Lady Joanna Ware has no desire to wed again but that doesn't stop the flurry of suitors knocking on her door. Desperate to thwart another proposal, Joanna brazenly kisses Arctic explorer Alex, Lord Grant. Unable to deny the blazing attraction that flares, Joanna knows she's just set the gossip mill turning. After suffering countless infidelities during her marriage, she's accustomed to scandal. But nothing prepares her for the shocking news that her deceased husband has bequeathed his illegitimate child to her and his friend Alex. As rumors run rampant in the ton , Joanna and Alex travel to the Arctic to claim the orphan. Battling blizzards, dangerous wildlife and a treacherous plot, Alex must protect Joanna, but not before he wickedly seduces her…. Everyone in England believes David was a hero, but his wife Joanna knows the truth. She was always being abandoned by her late husband while he explored the North Pole or embarrassed by his numerous affairs. Alex knows David was a hero because David saved his life. Alex also knows better than to believe anything David’s widow says, because his friend’s dying words were to never trust his deceitful wife. Keeping their distance is easy to do, until a codicil to David’s will is found, which announces that Joanna and Alex have been appointed joint guardians of a child no one knew David had with a Russian woman. As the two travel north, they quickly discover their irresistible passion for each is strong enough to melt the ice at the North Pole. In the first in a beguiling new trilogy, Cornick gives the Regency historical a deliciously fresh twist with her sexy tale of daring explorers, bold women, and the uncharted dangers of the frozen North. --John Charles USA Today bestselling author Nicola Cornick has written over thirty historical romances for Harlequin and HQN Books. She has been nominated twice for a RWA RITA Award and twice for the UK RNA Award. She works as a historian and guide in a seventeenth century house. In 2006 she was awarded a Masters degree with distinction from Ruskin College, Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on heroes. Definition: A Grasswidow (or Grass-widow, grass widow) is a wife whose husband will return after a limited period of time away, usually after a voyage. The "grass" refers to the mattress which used to be filled with grass. The "widow" is left back on the grass/mattress. It might express the idea that the abandoned lover has been "put out to grass." The term is applied "with a shade of malignancy," a tantalisingly opaque comment. London—May 1811 He was late. Eighteen months late. Alex Grant paused on the steps of Lady Joanna Ware's London town house in Half Moon Street. If he had expected to see any signs of mourning then he was sorely disappointed. No black drapes shuttered the windows and the presence of a large silver knocker on the door indicated that visitors were welcome. Lady Joanna, it seemed, had already thrown off her widow's weeds a bare twelve months after word of her husband's death must have reached her. Alex raised the silver knocker and the front door opened smoothly, silently. A butler, saturnine in black, stood in the aperture. It was well before the acceptable hour for calling. The butler somehow managed to convey this information—and his disapproval—with the mere twitch of an eyebrow. "Good morning, my lord. How may I help you?" My lord. The man did not know him and yet had managed to place his social standing with some accuracy. It was impressive. It was exactly what Alex would have expected from the butler of so prominent and celebrated a society hostess as Lady Joanna Ware. The greeting was also less than welcoming, warning him, perhaps, that Lady Joanna was not accessible to any old member of the hoi polloi who sought her company. "I would like to see Lady Joanna, if you please," Alex said. It was not strictly true. He had very little desire to see Lady Joanna Ware; only a strict sense of duty, the obligation owed to his dead colleague, had prompted him to come and pay his respects to the widow. And seeing the lack of mourning, barely an acknowledgment that she had lost so eminent and respected a husband as David Ware, had made Alex's hackles rise and his wish to renew his acquaintance with Lady Joanna dwindle still further. The butler, too well trained to keeping him standing on the step like a tradesman, had stepped back to allow him access to the hall, although his expression still showed considerable doubt. The black-and-white marble-and-stone checkerboard floor stretched elegantly to a curving stair. Two liveried footmen, identical twins, Alex observed, over six feet tall, stood like statues on either side of a doorway. And from the room behind them carried the sound of a raised feminine voice that completely spoiled this scene of aristocratic elegance: "Cousin John! Kindly stand up and cease plaguing me with these ridiculous proposals of marriage! In addition to boring me you are o