He is an Earl who was left at the altar . . . She was his childhood friend, his one true love . . . Now Fate has brought them together again. December 1816. Ryder, Lord Madigan, has never got over the loss of his childhood sweetheart, Adele: the woman who abandoned him at the altar. The woman who humiliated him and left him a broken man. Now she's come home, a widow. Wrongly believing Ryder to be dead, Adele has returned to her Dorset village to reunite with her family and pick up the pieces of her life. Despite everything, she has never stopped loving the man she jilted. But can she put right the wrongs of the past, and bring herself to tell Ryder the truth about why she left him - and the misery of her life since then? Ryder too is keeping secrets from Adele. If the two former lovers are to have a second chance at happiness, they must overcome their pride and admit their true feelings for one another.