Jason Beaumont, brash American privateer, is now Earl of Falconridge, and the Honorable Miss Rachel Fairchild could not be more horrified. Until she finds herself making the brute's acquaintance lying flat on her back in the mud, gazing up at a particularly fascinating portion of his anatomy. She grows still more flustered when the arrogant colonial proceeds to set London's tongues wagging with his daring exploits, and challenge her own cutting wit with his outrageous innuendoes. But most shocking of all is a surprise betrothal ball where she learns her own father has conspired to see her leg shackled, for better or worse, to the Yankee earl.