As much as Mercy Patience Hawthorne wants to escape her name, she cannot help who she is. Mercy has taken care of other people since her childhood. Now, heiress to a fortune, she no longer has obligations to others, and is anxious to begin a new, exciting and independent life. But fate intervenes as a carriage accident on the way to London forces her to rescue three small children. When she attempts to deliver them to their father, she discovers that they have been orphaned and will now be in the care of their stiff and duty bound-- but ever so handsome-- Uncle Phillip, newly the Earl of Standridge. Mercy's impetuous instincts to offer help whenever it is needed regardless of threats to her reputation, drive the proper Phillip mad, yet draw him to her warm generosity at the same time. As much as Phillip wants to consider his attentions to her merely his duty, he cannot escape his attraction. What will it take for them find a way to balance her impetuous compassion and his dutiful propriety?