One Night of Passion

Chapter One

London
1799

"Given the evidence and the documentation offered to this court, I have no other choice, Captain Danvers, than to see you relieved of all duties and obligations in His Majesty's Navy." With those words said, the Lord High Admiral brought his gavel down on the court bar. The responding thump, like the last clap of a hammer on a coffin nail, was followed by stunned silence.

After all, the packed hearing room at the Admiralty had just witnessed the end of one of the navy's most brilliant careers, some said one that rivaled even Nelson's.

Few doubted they would ever again see such a precipitous and fatal descent in their lifetime.

There wasn't a man in the room, officer or jack tar, who wasn't saying a prayer of thanksgiving that it wasn't his hide being flayed, his livelihood sinking to the bottom of the icy Atlantic.

But then again, most of the men in the room held their posts as men bound by the honor and code of the sea, the written and unwritten edicts that Capt ... read full excerpt from One Night of Passion ebook