Surprised by a Duke

Eighteen year old orphan Harriet Thomson has resided with a distant cousin's aristocratic household since the age of five, first as companion to Prudence, the youngest daughter of house, later as carer of Pru's ailing father. When he dies she has to make her own way in the world and finds work as companion to the elderly Countess Arden, who resides in the Dower House on the Hertfordshire estate of the dashingly handsome Duke of Fairbridge. She realises at once that he is the same man who helped her save Pru from an embarrassing moment at a Children's Ball held by his mother six years earlier. He clearly doesn't remember her, but nevertheless vows to help her uncover the truth about her parents' deaths. Meanwhile, as she falls deeper in love with him, she has to watch hopelessly as his mother undertakes her campaign to find him a suitable wife among the haut ton.