Trust can be a stumbling block, but it can also be freeing in the right circumstance.

With only her reprobate, now-dead husband to judge by, Marjorie Attler doesn't trust men. The crumbling manor house by the sea is a fresh start, but when a privateer appears in her bed?while she's sleeping?he introduces her to a passion she'd only dreamed. Then he challenges her legal claim to the property and her justified distrust intensifies.

After being at sea for five years, Clinton Montmorency, captain of the Storm Tossed Rogue, has come home for a spell. He wants peace and quiet, and perhaps a woman to warm his bed. Imagine his delight when he finds one beside him his first night home. She might do for a midnight companion, but he doesn't need another managing female in his bachelor life.

Ownership of the house aside, they have bigger matters to square with. Marjorie's disgraced cousin is about to give birth, while Clinton's ward is making designs on his fortune. Throw in a smuggler, a sordid plot for the Rogue, as well a troublesome fever and it's an adventure, complicated by the fact that Marjorie is as elusive and alluring as the sea while Clinton is just as hard to tame.