Pretty young Kelda Lawrence arrived at Mrs. Gladwin's Seminary for Young Ladies when she was fifteen, coming from the orphanage where she was sent for three years after her father and mother were tragically killed in an earthquake travelling in Turkey.At the Seminary she makes a firm friend in the beautiful Yvette de Villon who, although also an orphan, is from a wealthy French extended family.One day Yvette comes to Kelda feeling tearful and distraught because she has been summoned to go and live with her English uncle.This, Kelda thinks, does not sound so bad until Yvette explains that her uncle is 'horrible' and worse still lives in Dakar in the French West African Colony of Senegal as a recluse in a huge mansion..When none of the school's Mistresses agree to accompany Yvette, to Kelda's amazement the Headmistress instructs her to go with her to Senegal and look after her until she can be handed over safely to her uncle in Dakar.And so...

That sardonic curl of the lip, chiselled features to die for, that roguish glint in the eye... Notorious 'ladies' man' Lord Rowley has always had beauties falling at his feet. But none loves him more than auburn-haired Darcia, his lovely seventeen-year-old daughter. So she's thrilled to be home at last... Not so thrilled that he's sending her to France posing as a French Comtesse so that she's untainted by his roguish reputation. But headstrong Darcia has other ideas. Posing as a decorator, she follows her heart into the home and the arms of the magnificent Earl of Kirkhampton, whom she has adored from since childhood, to find her Fate. At last she's found the Perfection of Love – but how can it be perfect if it's based on a lie?

When her grandmother dies, Paola, the beautiful young daughter of the Earl and Countess of Berisforde is dismayed to find that the family's customary six months' mourning means that she will miss her debut in the London Season. Instead her mother sends her to stay in the ancient and historic Italian town of Lucca with her aunt, the Contessa Raulo, who is to be her chaperone.Paola's adventurer cousin Hugo arrives just before she leaves and asks a favour of Paola that is to prove fateful. Having promised her mother that she will avoid him at all costs, Paola must now seek out a notorious 'ladies' man', the Marchese Vittorio di Lucca, and deliver a precious package to him. It is a huge diamond set in a ring that had been presented some years earlier to the Marchese by the Nizam of Hyderabad, which had been stolen and which Hugo had brilliantly retrieved at great risk to his life.Within the spectacular mediaeval ramparts of Lucca, Paola accomplishes her mission, falls in love with...

Dashing Druce Pevel, the Marquis of Peverell, Lord of all he surveys, with women falling at his feet...A pair of money-grabbing, murderous cousins bent on bleeding him dry – or even dead...Shamara, an innocent, yet strangely exotic, Missionary's daughter, plucked from an orphanage to become the Marquis's ward...A bewildered Shamara finds herself voyaging aboard his yacht to Senegal – where it's the Marquis's turn to be bewildered when they're kidnapped by a tribal chieftain and held for ransom in his kasbah...At first he is mystified... How is it that this innocent abroad knows the ways of the Africans – even speaks their language. How has she such wisdom beyond her tender years? Then, as he watches over her sleeping in their kasbah prison, Druce is suddenly smitten – and taken aback by the fierceness and passion with which he swears, "I will kill anyone who hurts her!"

Jilted by her fiancé Tim, Mela MacDonald felt nothing but despair. Desperate to heal her wounded heart she travels from Canada to war torn England, to work for her Uncle, an important government official in the war effort. But on her arrival she finds her Uncle has been murdered – set on unravelling the mystery of his death, she teams up with Peter Flacton, an up-and-coming politician. As their investigations put them in a compromising position, and still too miserable to care what happens to her, Mela makes a reckless decision. But what she hadn't counted on was meeting Tim again. Told in her own words, Mela describes how they solve the mystery of her Uncle's death and how she discovers where her true love lies, in this passionate adventure of love and intrigue.

Strikingly handsome the Russian Prince Ivan Volkonski leaves a trail of broken hearts behind him wherever he goes.But, when his best friend, Lord Marston, takes him one evening to the famous Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, he witnesses a spellbinding dance performance of grace and spirituality that is to change his life forever.The dancer, a beautiful young woman known only as Lokita, mesmerises and enthrals him with her dancing and brings back emotional memories of his family that he had almost forgotten.And he is determined to see her again and make her his own. Frustrated to find that she will see no admirers in her dressing room at the theatre after her dancing, the Prince stages a 'kidnapping' to force her to meet him.Instantly Lokita and the Prince are in love and there is an electric magic between them and the Prince believes that Fate has brought them together and that they have loved each other in many previous lives so strong are their feelings for each other.But...

Handsome, athletic and pursued by women wherever he goes, it is hardly surprising that the tall striking Marquis of Kyneston succumbs to the temptation in London of a married beauty called Daphne Burton. Finding out purely by chance that she intends to entrap and blackmail him in a cynical plot, he decides that he must escape the Society world and so he heads off in his yacht for The Hague in Holland in search of great Dutch art to complete his prestigious Picture Gallery, which the King himself is taking considerable interest in. In the meantime someone else is also destined for the Dutch City at the same time. Beautiful young Lela Cavendish is mourning her mother's death when her stepfather, Sir Robert Lawson, sends for her. Arriving at the family estate she is appalled to find that he has arranged for her to marry a wealthy much older and extremely unpleasant man whom she has only met twice let alone loves. Lela and her beloved Nanny...

