Most English girls meet their heart's desire across a crowded ballroom or in a genteel parlor. Letitia Olive Hornsby finds hers when she knocks him into a river. A curly-haired, blue-eyed hellion of only eleven, she decides right then that Richard, the dashing, handsome, and totally disreputable son of the Earl of Downe, is the white knight of her dreams. Now fully grown, Letty is spinning a plan to save Richard from himself...by marrying him.
And he soon has the bruises to prove it. The chit has come back into Richard's life with a crash literally falling into his arms and soon she is meddling in his ruinous drinking, gambling, and amorous liaisons. But when fate makes them prisoners of a ring of dangerous smugglers, Richard discovers in his mischievous cellmate a pure, romantic spirit that sparks a flame in his own darkly shadowed heart. If only they can escape with their lives, perhaps they find a lifetime of adventures in each other's arms.