Morgan Turner, agent to the Winthrop estate, owes everything to his benefactor. When the late baronet's will tasks him with finding the lost heir and making a gentleman of him, he is determined to succeed.

Thirteen years ago, Evelyn Winthrop ran away to sea. Now that his hated patriarch is dead, the ancestral home he returns to is more shadowed than what he left behind. Ungrateful relations and old friends alike tie a knot of scandal and depravity only a sailor could hope to unravel. And all the while, the siren song of the sea calls him to return at the first opportunity.

Neither anticipated forming more tender attachments.

To Evelyn, his unexpectedly handsome agent is the only thing anchoring him to shore. He sees a captain's soul within Morgan, and his heart is caught upon the hook of command—if only Morgan would return his affections.

To Morgan, his new employer's charms threaten to tear down the thorns that have grown around his heart—thorns he cultivated to restrain his unnatural instincts.

When the estate and all who live there are threatened by a maelstrom of bitter secrets and sinister plots, it is down to Morgan to take command, down to Evelyn to hold fast, and down to them both to navigate their own treacherous sea.