Geoffrey de Graville is a man of honor. The code of chivalry to which he subscribes demands it. He is expected to become a warrior, and to produce the next generation of his family with a suitable wife. He possesses lands, wealth, a title and good looks, but when he falls in love with the wrong woman, a woman he cannot marry, her death in childbirth leaves his soul crushed.. His honor refuses to allow him to marry another or to risk seeing another woman die bearing his child. He safeguards his heart with a layer of ice as thick and as strong as the walls of the castle built by his father. Nothing can penetrate that icy barrier around his heart, and nobody can get close enough to him to invade his defenses. But even the thickest layer of ice can be melted.