"In 1746 the Battle of Culloden saw Charles Stuart defeated by the Duke of Cumberland, marking the decisive end of the Jacobite Rebellion. Prince Charles' followers became hunted fugitives, savagely treated and slaughtered by the hundreds. The Golden Chronicles is the story of the fate of the vast treasure amassed by Bonnie Prince Charlie and of the handful of brave men and women who risked all to restore it to its rightful owners. In this opening volume, we meet Penelope Montgomery, who, after the death of her father and brother, finds herself a virtual prisoner in her own home, at the mercy of her cruel uncle and his flirtatious wife. When her uncle suddenly announces her betrothal to the odious Roland Otton, she is desolate. Then she suddenly finds a chance for rescue from an unexpected source when she stumbles upon her uncle and Otton torturing a fugitive Jacobite-who Penelope realizes is her childhood friend Quentin Chandler. Desperate to save both Quentin and herself from the evil pair, she quickly plans an escape. Penelope's clever ruse for stealing Quentin from under the nose of his captors is but the beginning of their breathtaking journey across England to the tiny town where Quentin must deliver a precious cypher, part of a code that will reveal the destination of Prince Charles' fortune-and to a future that neither could have every imagined possible." -- dust jacket.