Governess Catherine Brawley delivers her recently orphaned charges to their uncle, the Earl of Firthley, and discovers the earl, who was seriously wounded in the Charge of the Light Brigade, has buried himself in his country home, having withdrawn from life except for the company of his wounded companions from the Crimean War. Catherine has planned to quit her job and pursue a life of her own, but first she vows to make the earl accept and love his niece and nephew. By pushing her way into his darkened sanctuary she forces him to become aware of the children’s need for family, and their need makes him aware of his own. But a man needs a woman to build a proper family and the feisty, red-haired governess soon seems a likely candidate. Will secrets from Catherine’s past keep them from building that family?

A Crimean War widow, Ellen Coyler, learns her five-year-old son’s wealthy grandfather is attempting to prove her an unfit mother, so he can get custody of the child. To prevent this, she agrees to a marriage-in-name-only with her husband’s former commanding officer, Gerald Osborne. He promises to keep the marriage unconsummated until the threat from the grandfather goes away, and then get an annulment. As she lives in Gerald’s home and sees how he struggles to overcome the handicap of having a missing right arm, while he tries to build a business as a horse trainer, befriends her son, and shows her every consideration, she begins to wonder if she wants an annulment. But Gerald shows no interest in consummating their marriage, until he injures himself in a riding accident and Ellen nurses him in the privacy of his bedroom. Are his growing feelings just passion, or something deeper?