A Dangerous Beauty

Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by the removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. The Devil's Dictionary , Ambrose Bierce A Courageous Outcast . . . Rosamunde Baird has lost everything and has no choice but to accept an invitation to spend a season with a dowager duchess and her clandestine ladies club. Determined to stay in the shadows and live quietly, she has sworn never again to come face to face with adventure and temptation, two things that brought her ruin years ago. But then the Duke of Helston dangles before her the very things she craves most . . . Lord Fire & Ice . . . Mysterious Luc St. Aubyn has a much-deserved reputation for exuding blistering passion at night and frost the morning after. What demons drive this audacious war hero to hide secrets about the dowager's club and his devilish dictionary? When he's blindsided by his reactions to a virtuous siren, he has no choice but to reveal all during a scandal that will doom them . . . or save them, if only they dare to believe in love. From Booklist Eight years ago one kiss from Lord Sumner, the Duke of Helston's heir, ruined Rosamunde Baird's life. She refused to marry him and was cut socially by her family and polite society. Now a widow in dire financial straits, Rosamunde once again finds herself flirting with scandal when she accepts an invitation to stay with Merceditas St. Aubyn, the dowager duchess of Helston. As the patron of the ''Widows Club,'' the duchess's one goal is to help her ladies find the happy-ever-after endings they deserve, and she believes Rosamunde's future holds a romance with the current Duke of Helston, Lucifer St. Aubyn. But Rosamunde is determined not to destroy her carefully cultivated, quiet new life by even considering an affair with the devilishly tempting ''Lord Fire and Ice.'' Beautifully nuanced characters and elegantly polished writing infused with a wickedly subtle sense of wit blend together brilliantly in RITA-winning Nash's exquisitely sensual, superbly romantic Regency historical. Charles, John About the Author Sophia Nash was born in Switzerland and raised in France and the United States, but says her heart resides in Regency England. Her ancestor, an infamous French admiral who traded epic cannon fire with the British Royal Navy, is surely turning in his grave. Before pursuing her long-held dream of writing, Sophia was an award-winning television producer for a CBS affiliate, a congressional speechwriter, and a nonprofit CEO. She lives in the Washington, D.C., suburbs with her husband and two children. Sophia's novels have won twelve national awards, including the prestigious RITA Award, and two spots on Booklist 's ''Top Ten Romances of the Year.''