Robert Penfield has a guilty secret. Ten years earlier, as he was leaving home for the last time, he had unexpectedly met with Selena, his twin brother Charles's fiancee, a month before they were to be married. She had arrived on the estate hours earlier than expected. Before he might introduce himself properly she had overwhelmed him with affection, taking him utterly off guard and not giving him chance to explain her understandable mistake. Everything went much further and faster than Robert might have intended, and they had made love in the Belvedere. Fortunately, she had not recognized that he was not Charles. He dare not tell her who he really was, destroying not only her life, but his own and his brother's too. Neither she, nor his brother had ever learned of that misstep. Now, he is on his way home, a decorated captain, after ten years fighting Napoleon's navy. His brother has just died in a carriage accident, and Selena is fighting for her life. There are three children; all girls. He has inherited everything. It was the last thing he had wanted or expected. He cannot possibly know what awaits him, and for the first time in his life he is truly afraid of what will greet him, and what the future might hold for him."