Blooded on the battlefields of Canada, fresh from a winter spent in a voluptuous widow’s bed, Jack Absolute has every reason to feel good. And life only gets better when the ship returning him to England takes a rich prize, with Jack’s sword winning him a lieutenant’s share of the booty.
But gold is not all the French ship has in its holds. Fever nearly kills Jack, his life only saved by his new comrade Red Hugh McClune. The friendship takes him to convalesce in Bath and into a passionate liaison with the Irishman’s beautiful cousin, Laetitia. Yet neither cousin are all that they seem and tragedy strikes Jack. He escapes with his life – but loses his honour.
From cannon fire off the Azores to an assassination attempt on King George; from espionage at the Jacobite court in Rome to the storming of a Spanish town; through betrayal and mutiny, grenades and cavalry charges and a climactic duel against an unbeatable foe, Jack seeks to restore that honour – with a consequence he could not have forseen and a price to be paid in blood.
B41