THE PRIVATEER Lark at first hoped it was a simple nightmare: If she closed her eyes, she would be back in the mahogany bed of her spacious boudoir at Eddington Hall, and all would be well. Her father, the earl of Roxburgh, would not be dead by his own hand, and she would not be in Marshalsea debtor's prison. Such was not to be. Ere the Marshalsea could do its worst, the earl of Grayshire intervened. Lark shivered, considering the mysterious stone-faced noble. He'd paid her bond while the rest of London turned an eye as blind as the one beneath his eye patch. But while his touch was electric and his gaze piercing, for what purpose had he bought her freedom? A plan including Cornwall, return to the world of the haute ton, and embroilment in a struggle against both England's own Admiralty and the French. But even more perilous, the ex-sea captain might plunder her heart. No, this was not a dream. As Lark would soon learn, her dreams had never ended so well. Dawn MacTavish is the penname for award-winning author Dawn Thompson.