HaBO: Bridge Collapses During a Flood

This HaBO comes from Rose, who is hoping to locate this historical romance:

The heroine has a large family in a small country town. I think, maybe four siblings and her grandmother lives with them, and is a cause of great embarrassment when they have guests over because she responds to people as improper as she possibly can and blames it on her lack of hearing. Later on, the heroine and readers learn it’s all a ploy to cause discomfort in her boredom. I remember them not being very rich, but the heroine is of course the most sensible out of her siblings.

She also writes articles for the local newspaper, but it must not be very local if the hero comes across it and he’s supposedly very wealthy, if not apart of the ton. What ensues is the hero writing back and playing devil’s advocate by taking the opposite side of the heroine even though he agrees with her most of the time, just to see how she responds and if she’d be a good match for him. After many months (?) of this, he realizes she is his match and hires someone to find where she lives.

He goes where that is and his uncle or some older male relative of his, I don’t quite remember, lives there so he stays with him (I think, unless he purchases his own estate nearby, but I could be mixing up stories). He also says he doesn’t care how she looks before even seeing her because he feels their intellectual conversations would more than make up for however she will look. He is pleasantly surprised when she is handsome. Also the heroine’s grandmother and the hero’s male relative know one another and they visit each other often to play some card/board game popular during that time.

One scene I do remember in particular is when the bridge separating the hero’s home and the road to town is flooded, the hero picks her up and crosses.

There is so much detail here that I’m pretty positive someone will solve this!