Beloved Outcast
Dureau, Lorena
THE CRUEL HAND OF FATE...

Beautiful Nicole D'Arcenaux is unjustly accused of killing a gendarme and is sentenced to death by hanging. But her sentence is commuted to deportation to the harsh Louisiana colonies where she is expected to "comfort" the women-starved settlers of the Mississippi Delta. Thrust into a savage world where her beauty becomes a target for brute lust and exploitation, Nicole suffers innumerable depravities as hope for the future dies coldly in her heart.

But then she meets renegade sea captain Paul Dawson, whose fierce smile and deep blue eyes awaken a burgeoning passion in her. There, on his ship, in the battle-swept waters off the Florida coast, they find a tenuous love amidst the fiery Spanish warships ruled by ruthless Rodrigo Escobar  --  Dawson's most hated enemy. And when fate sweeps Nicole into the brutal Spaniard's hands, he uses her to lure Dawson into a desperate battle where old debts are finally settled, and a new love struggles to survive the bitter ravages of war...