An Innocent Kiss by Alexa Aston

An introverted earl who cannot escape the nightmare of war. A free-spirited beauty with no interest in marriage or babes. An innocent kiss that begins to change everything . . .

Only son Perry Beaumont resents his father’s neglect of Beauville, the family’s country estate, and asks his father for more authority to make decisions in running it. When his father rejects the idea, Perry leaves England for the Napoleonic Wars. Returning four years later upon his father’s death, he suffers from nightmares and wonders if he will ever be the man he was before he lived in daily carnage, even as he takes up his new duties as the Earl of Martindale.
Lady Drusilla Alington leaps at an invitation to visit her newly-married sister in Surrey, ready to escape her domineering mother. Dru has an affinity for animals and dreads making her come-out next spring, not wanting to be paraded about on the Marriage Mart.