In 1787 when a family of rich, young French nobles are inspired by the Marquis de Lafayette to serve the cause of liberty they travel to the island of St. Lucia to promote freedom from slavery throughout the Caribbean.
The head of the family, Anton de Bellecourt, is willing to try diplomacy, but he believes it will take more than talk to achieve success. In secret he is soon distributing weapons to runaway slaves on both British and French islands, using fear of a slave revolution to force plantation owners to change.
With plantations burning and owners murdered in their beds, Commander Evan Ross and Lieutenant James Wilton are tasked with finding out who is behind the violence and ending it. But French and American spies are prowling Caribbean waters and more is at stake than Commander Ross knows. With the beautiful former slave Alice the two officers are soon in the midst of a tangled web of conflict and desperate action, as cannons blaze amid bloody struggles for freedom.