Andrew Charles Storme—ninth Earl of Hadleigh—has been in a monstrous temper for the better part of two years. Unable to join the fight against Napoleon due to the declining health and subsequent death of his father, his rotten mood worsened when his two brothers survived the war with life-changing injuries. Ashamed, Drew retreated to his country estate in Derbyshire to spare them his ire. Why the devil was he not worth more than his title?

Miss Caroline Sloane is on her way to Poughill, Cornwall. In highhanded fashion, her estranged grandfather has arranged a marriage for her to a sea captain she’s met but once, and she wishes to convince him otherwise. She’ll marry for love or not at all, but an accident with the crowded mail coach on which she’s traveling throws her existence into chaos.  

A dutiful army officer who shuns intimacy. A selfless beauty ready to start living for herself. A chance meeting in the street that leads to love. When Major Spencer Haddock’s father dies, he returns to England as the Earl of Middlefield. He seeks a typical ton marriage, where his wife will provide him with an heir and possibly other children and then they go their separate ways. He intends to find his countess quickly and not waste time at boring social affairs.

When Lady Henley Killigrew's father dies and his title of earl passes to a not-so-friendly cousin who wants her and her two younger sisters out of their elegant London townhouse, she takes them to Moonstone Cottage, a lovely manor house they inherited from a maiden aunt in the Cornwall seaside village of Moonstone Landing. But their funds are limited, and the new earl is a stingy guardian who will not loosen the purse strings to allow her to properly maintain herself and her sisters in their new home. The only way to save them all is for her to marry.

Daire Claymore, Duke of Claymore, does not understand why he is so drawn to Moonstone Landing, the sleepy village on the coast of Cornwall. He has all the wealth and power any man can want and women who will come running to warm his bed at his slightest nod. He is used to getting whatever strikes his fancy. Except he cannot coax, bribe, buy, or get the impertinent Brenna Angel. Not that he wants her, although she is stunning and irresistible in an irritating way. He is merely negotiating to purchase a property owned by the stubborn beauty.