Battle-weary Colonel Alex Valliant returns from the Napoleonic and American wars to his supposedly empty home after a long, self-imposed exile, only to be welcomed by a cast-iron skillet upside his head.

Its wielder, Diana Whitney, stashed there for her own protection by Alex’s brother, finds herself compromised when the neighbors learn she and Alex had been alone together at night. He dutifully proposes a marriage of necessity, which she declines. But a renewed assault by the suitor who first sent her into hiding with Lucy Preston (Lucy in Disguise) compels her to elope with Alex. That’s when the trouble really gets going.