This Is the House - Deborah Hill

Hannah Deems renounced her Quaker community when she married. As a result, there was no one to whom she could turn when, by the end of The War for Independence, she found herself widowed and destitute. Then Seth Adams came by; he offered to take her with him, back to his place on Cape Cod. An unknown entity, at least Adams was willing to help. Hannah should have known that going with him would be, in fact, a bargain that included her body. But she must somehow provide for her little daughter, and so she accepted her fate. Thus it was that Molly became known as the illegitimate child of a reprobate, consigned to a future not unlike that of her mother. In order to free herself, she must ensnare a man of humble origin who will accept her, love her, and whose successful career will help her to surmount her mother's shame. That man is Elijah Merrick, a young and enterprising sea captain who understands that in wooing and winning her, he will have to defend her from his mother; fight his Cape town's determination to ostracize her, and force The Church of the Standing Order, Congregational, to accept her. In this he succeeds -- But he cannot defeat Molly's attraction to Isaac Warden....