It is 1941, and England is at its lowest ebb, undernourished, under-informed and terrified of imminent invasion. Even at Eden Park, the lovely country estate where Poppy, Kate, Lily, Marjorie and her adopted brother Billy have all become part of the rich tapestry that is being woven around them, confidence is at an all-time low. And that is before the authorities discover there is a double agent operating within the MI5 unit based there.
Lily volunteers to be dropped into France, only to discover that her partner is Scott, Poppy’s fiancé. Meanwhile, Kate’s lover Eugene is in Sicily to sabotage the bombers besieging Malta. As further lines of agents are wiped out and even Billy’s life is threatened, Jack Ward, the spymaster, is forced to take desperate measures to uncover the identity of the traitor in their midst.
Meanwhile, Poppy, unable to stand idle, leaves Eden Park to train as a pilot. As she closes the wooden shutters at the House of Flowers, the old folly where she and Scott first found happiness, she realises that they were made over a century ago to repel another invader. England survived then; she will again.