Peter Coster

Born on Jamaica, Charlotte Berry, the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, has never refrained from doing anything, especially when told that, as a young lady, it is something only men can do.

When Major Tristan Percival, a man she has grown to detest, decides that he wants her to be his wife, she is willing to do anything to escape, causing a scandal in the process.

Sent into exile, she and her brother are captured by the pirate Toucan. The ransom demanded for her brother is paid but Major Percival ensures that only a single gold guinea is offered for her release, a harp back to a previous snub she made to his advances, thereby abandoning Charlotte to the fate Toucan threatened if the demanded ransom wasn’t paid.

Charlotte has no intention of submitting to that fate. Se also decides to prove wrong those that valued her at so little. She embarks on a course of action that sees her hunted by the Major, in command of the marines aboard the frigate Calliope, and Captain Scuthern, another individual with whom she’d previously crossed swords. 

Yet there are other forces at play. An enemy far more dangerous, a revolutionary Priest and Henry Finch, a man who inspires greater desire than merely wanting to prove she is worth more than a single golden guinea.