In Annapolis, Maryland, Andy Bannock stood on a sixty-four-foot ketch, watching the night get wetter and wilder. He was under contract to move this boat to Baltimore before tomorrow noon. And Andy’s one-man crew, Michael Ward, had retired. Actually, Roger Wang, Andy’s partner in their yacht delivery business, had found a replacement, who hadn’t arrived yet.

But now someone was approaching, vaulting over the boat’s lifelines onto the forward deck. She looked like a fashion model, and with her flying blonde hair soaked by the downpour, she came striding aft—her arms and long legs swinging inside her foul-weather clothing. Then under the shelter of the companionway dodger, she stood smiling for Andy. But he wasn’t smiling.

“I’m Victoria” she said. “Roger sent me.”

Now Andy smiled. “I like girls, but not out at sea in a savage storm.”

“Then I’ll act like a guy.”

“You know anything about boats?”

“Yes! Don’t worry. My family were rich once. We had a sailboat almost this big before we went broke.”

So Andy lent Victoria a foul-weather cap, and they cast off lines. As Victoria removed the last spring line, she coiled it quickly, then came aft as Andy gunned the engine in reverse—with the wind blowing the boat down onto the dock. But they missed it.

Yeah, they were clear of the dock, and Andy shoved the throttle lever into forward gear. Soon they’d be on the Bay, past the last red nun buoy. Victoria had both sails up, but well reefed down. And as the sails filled with the wind, Andy set the helm on autopilot and they went below.

There was coffee, kept warm in a generator-powered microwave oven. As Andy passed Victoria a cup, both braced themselves in the cabin, shivering a little.

“You’re fine,” Andy said. “My apologies for questioning you. What makes you so adventurous?”

“I’ve got to be!” Victoria blurted out. “My sister and I have nothing. Just my family’s old house. And now we’re losing that. I bet your business makes money. I’ve got to learn how to makes money. To save our house and us.”

Her impulsiveness touched Andy. “Victoria, I’m really sorry about your trouble.”

She smiled. “When we get to port, come home with me and meet my sister. I want to talk. I want to get your advice about making money.”

“Where is your house?”

“Well, it’s on Canaan Beach. You ever heard of the Langford place?”

“Your house is the Langford Mansion?”

“Sure. That’s my name, Victoria Langford.”

“Your house is one of the most famous on the East Coast?”

“Please. Don’t exaggerate. Come anytime anyway. But quick, because the house will be sold soon. If I’m gone, Sis will be there. She never leaves.”

This girl’s problems seemed bewildering. And Andy had often heard of her house. So he soon took her advice and drove to the Delaware Shore. The weather rocked that morning with clear and breezy skies, as he took Route 50/301 to the Langford mansion by the sea.

Then, swinging off the road into a gateway between stone fences, he was driving down a long spit of land to the old brick house with its white porches wrapped around both stories. There were six or eight tall brick chimneys and a white-painted widow’s walk ... and gulls crying as he parked and walked out onto a long dock that stretched into the ocean.

Then, turning back, he noticed a tall blonde girl seated on a rear veranda. Cool: she’d let him explore without accosting him.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “You must be Sis. This is a great house.”

She smiled. “Thank you. It’s almost sold. Some people want to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. But they haven’t got the financing yet. You want to buy it?”

“You think I could afford this house?”

“Can you afford that 911 you’re driving?”

“You know Porsches?”

“I know they exist. You’re Andy, right? Victoria’s inside. Let me ask you something very strange. Try to make Victoria more normal. She’s so frantic to save this house that she may try to rob a bank. I call her ‘Victoria Desperado’ because I know she’s going to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.”

Andy smiled. “Bonnie and Clyde? I’d forgotten about them. They died in 1934?”

“Yeah, just a half dozen years before some sixty million started dying in World War Two.”

Andy was impressed. “You know you’re smart, Sis.”

“Thanks. That’s my curse.”

“Well, anyway, you’ve lived out your youth in a great mansion.”

“So welcome to our mansion, Andy—the Mansion of Despair.”

Then, in the days that followed, Victoria and Andy kept delivering yachts. And he began to wonder how much she meant to him: this Bryn Mawr beauty with Ivy League style. To a world-class loner like Andy she seemed like happiness forbidden since before Eden—therefore, all the more desirable. And who wouldn’t desire her? But what good was desire?

Desire was just nights spent awake with wild dreams. They could be endless.

Then on an evening in July they moved a Blueport sloop to the Eastern Shore Boat Works. The engine’s six-cylinder head needed to be pulled and machined. It was dark when they arrived, star dark, no moon, only the compass binnacle blushing and the small masthead and running lights. And suddenly Victoria became very confidential.

“Did it ever occur to you that we’ll never go to war, Andy? We won’t discover a new hemisphere or explore Antarctica. And we won’t fight in any revolution bringing about a better world.

“You’re a sailor. That’s risky and challenging. Were you ever tempted to do something even wilder, Andy? You have a yacht delivery business. Such a business can deliver anything, along with the yachts.”