An Uncommon Christmas by Regina Scott

Before an unflappable miss met her match and an unwilling lady agreed to marry a daring rake, lovely literature teacher Eleanor Pritchett had convinced herself that love was not for her. She’d dared to love once, a man superior to her in birth, education, and position. His family had warned her away. But when his orphaned niece begs her to carry a kitten to him for Christmas, Norrie cannot refuse, even to losing her position.
Justinian Darby, now an earl, always wondered what happened to his first love, a sweet-natured student at the nearby girls’ school, who had tutored him one summer when he was home from college, ill. His father claimed she was nothing but a fortune hunter. Now she returns to his life, bearing, of all things, a kitten. Can that tiny creature, and the wonder of Christmas, prove that true love never fades, and hearts once closed can be opened anew?