While trading in London, American sea captain Joshua Fairbourne takes on the heart's business as well: he seeks a soft-spoken, genteel wife to bring honor and elegance to his Massachusetts home. Miss Anabelle Crosbie may be English gentry, but her headstrong, refreshingly spirited ways turn Joshua's vision of the ideal lady-wife upside down. When he learns she has been promised to a foppish fortune hunter, Joshua vows to win her -- and contrives a daring plan to make her his stolen bride.

Caught kissing Joashua Fairbourne, Anabelle risks scandal to discover a genuine, heartfelt passion, so unlike the loveless betrothal she faces. Then Joshua unexpectedly sweeps her away on an ocean crossing aboard his magnificent ship, the Swiftsure, and their exciting life together begins. But the kind, gentle man she adored on dry land has become a brash, gruff stranger at sea. And just as Anabelle navigates among the secrets of her captain's past, a treacherous storm tests the strength of their newfound love -- and Anabelle's dream of a triumphant life in a new land.