Emily

A girl is discovered abandoned on a quayside and taken in by the Jacksons, a couple grieving their own daughter, who died in an accident. They never learn where she came from. She grows up in a lodge at the gate of Nathaniel Franklin's estate until his cousin, who hopes to inherit the property, schemes to ruin her adoptive family and drives them out.

To keep her family from poverty, Emily accepts a position suggested by that same cousin, only to find his associate determined to seduce her. She takes whatever work she can find, but her real aspiration is to command a fleet of ships. Captain David Walsh, a handsome seaman, tells her this is out of reach, at least not for a girl like her.

Emily faces heartbreak and frightening threats as she pushes on, resolved to prove herself in a world dominated by men and to see her ambitions realized.