A Convenient Kindness

When Miss Eliza Hartwood's elderly chaperone dies unexpectedly on the train to Northumberland, she finds herself alone, unchaperoned, and utterly without options. A vicar's daughter with no fortune and no connections, she faces certain ruin—until a chance encounter with the Marquis of Alderton and his sister changes everything.

Nathaniel Hale has spent three years hiding behind walls of ice. His late wife, the diamond of her Season, was beautiful, accomplished, and admired by all—but in private, Cassandra was cruel, unfaithful, and utterly without heart. Her death left him determined never to feel anything again.

When his sister Kitty insists on taking in the stranded young woman, Nathaniel expects nothing more than a minor inconvenience. What he doesn't expect is Eliza's quiet kindness—the way she reads to his blind gardener, comforts a frightened housemaid, and moves through his house like someone who has spent her whole life trying to be invisible.

She's nothing like Cassandra. She's nothing like anyone he's ever known.

But Eliza has learned the hard way that men like the Marquis don't marry vicar's daughters. And Nathaniel has sworn never to let anyone past his defenses again.

Sometimes the heart has other plans.