A spinster. A prizefighter. A marriage of convenience. This bout can't end well.



Plain, prim, and beyond marriageable age, Dorothea Hart is resigned to the life of a spinster aunt. But she yearns for a family of her own, and is hopelessly attracted to the 'Mighty Oak'—a prizefighter renowned for his prowess—who stirs previously unknown passions in her.



Widower Griffin Oake made his fortune in the ring—but he can't buy respectability, or a footing in society for his daughter. After a disastrous first marriage, he has no wish to wed again, but is looking to employ a genteel woman to chaperone the rebellious teenager—preferably the plainest, dullest woman in London.



When Dorothea is publicly compromised, she's pushed into a marriage of convenience with the object of her infatuation. Exiled to the country, with a husband who avoids her, and a stepdaughter determined to defy her, Dorothea's dream of a loving family seems further away than ever . . . and she begins to suspect that Griffin's first wife's death was not an accident.



Contains mature themes.