Lord Dudley Beauchamp is utterly miserable. A cannon blast damaged his left eye, so he has been released from the Royal Navy and forced to return home to London. He only wants to be left alone, but his family and friends refuse to let him be. They convince him to travel to Felixstowe for a fortnight in hopes that a change of scenery will do him good. Once there, he meets his friend's infuriating cousin, who is quite possibly the most obstinate woman he has ever met. Miss Josie Mowbray is obsessed. She spends her days practicing archery and her evenings scouring the shorelines looking for any sign of the smugglers who murdered her half-brother. When her cousin proposes a deal that would give her more freedom to search for the smugglers, she leaps at the chance, even though the agreement requires her to join the dreaded marriage mart in London. Dudley is cantankerous. Josie is stubborn. Neither of them expects a friendship to form between them. When Dudley offers to help Josie discover proof of the smugglers, his heart begins to soften, and he realizes that she is everything he never wanted... until she becomes everything he needs. But will it be too late?