England, 1804

Refused his rightful promotion, Adam Hardacre quits the Royal Navy in disgust and is quickly approached with an intriguing proposition to serve his country undercover.

His first assignment takes him home to Cornwall to expose traitors plotting a French invasion of England. There, he meets newly unemployed governess Olivia Collins, who has stumbled upon a hidden secret from Adam’s past – his youthful summer love affair with the local squire’s daughter. It is a tragic history that brings Adam and Olivia closer than is wise.

However, with the attraction deepening to something more, neither realize that Olivia unwittingly holds the key to his secret mission.

As Adam infiltrates the plot, Olivia finds out the shocking truth behind his lost love’s death many years ago, and both their lives are in danger.

But their growing relationship is clouded by suspicion. Who can and cannot be trusted – anyone or no one?

Or… even each other?

Cornwall, 1805

Rescued from the French prison in which he’s been held captive, Nathaniel Payne returns to the life of a smuggler in Cornwall, bringing with him boatload of brandy. However, he is startled to find his usual contraband hideaway, The Queen’s Head Inn, has a new owner.

As much as Nate has a past to hide, it seems young widow Susannah Linwood has even more reason to cover up her own background. She is distant and cautious. Her only companion is her maid Peggy and the woman is highly protective of her mistress. What’s more, Susannah does not approve of smugglers and threatens to call the revenuers unless Nate removes the contraband.

Even so, he is intrigued as well as attracted to Susannah – who begins to warm to him. However, his on-again, off again married lover, Lillian, is jealous of his interest in the new inn owner and sets out to find out what she’s hiding, certain it is a great scandal. And complicating matters is that Susannah has also attracted the jealousy of the local magistrate’s wife.

In the brewing storm, Nate thinks nothing at first of the arrival of a lodger at the inn called Hardacre. He claims to be a bird watcher and painter, but is, in reality, more interested in something else Nate brought back from France – intelligence about troop movements.

Meanwhile, Susannah is preparing to act on her growing feelings towards Nate. Then a mysterious man appears who claims to know all about her past and threatens blackmail over the circumstances of her husband’s death.

Nate is persuaded to return to France to help rescue stranded English agents, but there may be a more pressing rescue mission at home.

Betrayal is closer than either Nate or Susannah imagine.

He is a dangerous man. And his darkness runs deep…

Reduced to genteel poverty following the closure of the family’s Cornish tin mine, Alexandra Gedding and her twin are saved from the wrath of angry, unpaid workers by the timely intervention of a secretive stranger.

David Manston, the disgraced Baron of Carreg, lives as a hermit in a clifftop cottage, his true identity unknown to everyone in the village – just as he prefers. His offer of mediation was to be a one-time act of kindness, but it does not stop Allie trying to pry into his past nor lessen his own attraction to the beautiful gentlewoman.

In the midst of strange happenings at the rundown mine, a figure emerges from Allie’s childhood – her notorious godmother, Lady Abigail, who possesses the means to lay bare David Manston’s darkest secret…

Will the truth bring Allie into his arms, or drive her away for good?

A festive treat that can be enjoyed year round by fans of Elizabeth Ellen Carter’s series Heart of the Corsairs and its prequel series The King’s Rogues.

Long believing himself an orphan, Privateer Captain Kit Hardacre is persuaded by his wife Sophia to learn more about his family. At the same time, Naval veteran and retired spy Adam Hardacre learns he has an adult son he never knew existed.

Thrown together one Christmas by circumstances beyond their control, father and son must find common ground on which to come to terms with the past. Life is too short to hold onto regret, and a greater regret awaits if the two men cannot work together in an emergency to save a life.

Love comes in many forms… and none more strongly than the love from father to son.