Handsome and dashing, the Marquis of Melsonby finds himself bored by the attentions of Society beauties, especially those of the undeniably beautiful and irritatingly ardent, Lady Karen Russell, who is trying to blackmail him into marriage.Then, as he is caught in a fierce snowstorm and stuck for the night at a lowly wayside inn, Fate puts in his way a lovely young waif called 'Perdita Lydford', who throws herself on his mercy. She is on the run from her cruel would-be 'Guardian', Sir Gerbold Whitton, and with good reason. Not only does he beat her sadistically, he is totally bent on marrying her and her sizeable inheritance by force to pay for his large debts.Since they are both in the same boat, the Marquis and Perdita then begin their daring deception and dupe their respective pursuers with a fake marriage that appears on the surface to be legal.But Sir Gerbold is not so easily daunted and he tries again to abduct Perdita. Escaping on the...

The Bargain Bride is the thrilling tale of beautiful young Aleda, who is brought through no fault of her own from riches to the brink of ruin... Of her dashing but irresponsible brother the Earl of Blakeney whose profligacy has brought him perilously close to debtors' gaol... Of fabulously wealthy Social climber Doran Winton, who cynically buys the unwilling Aleda's hand in marriage along with her brother's debt to rescue them from penury... And of a sinister Chinese cabal who slip from the shadows of London's Dockland opium dens to kidnap Aleda at knifepoint, perhaps to face 'death by a thousand cuts' ... Only now, with her life at stake, does she realise that the hate in her heart has turned to love.

A tale of rags to riches – and above all romance!From a London gentleman's club he can ill-afford to a grand highland castle ... From near bankruptcy to fabulous wealth, handsome 'man about town' Talbot Marsham's life changes forever when he inherits the title Earl of Cairnloch – as well as the castle and clan chieftainship that go with it.With the beautiful young Tara at his side, he assumes his throne and faces a clan bristling with suspicion of the English and then, on the castle's slippery roof, a crazed, knife-wielding cousin consumed with hate. And just as he faces losing his life, he loses his heart – forever.

When a strange Priest calls to inform him that his young and very beautiful Ward, Zia Langley, whom he has never troubled to meet, wants to be a nun and asks for his permission, the dashing and handsome Marquis of Okehampton is irritated at this distraction from his wild love life. The Marquis is particularly involved with Yasmin Caton, the enchantingly lovely wife of a distinguished Peer, who is much older than her and is believed to be close to death. She is determined to marry the Marquis when her husband does die and uses every wile she can think of to force him up the aisle. And when the strange Priest demands the transfer to the Convent of all Zia's worldly goods and, knowing that Zia has inherited a vast fortune, the Marquis smells a rat.Insisting on visiting this Convent to meet his Ward, he travels to Cornwall in his magnificent yacht. He is introduced to a very ugly young woman, whom he realises is an imposter, before whisking away the real Zia Langley to his Park Lane...

It is bad enough that the beautiful Manella's heartless uncle is threatening to sell her adorable English Setter, Flash and her beloved horse, Heron. But when he dashes all her hopes and dreams with a forced marriage to an aging, decrepit but rich Duke, she flees astride Heron with Flash at her heels to a rural village where she finds employment as the Marquis of Buckingdon's cook. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, she is embroiled first in a wicked poison plot and then highway robbery And, as her trusty animals save the day and the dashing Marquis saves her life, Manella realises that she has now lost her heart.

The lovely young Nerissa Stanley, her brother, Harry, and their father, a distinguished academic writer on Elizabethan architecture live a threadbare existence in their family home.So when her beautiful elder sister, Delphine, pays a surprise visit to her and Harry and then offers them a large sum of money, they have no option but to accept.Delphine, who abandoned the family several years earlier to marry the rich elderly Lord Bramwell is now widowed they learn for the first time.But she is now set on marrying another rich and prestigious aristocrat – the imperious and handsome Duke of Lynchester. Ashamed of their meagre lifestyle, she demands that her siblings pose as cook and butler in return for three hundred pounds, while she entertains the Duke in style in her ancestral home.But, after the superb dinner is over, the Duke wanders into the kitchen unexpectedly and, instantly transfixed by the beauty, grace and charm of Nerissa, insists...

Innocent young Candida is almost destitute after the death of her beloved father.Resolving to keep up the family's modest Elizabethan manor house in Hertfordshire and support Ned, the family's faithful servant, she sees no alternative but to sell her beloved pitch-black stallion, Pegasus.So, when the worldly Major Hooper offers to take her and her mount to Hyde Park where she will undoubtedly find a high price, she agrees, though with a heavy heart.Little does she suspect that Major Hooper trades in young women as well as horseflesh – and soon she finds herself and Pegasus 'sold' to the dashing but awe-inspiring Lord Manville.A terrible maze of misunderstanding ensues and just when Candida realises that she has lost her heart to his Lordship, the London Society that seemed so carefree turns cruel.Even as she flees astride Pegasus, she is heartbroken, knowing she may never again see the man she loves –

The Marquis of Stowe is on the verge of a dreadful scandal that threatens to ruin both him and the lovely, but married, Lady Burnham.Knowing that their secret is out and that her husband will be plotting revenge, the Marquis casts about desperately for a way to avoid the scandal, which he knows is inevitable despite the wealth and good looks that have made him a darling of the Beau Monde.Seeing a perfect solution, he decides to offer marriage to the Duke of Dawlish's daughter and leaves for the country. Surely the Duke will be grateful for his daughter to make such a match?There is only one problem – marrying the Duke's daughter might provide a way out of his current dilemma, but having met her the Marquis is dismayed by her dullness. Horrified at the sacrifice he would have to make, he suddenly realises that there is another way to put the cuckolded husband off the scent and preserve his freedom – as long as he can find a young woman happy to go along...