Crimson Valor: Love in the Ashes

Robert Anderson's wife is his wife in name only. He married Grace Anderson because his brother, dying, asked him to take in the widow, and the household has been run on that arrangement since. Emily Thompson's parents were murdered. Her family had been the richest in Fairview City, and she was left an orphan. Robert, who commands the city's garrison, brought her back to the Commander's Mansion and kept her there. They grew attached to each other over the months, but neither said so. The fighting outside the city gave them reasons to put it off, and there was the matter of what people would say about the years between them. Emily did not care about the age difference. Robert did not know that, and he could not offer her anything while everyone believed he already had a wife. The misunderstandings on both sides took a long time to clear.