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.