Her family has a death wish. For her.

Lord Marcus Waring married Corinna Houghton with the best of intentions—to protect her should anything happen to her brother while both he and Marcus are serving in India. That the child bride is underage is but a small footnote in his family's long history of scandal.

News that his wife has died in a carriage accident stabs him with regret, but with no reason to question the report, he extends his stay until another near-scandal brings him home—eight years after his secret marriage.

Corinna is in hiding. Alone in the world after her parents' deaths, despised by her family, unwanted even by the husband who seems to have forgotten her. When she discovers her temporary governess position is in the home of Marcus's brother, she holds out a secret hope that she will at last learn his whereabouts.

When wife and erstwhile husband meet again, it is as strangers. Gentle, fragile sparks of attraction and trust flicker to life, but their respective dark histories threaten to overshadow any possibility of happiness. Especially when it becomes clear that someone in her family still wishes her dead.

Warning: Marrying someone in the middle of the night, without a license, at age fourteen, might be a tad illegal, but love doesn't care about legalities.