It is l909 and Temperance O'Neil is a woman ahead of her time. She's happy and devoted to helping single mothers on the streets of New York. But her new stepfather, Angus McCairn, does not approve and insists she quit her career and, as a respectable unmarried daughter should, live in his house in Edinburgh. Furious, but with no other choice, Temperance heads for Scotland determined to drive Angus crazy. Soon, an exasperated Angus makes her an unlikely offer: to pose as housekeeper to his nephew James, and find him a wife, secretly. If she succeeds, he'll allow her back to New York.

Temperance, smart, passionate, as stubborn as her stepfather, is determined at any cost to win her return passage. But she has taken on far more than she expected. James McCairn, Laird of Clan McCairn, is no cultured gentleman but a strapping, rough-mannered farmer, rude and brusque. There are pigeons roosting in the kitchen and chickens in the bedroom. Marriage is the last thing on his mind.