Wacataw uncle whisked her off to Quebec City. A decade later, during the American Revolution, Charlotte's husband, an attorney in the British army, is sent to Charleston to investigate the murder of a prominent French prisoner of war. Charlotte and her uncle seize the opportunity for revenge. They've known all along who framed and murdered her wealthy parents.

When Charlotte's husband dies unexpectedly, the Charleston Board of Police wants her to take over his investigation. Years of assisting her husband taught her the pitfalls of getting men to cooperate with a female investigator, so she's reluctant to accept the position-until she learns the royalist officer she must report to is her parents' murderer. Dedicated to completing her husband's investigation and getting revenge for her parents, Charlotte seeks an ally in a ruthless young Brit named Heathcliff. But as more murders complicate her investigation, she finds controlling Heathcliff's greed an even bigger challenge that could cost her her life.