The Captain's Rival
A Holiday Homecoming, Betrayal Sports RomanceBy Harper Nash
Length8h 38m
About this audiobook
It is dawn on the Channel, and the Mercury's rigging is groaning above the deck like a wounded animal. Nathaniel Lockwood's first officer wants him to ease off before the mast comes down. Nathaniel wants the French brig running for Cherbourg. *We're asking politely. There's a difference.*
He takes the brig. He also finds, standing on her deck with a pistol to the French captain's head, the one man in the service he least wanted to see again.
Julian Croft testified at Nathaniel's court-martial. Not against him, exactly. He told the board that Captain Lockwood *acted with commendable aggression, but perhaps with insufficient caution*, and let them draw their own conclusions. Nathaniel has worn the stain ever since; his current first officer, Samuel Press, took the post only because the previous one asked for a transfer rather than serve under him.
The admiral orders the two of them to share command of the prize. Then he sends them hunting together through the Windward Passage for the French privateer La Foudre and her captain, Marie Bonnet.
On the Mercury with them are Nathaniel's brother William, eighteen and a midshipman by the grace of their father's name; a crew that splits over the chase; and Press, a stocky, jowly man with small eyes that never stop moving. When Julian steals the logbook and reads it by a guttering candle, he finds what he was never meant to see: scraped ink, rewritten times, a watch entry doctored so a signal that had been received and acted upon would look missed. Press did not merely stand by at Nathaniel's ruin. He built it.
And proving it means Nathaniel mustering forty-seven men on a sun-bleached quarterdeck to defend Julian in the open, after which Julian tells the whole ship's company something he has spent his career hiding: *I was born Julian Ashworth-Croft. Second son of the Earl of Ashworth.*
What follows is a storm, a flooded cave, a poison out of Martinique, a kiss in front of the entire crew, and an admiral who offers Nathaniel his career back on one condition. Let Croft go. *The Navy is not kind to men who love other men, Lockwood.*
A historical romance between two men, set aboard a Royal Navy ship on the Channel and in the Caribbean, in which two rival captains discover that the disgrace standing between them was manufactured by a third, and then have to decide what rank, pension and uniform are actually worth. The romance is closed-door.
Audiobook details
GenreRomance, Biography and Memoir
Length8 hrs 38 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 15, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Dedication
2Chapter 1 - The Chase That Cost Me Everything
3Chapter 2 - The Man Who Smiles Too Much
4Chapter 3 - The Letter I Refuse to Read
5Chapter 4 - The Glass That Was Turned
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6Chapter 5 - The Price of a Public Defense
7Chapter 6 - The Prisoner Who Knew Too Much
8Chapter 7 - The Course That Split the Crew
9Chapter 8 - The Storm That Bared Our Secrets
10Chapter 9 - The Kiss That Changed the Watch Bill
11Chapter 10 - The Hurricane’s Aftermath, Part 1
12Chapter 11 - The Treaty Fragment
13Chapter 12 - The Skeleton in the Cave
14Chapter 13 - The Double Betrayal
15Chapter 14 - The Oath on the Blade
16Chapter 15 - The Rogue Squadron
17Chapter 16 - The Rat in Our Ranks
18Chapter 17 - The Weight of Blood
19Chapter 18 - The Parley on the Sand
20Chapter 19 - The Choice That Split the World
21Chapter 20 - The Court-Martial in the Sand
22Chapter 21 - The Grand Gesture
23Chapter 22 - The Wound That Would Not Close
24Chapter 23 - The Burial at Sea
25Chapter 24 - The Father Who Was Not
26Chapter 25 - The Wound That Bled for Both
27Chapter 26 - The Price of Love
28Chapter 27 - The Shore We Choose Together
29Epilogue
30The End
31About the Author
32Also by Harper Nash
33Acknowledgements
34A Note from the Author
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