The Dark Earl and His Runaway — Julia Donner

Leticia Carlton has been told she has nothing to recommend her but an unsuitably clever intellect and a respectable fortune, but until she reaches the on-coming age of twenty-and-one, she can make no use of her few attributes. Her unsavory cousin holds the purse strings and has plans for her future, namely marriage to a frightening adventurer. What she needs is a shining knight galloping to her rescue, but the savior she ends up with turns out to be a friend from her childhood with a hair-trigger temper, tender heart, and tarnished armor.