Catherine Marsh, employed by her friend, Helen, wife of Count Pyotr Mikhailovich Kaspodin to be governess to her children, Catherine finds herself in Poland just as Napoleon is preparing to invade Russia. When the Count is obliged to leave them to join the Tsar, and Helen is killed by a merciless French troop, Catherine must find her way to Moscow to fulfil Helen's dying wish that she look after her children, but with danger all around her, the only way she can do it, is reluctantly to accept the escort of the Austrian Captain Charles Von Hardt, who is in the service of Napoleon and her sworn enemy. But is he all he seems?
