After being promoted to commander and being given the brig, Desire, Darius is assigned to his first fleet action and sails to join Sir John Duckworth who is leading his fleet towards Constantinople. The task is to capture the powerful Turkish fleet and sail the ships back to England, and Darius has high hopes that an opportunity will arise to make a name for himself. However, it soon becomes clear that this isn’t the straight forward operation it was supposed to be. There are Barbary pirates and white slavers to contend with, and the Turks are not going to give up their fleet without a fight. With Sir John being reluctant to take a risk and the other captains giving him the cold shoulder, Darius sees little chance of gaining the recognition he needs to be made post. Only Sir Sydney Smith seems to be on his side, but with Sir Sydney’s habit of doing things his own way, and being damned to the consequences, he is an uncertain ally.
Xerxes waits for his promised chance to become a diplomat, but boredom has set in and he has turned his hand to smuggling which he finds both exciting and highly profitable. He quickly decides it could be even more profitable if the smuggling was done on a larger scale and with him in sole charge, and he sets about putting the other smugglers out of business. It is a dangerous move, as now he not only has the revenue after him, but a crowd of vengeful rivals who will stop at nothing to see him dead; and when the navy joins the chase, things go from bad to worse.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Xerxes waits for his promised chance to become a diplomat, but boredom has set in and he has turned his hand to smuggling which he finds both exciting and highly profitable. He quickly decides it could be even more profitable if the smuggling was done on a larger scale and with him in sole charge, and he sets about putting the other smugglers out of business. It is a dangerous move, as now he not only has the revenue after him, but a crowd of vengeful rivals who will stop at nothing to see him dead; and when the navy joins the chase, things go from bad to worse.
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Used availability for Clarence Cook's For King and Country