Lance has had enough of Miranda's teasing. She loves him, he's sure, only her family is keeping them apart. Once he takes her across the border to Scotland and marries her, they'll have to accept him. But, oops, he takes the wrong girl. It's the skinny, gangly younger sister he marries instead. Fate steps in however and Lance is gone the next day, tricked, conscripted into the army fighting Napoleon. Winnie's family won't take her back, and thus begins Winnie's struggles to make it on Lance's modest estate by herself. What will happen when Lance returns from the war just ended, troubled and changed, only searching for peace? It isn't peace he finds, but another war. Winnie wants a divorce and her small dowry back. Lance is unable to accommodate her just yet, and they settle into an uneasy truce until he can, maybe next year.