Threatened by extortionists, disowned widow Emily Spenser has little recourse--until the handsome Earl of Cheverley unexpectedly comes to her aid. Emily cannot repay the Earl's expenditures on her behalf--not in coin. But having learned through bitter experience not to trust the largesse of powerful men and desperate to hide her son from the aristocratic father-in-law who would take him away, she decides to cancel her obligation to the earl immediately. Evans Mansfield thinks Emily Spenser an exquisite jewel set among the dross of a bonnet shop. Although he assures her he requires no repayment for the assistance he willingly offers, when she makes him A Scandalous Proposal, he cannot bring himself to refuse.

But as they spend time together, Evan finds in Emily an intelligence, wit and talent to rival her beauty, and Emily discovers a man who possesses a complexity and courage equal to the soldier husband she still mourns. An affair both expect to be fleeting quickly turns into something neither can afford...love.