Sylvia's Lovers - Gaskell, Elizabeth

Set in 1790 in Monkshaven, where press-gangs wreak havoc by seizing young men for service in the Napoleonic wars. One of their victims is Charley Kinraid, who captured the heart of Sylvia Robson. But Sylvia's cousin, Philip Hepburn, hopes to marry her himself and, in order to win her, withholds crucial information with devastating consequences.