The Flame and the Frost — Harriet Gray

Readers of "Gold for the Gay Masters" and "Bride of Doom" will need no recommendation to "The Flame and the Frost", which follows the fortunes of the third-generation, the orphan Charlotte Goff. After narrowly avoiding being run down by her coach, Charlotte is adopted by the noble widow Lady Chase. Taken into her home, Charlotte grows to become an educated and beautiful young woman who catches the eye of Lady Chase's handsome, but heartless son, Vivian. Seduced by him, Charlotte finds herself pregnant, and is forced into marriage with the rake by her benefactor. In the enforced marriage that follows, in Charlotte's desperate attempts to give her husband a son and heir. After years of misery and heartache, Charlotte meets MP Dominic Unwin, a man who's friendship makes her yearn for more... an intense passion, and the dark strain in the ill-fated family blood once again shows itself. But is there more to him than she knows? That transpires when Vivan manufactures evidence against his wife and cites Dominic in a divorce case is told with unforgettable emotion in this superb drama of Victorian society life, that tells an unforgettable tale of passion and deceit, love and misery, and the perils of finding a life of happiness....