Anyone can arrange a marriage-but only the heavens can decree true love! Her grandson, the Earl of Bradleigh, had just announced his engagement to a thoroughly unlikeable chit—and Lady Bradleigh was determined to do something about it. Why, just about anyone would make a more suitable match...even her own paid companion, Emily Townsend! But if her dear, practical-minded Robert were to back out of the betrothal, the tongues of the ton would never stop wagging... At the very least, the dowager decides, she will extract a promise from her grandson to find Emily a husband. But when the handsome, rakish earl comes to know the charms of Emily Townsend, he suddenly regrets his hasty engagement-and is sorely tempted to win her hand for himself.

Jack, Lord Pemerton, is a cynical rake forced by family circumstances to seek a bride. Lady Mary Haviland is a plain, charming, but firmly on-the-shelf spinster who offers to help Jack by presenting him with suitable candidates. When Jack discovers information that makes Mary the perfect candidate, their comfortable friendship takes an unexpected turn.

An awkward ugly duckling when last they met, Meg Ashburton finds Viscount Sedgewick in her country manor recovering from an accident and becomes torn between her desire to keep her chastity and her passion for the handsome rake