Book excerpt: Alexander Sinclair, the Fourth Earl of Falmouth, has a reputation for revelling in vice. But his taste for wine, women and dice is only a fraction of the dangerous truth, for the Earl is the force behind a powerful gang, smuggling contraband between France and Cornwall. Never afraid to get his hands dirty and with an abiding love of living recklessly, Alex leads many of these runs himself, until one fateful night when the Revenue appear. Forced to sail into a violent storm, the ship is lost and Alex is washed ashore, barely alive, close to the French port of Roscoff. Innocent beauty, Célestine Lavelle, has lost everything. The daughter of a noble French family forced to flee during the Revolution, she has been forced to work in the kitchens of the local whore house, where her future is shrouded in sin. Desperate and completely alone, the discovery of a half drowned English smuggler on the shore will lead her heart in directions she never dreamed of.Determined to save his beguiling rescuer, Alex plans that her future should be full of everything that is good and honourable, but will the temptation to take her as his own be too hard to resist?