Charles Wycombe, Earl of Billington, needs a bride before his upcoming 30th birthday or he'll lose his inheritance. Miss Eleanor Lyndon needs a new home to escape from her father's insufferable fiancee. Though the match seems anything but perfect, the rakish lord and the vicar's vivacious, det ermined daughter agree to wed--a platonic union of mutual convenience that is soon threatened by calamity, misunderstanding, and the gravest peril of all--passionate love.