The Vicar's Daughter

Independent and capable Prudence Wedderburn, daughter of a vicar, is a woman before her time. She not only manages the parish duties usually performed by a vicar's wife, she has learned the art of healing, and during her father's final illness, she also assumes some of his religious duties-all actions welcomed by her village until her father's death abruptly ends her life as First Lady of Kenner's Cove, Kent.
Well aware she must curb her independence-even learn to practice subservience, a quality entirely unknown to her-Prudence accepts a position as governess to a five-year-old girl in Cornwall. Where, alas, rumors of her activities in Kent plunge her into difficulties with the church, she clashes with her pupil's father (an earl), finds herself hip-deep in smugglers and Cornish legends, is befriended by a 500-year-old cat, and discovers that someone-several someones?-want to kill her.
Finding a happy ending in a deluge of disasters will be the vicar's daughter's greatest challenge.