By Force of Circumstance

LUDO DA PORTOVENERE,ONE TIME CORSAIR, SOMETIME MERCHANT, SECRET AGENT OF MONARCHS, SERVANT OF NONE. "For sale: the English Crown Jewels" Ludo da Portovenere, sometime adventurer and now a settled merchant is thrust back into his former buccaneering ways when the Queen of England commissions him to sell priceless gems to raise money for the Royalist cause during the Civil War. Once he gets his hands on them will Ludo keep, or sell on the English Crown Jewels? There are many who would like to prevent him from doing so by removing him permanently from the stage. Ludo plans to make a very significant profit – mostly for himself. But these plans are set awry when Alina, Baroness Metherall, becomes involved. Meanwhile, Marcos Alonso Almendro, now a successful merchant in Plymouth is charged with acquiring the jewels to prevent them being sold at all. What none of them know is that the evil-minded Vatican agent Rogelio, who is pursuing a personal vendetta against Ludo, has been commissioned to acquire the very same jewels by the Vatican. Events move into perilous territory as it comes time for old scores to be settled, one way or the other. Caught up in the violence of conflicts which are not their own choosing, Ludo, Alina and Marcos have to decide where their loyalties lie, where they want to be, and ultimately, with whom.