Lord Marcus Hathaway returns from France to find his birthright has disappeared with the shameful death of his father. His sisters have been provided for, thanks to a fortuitous marriage but he is at a loss to know what to do with himself. What kind of life can a penniless peer pursue? Friends and acquaintances assume he will do what most men do and chase down an heiress but Marcus is determined to make his own way forward. Unable to settle, he takes to the road, intending to spend a few months of his life wandering. He wants to forget what he went through in France, forget that nothing is as it once was and that somehow and that he is honor bound to provide an heir for a name that no longer means anything. But then he meets Johanna Claybourn who is exactly the kind of female he is determined to avoid. Beautiful, wealthy and very, very willful, he suddenly finds he has his hands full, keeping her out of trouble. But Johanna is plotting the worst kind of trouble at all. For whilst Marcus may not want an heiress, Miss Claybourn is determined to follow her own inclinations and the delightful Lord Hathaway is very much to her taste...