In the spring of 1788, Renn Arelia Sheridan stares up at a portrait of the First Duchess of Chippenham, in the gallery of Armitage Hall. The painting clearly shows an emerald locket displayed on the gown. Renn Arelia's breath quickens with realization, as her hand slips into a pocket fingering the brooch her deceased mother gave her. She knows without taking it out they are identical.Her guardians, involved in an argument, pay her no heed. Her nape prickles with caution. This piece is what they sought when they ransacked her parent's manor. Unsatisfied, they'd shuttered her home, and forced her to London. Treating her like chattel, they then betrothed her to a French Marques.The proverbial straw, the significance of her mother's locket, embroils Renn Arelia. She escapes the ancestral estate, hoping the heirloom is a blessing and not a curse.Her quest is a teaching position at an orphanage in Gravesend. Spiraling from one disaster to the next, she deceitfully gains passage aboard a ship and tumbles into the circle of a devil captain, forever changing the course of her life.She has no idea the locket will define her as though it is a certificate of birth.