Lance has had enough of Miranda's teasing. She loves him, he's sure, only her family is keeping them apart. Once he kidnaps her, takes her across the border to Scotland, and marries her, they'll have to accept him. But, oops, she takes the wrong girl. It's the skinny, gangly, younger sister,Winifred he marries instead. Fate steps in, however, and Lance himself is gone the next day, tricked and conscripted into the army to fight Napoleon. Winnie asks her family to take her back, but they refuse, and thus begins Winnie's struggle to make it on Lance's modest estate by herself. Years later, the war ended, a troubled and changed Lance returns home, searching for peace. Instead he finds himself in another battle with a very attractive wife who wants no part of him. Instead, she wants a divorce and her small dowry returned. Lance is unable to accommodate her at present, and they settle into an uneasy truce until he can, perhaps next year. Meanwhile, life goes on in unexpected ways. Will Lance break through the barrier Winnie has built around herself? Will the unbending Winnie soften enough to see and appreciate the new Lance? Or will they forever be at odds?
