In 1603, the principal powers of Europe are at war and competing to exploit the New World. Aboard HMS Adventure, Edmund O'Shea is a promising young officer of the English Royal Navy who has seen that conflict up close. In battle, his quick thinking saves Adventure and her crew from certain defeat. Soon thereafter, Edmund is awarded his own command and given a secret mission that could end the seemingly endless conflict between England and Spain by kidnapping Rosenda de Bayonne, the Contessa of Lisbon, Portugal, and persuade her wealthy father to end his considerable financial support of the war. Accomplished and beautiful, Contessa Rosenda is forced into a miserable marriage for political purposes. Abandoned by the stranger who is her husband, she focuses on the needs of Lisbon's people, unaware of the conspiracies on both sides seeking to use her as a pawn for their own ambitions. But the fates conspire against Captain O'Shea from the onset. Edmund has inadvertently become aware of the devious deeds of one close to the English Crown-someone who casts Edmund and his crew into a sea of troubles where the winds are not fair, and Edmund's life and the contessa's fate are but small prices to pay.