金石堂Thea is a vicar’s daughter, dutiful to a fault—even if sometimes she tires of caring for everyone around her. One snowy day in December, Thea goes to church to check on the nativity scene—and finds a crying baby nestled in the manger! The babe has no identification other than a signet ring belonging to Gabriel, the local lord. Before Thea can think twice, she snatches up the child and marches off to give the earl a piece of her mind.
Gabriel at first thinks the windblown, furious woman who appears in his hall is accusing him of fathering her child—but it soon becomes clear that the baby is not his. Then how did the child come to have Gabriel’s ring wrapped in its swaddling? Gabriel, a bachelor, has no notion of how to care for an infant and begs Thea for her continued help. As the two work together to search for his rightful parents, they are powerfully drawn to one another. Gabriel can’t help but admire Thea’s fresh, striking beauty and her tender heart, while Thea daydreams about more than a friendship with the bold but honorable lord. But someone is determined to keep them from finding the truth about this wayward baby—even if it means silencing one or both of them for good.
