The lovely widow at No. 10 Dudley Crescent hopes to lead a merry life without any husband to replace the elderly one she recently buried. Yet Lady Ranford finds herself in a pickle. Her new butler, Finnley, is not only the most obstinate man she’s ever met, but he’s a virile enigma. She’s never been lured to naughtiness with a man. Heaven knows, she certainly shouldn’t fantasize about the tall, dark, scowling creature who runs her household like a finely tuned clock. But she can’t help herself. She needs to taste him—or dismiss him.

Finnley, poor fellow, has a few risqué dreams of his own about how he’d like to handle the delectable widow. Alone in his rooms, he resolves to deny how her humor riddles his mind and how her beauty steals his breath away. None of his solutions are proper. All of his desires are quite dear me scandalous. But what’s a butler to do when the very life of his beloved employer is at stake? And he cannot control his need to protect her and, ahem…bed her?