Through mutual pride and circumstance, the Baroness of Hartbury has never met her neighbour, their families at odds for generations. Yet when threatened once more by the cruel man who ruined her mother and tore her world apart, Lady Virginia comes to the reclusive Mr Tresham to make a most unlikely offer. Solitude, silence, and accommodating servants: Richard has all he needs to heal after a harrowing tour of duty and his subsequent collapse. What he does not need is a wife, and certainly not one as relentlessly charming as his neighbour, the Baroness of Hartbury. But ignoring a lady’s calling cards is much easier than ignoring the lady herself, when she turns to him for protection from an enemy he knows all too well.