diff --git a/lib/view.js b/lib/view.js
index dce23b4..c59dbb4 100644
--- a/lib/view.js
+++ b/lib/view.js
@@ -83,9 +83,13 @@ ViewEngine.prototype.respond = function(view, opts) {
   opts = opts || {};
   
   return q.when(viewEngine.render(view, opts), function(str) {
+    var headers = _.extend({}, {
+                    'content-type': 'text/html',
+                    'content-length': Buffer.byteLength(str, 'utf-8')
+                  }, opts.headers);
     return {
       status: opts.status || 200,
-      headers: opts.headers || { 'content-type': 'text/html', 'content-length': Buffer.byteLength(str, 'utf-8') },
+      headers: headers,
       body: [str]
     };
   });
diff --git a/test/view.test.js b/test/view.test.js
index fb778ff..f740de5 100644
--- a/test/view.test.js
+++ b/test/view.test.js
@@ -28,3 +28,25 @@ test('test render mustache with partials', function(t) {
     t.fail(err);
   });
 });
+
+test('test `bogart.respond` merges headers', function(t) {
+  var viewEngine = bogart.viewEngine('mustache', fixturesPath)
+    , headers = { abc: 123 }
+    , respondOpts = {
+        layout: false,
+        locals: { greeting: {} },
+        headers: headers
+      };
+
+  when(viewEngine.respond('partial-test.mustache', respondOpts), function(response) {
+    t.equals(response.headers.abc, headers.abc);
+    t.equals(response.headers['content-type'], 'text/html');
+
+    t.end();
+  }, function(err) {
+    t.fail(err);
+    t.end();
+  });
+
+  t.plan(2);
+});
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