EXCERPT

Dedication

To the solitary man who, in spite of the established trust of overwhelming accepted custom, endorses the moral prerogative without regard for personal safety or aggrandizement. And who, with ingenuous dedication and noble purpose, pursues the romantic ideal of true love with enduring loyalty!

Part One

“A broken heart can ne’er exist,

If love that’s true will e’er persist!”

Prologue
The Heir

Someone once wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, when taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

The tide in the affairs of Conrad, of the auspicious House of Huntingdon, had reached a low ebb and the sea of his young life raged in sorrow and confusion about him as he sat in numb silence, mourning at the bedside of his dying father.

An elderly man wearing a white, medical smock over his suit, with a stethoscope dangling from around his neck, entered the room. He glanced sympathetically in the direction of the young man as he walked to the bed where his patient lay. He placed his fingers on the old man’s neck over the carotid artery, and detecting no pulse, glanced up at the boy and sadly shook his head. “He’s gone, Master Conrad,” he solemnly announced. “I’m sorry.” The boy, in silent response, bowed his head and began to weep softly.

The early nineteenth century was an austere period for the civilized world, but fortune had not always been so harsh for the nineteen-year-old youth. His father, Lord Huntingdon, at the time of his death had been a distinguished member of long and honorable service in the English Parliament, and a man of some considerable wealth and power. His only living son, a handsome, athletic youth, had enjoyed the advantages his family’s position had afforded him. He had already received a degree in letters from Oxford at his early age, and his skill and intrepidity in swordsmanship had won him the scholastic championship of Western Europe two years in a row. There were those who said his speed and dexterity had never been equaled. In competitive swordsmanship the blade of a rapier had never touched his plastron! His height of six feet three inches and his great strength made him seem even more formidable. He was lionized by young girls wherever he appeared, and many a feminine heart beat faster when in his presence. His beauty of face and physique, and his family’s wealth and position, played a commensurate part in this popularity he was so lavishly bestowed.

But Conrad’s great love was for the sea and the limitless freedom it afforded him. Each summer away from his scholastics his father would secure him a position on one of his several merchant vessels he owned, and the boy soon acquired the requisite skills of an able-bodied seaman of the first rank. Added to this was his natural talent in tactical maneuvering and his ability to out-sail the most accomplished navigators of that period. It was commonly said that he could get more out of a puff of wind than others could from a strong gale.

The English Admiralty had on several occasions sought his conscription, but his father, a member of the Regency, deferring to his son’s wishes, always successfully opposed their efforts. With his father now deceased, the boy had speculated how long it would be until his draft into the Royal Navy occurred, and his probability of avoiding it.

His voyages had taken him to the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean and several times to the west coast of Africa. And it was on these later trips that he came in contact with the popular and affluent slave trade that he found so reprehensible. He swore at the time he would do all within his power to stop it. His father had been as adamantly opposed to this commerce as he was, and had unconditionally prohibited the transportation of slaves on any of his ships. Slowly, the practice of slavery was becoming frowned upon, but it still was blatantly pursued by a large number of ruthless, greedy men, and would continue thus until adequate force, controlled and directed by strong leadership, was brought to bear opposing it; which condition was sooner to spring into existence than anyone would foresee, fostered by the invincible determination and savage commitment of one whose skill and wisdom were adequate to the problem, and possessed of courage enough to initiate a campaign of appropriate example.