Miss Bronwyn Pickering is odd and awkward, and a constant disappointment to her social climbing parents. When she fails to find a titled husband one too many times, they decide to banish her from the Isle of Synne, the island home she has grown to love, until she can do her duty to their family. Desperate to remain with her friends and her work studying the insects of Synne, she accepts the proposal from the first man to ask her: a wickedly magnetic gambling hell owner who wants nothing more than a marriage of convenience. It's ideal, really: she can complete her research while looking after his young wards, and he can return to his business in London. But she soon learns her fiancé is in fact a duke, and what should have been a simple, inconsequential marriage has now become much more complicated. Ash Hawkins, Duke of Buckley, has spent half a lifetime distancing himself from his father's legacy, all while drowning under an ocean of guilt that he failed to save his mother and the rest of the people his father hurt. That guilt is doubled when he unexpectedly becomes guardian to three young girls. He decides that a wife will be just the thing to provide his wards with the family they so desperately need.

When Miss Pickering stumbles into his path like a petite, bespectacled gift, he makes her an offer on the spot, and is relieved when she accepts. They can marry and quickly go their separate ways. But soon she is infiltrating every part of his life, and he begins to think that perhaps he might finally be worthy of love.