When widowed Nicholas MacPherson, Earl of Rothbury, returns from a two-year pilgrimage and finds himself in desperate need of a governess for his son, the last person he wants to see at his door is Julianna Feathers, the lass he had loved since he was a child servant in her father's castle. Her familiar smiles and the ease he feels when they speak—even to argue—becomes harder to resist. But he doesn't trust love. Her love. Still, when she stirs the rubble in search of his heart, the heart she once knew, he is helpless to stop her.



Julianna Feathers once lived the life of the privileged, but that was before the Scots attacked her castle and killed everyone in it. Dreams of the love of her youth gave her strength to run, to free herself and find him. She knows him as William Stone. She let him go once because she was a coward. She has grown up, and she wants him back . . . until she meets him and decides she doesn't like the earl with his new name and the diamond-hard set of his eyes against her. But she sees him beneath the rocks and rubble and she resolves to help him find his way out. Falling in love with him all over again is the easy part. Being torn from his arms by an enemy from their past is something else entirely.



Contains mature themes.