A Most Scandalous Winter

A widow with a secret. A notorious gentleman with secrets of his own. And one Cornish winter in which good behaviour is becoming increasingly difficult.Mrs Lydia Ashcombe has spent three years rebuilding a life that belongs entirely to her.Widowed at twenty-nine, financially independent and with no intention of marrying again, she accepts an invitation to spend Christmas at Roscarrock Hall expecting little more than good company, winter walks and several weeks away from the memories of her disappointing marriage.She certainly does not expect Nicholas Carew.At thirty-five, Nicholas is charming, handsome and accompanied by exactly the sort of reputation Lydia knows better than to trust. Society remembers the married woman once connected to his name. Nicholas has never troubled himself to correct the story.Lydia intends to avoid him.Unfortunately, Nicholas is considerably more interesting than his reputation suggests.Between crowded dinners, candlelit dances, too much wine and the dangerous privacy that follows when a country house finally falls quiet, their attraction becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.But Lydia has brought secrets of her own to Roscarrock.Years earlier, during the loneliest days of her marriage, she wrote a series of painfully honest letters to her closest friend-letters about affection, desire and everything she wished her respectable husband had given her.Letters that were never meant to be read by anyone else.When one disappears, Lydia discovers that somebody at Roscarrock is prepared to use her private words against her.And the price of silence may be far greater than her reputation.As winter closes around the house and scandal begins travelling through Cornish drawing rooms, Lydia must decide how much of herself she is willing to defend, how much she refuses to explain-and whether the most dangerous thing Nicholas Carew can offer her is not seduction at all......but a love in which she is still entirely free.A MOST SCANDALOUS WINTER is Book Three in THE IMPROPER SEASONS, a steamy Cornish Regency romance series filled with strong heroines, scandalous attraction, country-house parties, sharp humour, emotional intimacy and guaranteed happy endings.Perfect for readers who enjoy mature heroines, experienced heroes, forced proximity, winter balls, scandal, female friendship, high heat and Regency romance with plenty of heart.