Lightning doesn’t strike twice... Arthur Charles Winterbourne, Earl of Ettesmere, at the age of forty-four is done indulging in fanciful matters such as love and romance. When his wife died, he was brokenhearted. During the midsummer season, he and his siblings join their mother at the Berkshire countryside for revelry and entertainment, but all his wants is to shut himself away and leave living to the ones who believe in happiness after loss.
Romance doesn’t hold a candle to science... Miss Juliana Quill has no time for courtship or attracting a man, which is why she’s on the shelf at seven and thirty. A self-taught astronomer, she looks after her aging father and wants nothing more than to chart the stars and perhaps discover a new heavenly body. That gives her more satisfaction than marriage or rearing children ever could. No sense in wishing for more, especially since she missed her chance.
Love appears when it’s least convenient... When a handful of mysterious notes throw Arthur and Juliana together at every turn, a slow attraction blooms from friendship. Despite their stubborn refusals, desire flares and grows into a romance neither of them ever expected. While Arthur battles with guilt and memories, she’s nearly petrified by their difference, but these two willful, love-shy people will need to open their hearts and minds to grasp a happy ending they’d never dreamed they could have.