1840. Miranda Jarvis would do anything to protect her sister – so when Lucy comes down with a fever, she thinks nothing of stealing a loaf of bread from a local landowner. After all, things can’t get much worse: after their father died, they were turned out of their home, and their mother lost her life on the road giving birth to a stillborn infant. Robbed by strangers, the pair of them have nothing, and no one to help them.Miranda doesn’t count on being nearly brained by the cook’s rolling pin . . . but nor does she count on the house’s owner himself. The respectable shipowner Sir James, known for his philanthropy, takes a keen interest in Miranda and her sister, and they are soon established in his household. But Sir James has quarrelled with his nephew, the rakish smuggler Fletcher Taunt, and – little does she know – the hatred between the two men will change Miranda’s life forever . . .