Description: Charleston 1854, a husband's word is law... and a wife's silence is... expected.
Arabella Tremaine has lived her twenty years wrapped in silk and privilege, the cherished only child of one of the South's wealthiest men. Rich, adored, and outrageously indulged, kindness is the only language she has ever spoken. She has known nothing but gentility and admiration, nothing of cruelty. Until the day her father decides her future for her. He demands that she marry, produce an heir, and secure the family fortune. Obedient and naïve, Arabella weds a man who promises her adventure, passion, and a life of luxury across distant shores. But vows are easily spoken. Her new husband promises moonlit voyages and devotion beneath foreign skies. Instead, he delivers locked doors, bruised skin, and a temper that coils like a snake in summer heat. Behind the polished smiles of Charleston society, Arabella learns the truth: In the South, monsters wear waistcoats. And no one questions a man who owns his wife. On her wedding night in the Charleston Harbor, where Spanish moss drips like funeral lace and the swamps keeps secrets, she discovers the truth. She has married a monster. A man with a vicious temper... and darker appetites. A husband whose cruelty hides behind closed doors. Trapped on her own honeymoon, Arabella's cries would go unanswered if not for one dangerous man who refuses to look away. Captain Axel Rutledge fears neither storms nor scandal. He answers to no plantation master, no judge, no law but his own. When he sees the fear in Arabella's eyes, something dark and resolute awakens in him. He will take her from her husband. From her prison. Even if it means blood on the docks. Even if it means war with a powerful Southern dynasty. Even if it means kidnapping a married woman and defying every law that protects her tormentor. Arabella asks only one thing of Axel - one impossible, dangerous gift that could cost them both everything. He intends to give it to her. But freedom always demands a price. Because in this part of the South, possession is everything. And once a powerful man realizes his wife has been taken... There will be blood in the water.