An Improbable Alliance

Twenty-six-year-old Caroline DeBeck is a willful socialite residing in New York City in 1900. Caroline's mother, Allegra Arbuthnot, despairs of her daughter ever making an advantageous alliance; she's turned down every wealthy gentleman in the Upper East Side and beyond. Allegra decides to send her daughter off to rural Vermont to spend the summer with Caroline's eccentric aunts, Bethany and Grace DeBeck.

Caroline expects the summer to be unendurable. Despite her mother's matchmaking attempts, she has never met a man in her social circle she finds even mildly pleasing. She decided long ago never to marry unless she fell in love-an unlikely probability in her hectic social scene in New York City and no doubt impossible in rural Vermont. But when her aunts send a farmer to the train station to collect her in his cart, she is outraged-and intrigued.

Jacob MacKenzie is tall and muscular, and Caroline is instantly drawn to him, despite their obvious differences. Sparks fly as they both enjoy a verbal sparring match, but neither one takes the other seriously at first. Still, Caroline DeBeck is used to getting what she wants, and it soon becomes plain that may well be Jacob MacKenzie.