Kittie Douglas is the hired companion of Lady Eliza , the aunt of Duke of Alban. Kittie has long heard about the duke’s upstanding character and has imagined him to be a paragon of male virtue, but meeting the man leaves her with a distinctly different impression: though he’s strikingly handsome, his late wife’s duplicity has left him moody, taciturn, and even suspicious of her intentions where his well-to-do aunt is concerned. But perhaps most frustrating is that he’s blind to her own upright nature and tender inclinations, unaware that she harbors a deep wish to soothe his heart and make him whole again. Republished as The Duke’s Secret Seduction