It’s a truth, universally acknowledged, that even the most determined bachelor can’t resist fate—or a pair of fine eyes.

Lucius Anselme, the new Marquess of Windmere, is no stranger to responsibility. He visits his new estate in the Berkshire countryside a man with a plan: Set Tamarix Hall to rights and return to London in time to enjoy everything the season has to offer—the theatre, the balls, the women. What he doesn’t plan for is making the acquaintance of Miss Cressida Ambrose. She’s clever, beautiful, and just the kind of young lady who might tempt him if he wasn’t wholeheartedly opposed to matrimony.

Marriage may be a woman’s best chance at a comfortable life, but for Cressida Ambrose, she’d sooner walk into a lake with pockets full of rocks than be subjected to the whims of a man, especially one as irritating as the new Lord Windmere, who flirts and teases and frustrates her by turn. She’s content to fade into spinsterhood, until disaster strikes.

Unfortunately for her, he’s the only one who can pull her back from the brink of ruin. And unfortunately for him, helping her means doing the one thing he promised himself he never would.