Torn between duty... and desire... Edmund Fitzhugh was willing to thrust his head back into the matrimonial noose to protect Julianna from her wicked stepbrother. But the maiden was betrothed to his nephew, gone to sea. So their forbidden union was secretly a marriage in name only. Yet sharing his home with the much younger beauty fueled a passion he'd thought long buried... Julianna Ramsey was at sixes and sevens! Who would have thought that Edmund's gentle care could ignite in her a woman's ardor that far eclipsed her girlish fancy for his absent nephew? And what of the day when her fiancé would return? Would she then have the courage to choose love over duty?