Nicholas Vaughn is Lord of New Romney and also a Baron of the Cinque Ports. He directs a fleet of ships that service the king 15 days a year in exchange for special privileges.
When Muriel Draper causes havoc on his wharf, he realizes she is a spinster – a woman who spins wool for a living – from the town. Her late father has angered the Clothmaker’s Guild and now Muriel and her brother have been excommunicated from the guild and also left with a debt to the baron that he insists Muriel repays.
She can either give the baron her deceased mother’s wedding ring – the only memory of her parents she has left – or she can live with him at his manor house and be his personal clothier to pay back the debt.
Can a merchant’s daughter and a Baron of the Cinque Ports find a safe harbor with the passion for each other that burns between them, or will title and status sink that ship before it’s even sailed?