Melting Miss Wynter — Emma V. Leech

A brother determined to save his family's honour…

Sampson Pelham, eldest son of the late and not at all lamented Viscount Cheam is surprised but not disheartened by the untimely passing of his sire. Run out of England with his reputation and honour blackened beyond pitch, Sampson's father was a vile and violent man whom the family will do very well without.

Now, however, Sampson faces the unenviable task of getting his house in order. Being one of four siblings universally known as “The Scandalous Brothers,” bringing his family back into the respectable world of the ton will be an uphill struggle. The thought of the youngest of his kin, seven-year-old twins, Selina and Susan, being branded “The Scandalous Sisters” when they eventually come out is too appalling to consider.

Respectability is his goal, and Sampson is single-minded in his purpose.

A chill in the air and an unmistakable spark of attraction…

A governess for the unmanageable twins -- one with impeccable references from one of the grandest families of the ton -- is hired at once to accompany Sampson and his family to visit his half-brother, Captain Ross Moncreiffe, for Christmas.

When a violent snowstorm separates the family on the road, Sampson finds himself marooned at a small inn in the company of the twins and their new governess…

And soon suspects that Miss Wynter is not everything her references suggested she would be.

A woman with a scandalous reputation…

Miss Gwendolen Wynter is hiding a dark past under a new name and the veneer of respectability.

Miss Guinevere de Wynn is the illegitimate daughter of the infamous Marie de Wynn -- mistress to the Marquess of Davenport, the woman who robbed the marchioness of her jewellery and ran off with another lover. The de Wynn family are, in fact, notorious for indulging in every vice known to man and their infamy can be traced back generations.

In a desperate bid for a quiet life, free from disgrace and mayhem, Gwen forges her references and secures employment in the first household available with such haste she neglects to discover details of the family she is to work for.

When her attraction to the eldest of the equally infamous Scandalous Brothers becomes impossible to ignore, Miss Wynter must be at her iciest to avoid yet another scandal and to keep the truth of her identity from the man who is melting all her good intentions.