Nick Barbury was handsome, cool, successful and a persistent bachelor. He also managed to keep his private life as private as anyone could who happened to be a member of the Rainwood family and was required to attend Grandmother Mirabel Rainwood's monthly teas with a decent show of regularity. To his sister, Frankie, and to his cousins Nick was a frequent source of exasperation, especially when he managed to sidestep involvement in Frankie's various crusades on behalf of the unfortunate and the afflicted. Deborah Ryon was Frankie's latest good cause, and certainly looked in need of care and protection as well as a job when they first met. But Nick didn't have a job to offer and was not going to be organised by his sister into making one, and upsetting his well-organised routine. It was to take Nick eighteen months to realise that life could have more to it than being a highly successful biographer, that sometimes the head must submit, and the heart must win.