A lecherous lord out for revenge and the black sheep of the O'Malley family complicate this Regency Romance on the Duke's Guard's latest assignment-to find a missing woman.

O'Malley doesn't believe in coincidences, nor that his cousin has somehow managed to stumble upon the missing woman he has been sent to find. He arrives at the inn to discover O'Ghill has locked the vicar's niece in her room at the inn and left him to face the fireworks.

When O'Malley opens the door, a winsome lass with eyes the color of morning mist-magnified by her spectacles-wild red curls, and freckles falls into his arms. Her expression of wonder and attraction goes to O'Malley's head like three fingers of the Irish on an empty gut. But it is a kiss in the garden at midnight that has O'Malley falling hard for the enchanting lass.

Caroline Gillingham has lost everything: her older brother and his best friend-the man she promised to wait for-on the battlefield on the Iberian Peninsula, and her parents, both of whom succumbed to illness. In order to pay their mountain of debt, she is forced to sell their home and its contents.

She journeys to Summerfield-on-Eden to stay with her uncle the vicar and his family, but ends up a few hours away stranded at an inn with her mother's locket, her father's pocket watch, and three shillings in her reticule.

O'Ghill may have saved her from the crooked pawnbroker, but it is the blond-haired, green-eyed giant of a man who captures her heart when she tumbles into his arms.

Danger stalks in the night, but it will have to get past the Duke's Rapier before he will let harm come to those he has sworn to protect with his strength, his honor, and his heart.