title: The Old Maid and the Sea
author: Cummings, Pamela
description: Marie Cabot, daughter of a wealthy Boston family, has had enough of money-grasping, faithless suitors and decides to renounce men and marriage and live a life of freedom as a woman of independence. If only she weren't young and beautiful, people might believe her desire to become an old maid. Tired of dodging husband-hunting debutantes and with a broken heart of his own, Lieutenant John Appleton wants nothing to do with society ladies. But when duty calls on John and his Navy frigate to rescue Marie from a pirate attack in the Mediterranean Sea and return her to the States, neither one foresees a romance on the high seas.