Bess Fitzmaurice was just an Irish girl looking for love when American Civil War partisan Dan McCaffrey entered her life and country to champion the Fenian revolution. To her, he was a mythical hero sent to free Ireland from British tyranny. He ignited a rebellious passion within her and she felt it her duty to protect him. Her love for him took her to a post-Civil War America, where she found a world much more corrupt and frightening than her beloved homeland.Disgusted with Dan as he tangled himself in New York politics, Bess left him to aid a newly formed alliance of Irish American veterans set to invade Canada and end British tyranny once and for all. When their plans fail and many of her comrades die, Bess is left to pick up the pieces of her shattered rebellious nature, and try to bury her past in a happy home life.But sometimes the past won't be put to rest so easily, and when Dan McCaffrey re-enters her new, happily married life, she finds that passion in the hearts and minds of men is much different than the passion that made her a rebel.