What happens when a steamy duke who has never lost in battle meets an innocent young lady determined to conquer his heart?

When Lady Henley Killigrew's father dies and his title of earl passes to a not-so-friendly cousin who wants her and her two younger sisters out of their elegant London townhouse, she takes them to Moonstone Cottage, a lovely manor house they inherited from a maiden aunt in the Cornwall seaside village of Moonstone Landing. But their funds are limited, and the new earl is a stingy guardian who will not loosen the purse strings to allow her to properly maintain herself and her sisters in their new home. The only way to save them all is for her to marry, for that is the only way to claim her trust fund. Would her neighbor, Cain St. Austell, the brooding and reclusive Duke of Malvern, consider a marriage of convenience?

Cain St. Austell, the Duke of Malvern, has returned home now that Napoleon is defeated. Those grueling war years have left him scarred both physically and in his soul, for he lost too many friends and is not certain how or why he ever survived. Knowing he needs time away from London society and the madness of the marriage mart to heal, he has acquired a property in the quiet village of Moonstone Landing. Marriage is the last thing on his mind—until his neighbor, the beautiful and slightly eccentric Lady Henley Killigrew, appears on his doorstep with a startling proposal... and he accepts.

In fact, Cain is the one who does the proposing because when the heart knows, it knows.