Beautiful young Claudia Anderson is all alone in the family home in Chelsea without a penny to her name after both her mother and her father, the celebrated actor Walter Wilton, are burned to death when the theatre where Walter is performing collapses in flames. Reeling from the most terrible shock of her life, little does Claudia realise that Fate has another two mortifying shocks in store for her. First, Lady Bressley arrives at her house, the Godmother she has never known, and announces that Walter Wilton was not her real father at all! As Claudia struggles with this earth-shattering news, Lady Bressley generously takes her under her wing on a trip to Spain. But again Fate steps in when Lady Bressley is killed in a coach crash, leaving Claudia penniless and stranded alone in Seville. Finally, though, Fate takes a turn for the better when the dashing Marquis of Datchford asks her to pose as his new bride in order to avoid being matched with a plain-looking Spanish Princess....

The handsome Earl of Ardwick is smarting from the pain of discovering that his fiancée, the spectacularly beautiful but social-climbing Heloise Brook, is forsaking him for a Duke when he is halted on the road by a nasty carriage accident. There he finds beautiful young Lupita Lang and her six-year-old brother, Jerry, who are running away from home. After the recent death of their father, Jerry has now become the Earl of Langwood.Realising that he used to know their father well, he then takes them to the safety of his Grosvenor Square house where suddenly he sees Lupita in a new light. With her fair hair and blue eyes she is the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and, as she tells him that their wicked Cousin Rufus is bent on murdering young Jerry in order to inherit his title, a cunning idea then comes to the Earl, a way to protect the young siblings from their grasping cousin and also to wreak revenge on the equally title-hungry Heloise.After Lupita...

Following the sudden death of his rakish father, Seldon Burn unexpectedly inherits the title of Duke of Otterburn. Returning to the family estate, he swiftly discovers that the title is the only thing he has inherited – along with a mountain of his father's debts and nothing to pay them with.A brave and proud soldier, nothing has prepared the new Duke for the devastation to the family coffers caused by his late father's love of lavish entertainment, Gaiety Girls and good living. Meeting with the family Solicitor, the Duke is horrified to discover the Ducal properties are crumbling, everything of value is entailed and even the racehorses have not been schooled properly.Desperately seeking to rebuild the family fortune and honourably fulfil his duty of care to the old and infirm of the village, his cousin Edith, a sophisticated Socialite, offers a solution.She suggests that he follows in the footsteps of many an impoverished English aristocrat and marries a wealthy...

Small and slight with fair hair the colour of Spring sunshine and china-blue eyes, young Tilda is dismayed that by command of Queen Victoria, because of her Royal connections, she is to marry the Prince of a distant country called Obernia. Not only has she never met the Prince, she does not want to marry him, as she wishes to marry for love one day and certainly not for political convenience. In Munich on her way to meet her Prince, Tilda insists on attending a rowdy Beer hall and becomes embroiled in a violent student riot. But luckily she is rescued by Rudolph, an impossibly handsome dashing stranger, who she had spied on when walking in the woods near King Ludwig's beautiful Palace, the Linderhof. In their flight from the riots, he is shot by the Police and they take refuge in the home of Frau Sturdel, a local midwife, who helps Tilda to nurse the young man back to health. Soon Tilda has fallen head over heels in love with Rudolph – and he with her. But surely their love is...

Sent reluctantly to stay with her aunt so that her lustrous dark red hair and green gold-flecked eyes would not distract the attentions of her stepsister's suitor, beautiful young Ilouka's stagecoach is involved in a terrible accident in which two passengers are killed.One is Ilouka's old lady's maid and chaperone, Hannah. The other is Lucille Ganymede, a glamorous dancer and understudy to Madame Vestris, the famous performer who has enchanted the theatre world of Covent Garden.They are en route to perform at a private gentlemen's party for the Earl of Lavenham at his glorious stately home, Lavenham Hall.Lucille's Manager, Mr. D'Arcy, is distraught. This engagement is his last hope if he is to avoid destitution and, since she is a gifted singer and dancer herself, Ilouka nervously agrees to perform in Lucille's place.But on arrival she takes an instant dislike to the Earl's haughty demeanour and worse still she finds to her dismay that the...

With the death of her mother, her father's subsequent suicide by drowning in the English Channel, all in the foreboding shadow of imminent war, the beautiful young Fleur Garton is vulnerable to say the least. Even more so when her new love, Lucien, a French airman, is killed just two weeks after the Second World War is declared and followed after by the death of his mother.Left bereft and alone at a remote Château in German-occupied France, Fleur has to find a way home to England before the Germans discover her and in a French Resistance safe house she meets and falls in love with another airman, Royal Air Force pilot Jack Reynolds. Sadly her heart is about to be broken once more on arrival in England after a gruelling voyage of escape from France. Desperate to escape Jack's family home, Fleur seeks employment at Greystone Priory as housekeeper-companion to the ailing mother of the renowned motor car tycoon, Sir Norman Mitcham. Instantly she falls...

Demure young beauty Lady Imilda Harsbourne's stepmother, the Countess of Harsbourne, is determined to have Imilda married off to an eligible – and 'important' – bachelor as soon as possible. But after enduring several Society balls as a debutante, Imilda is thoroughly disillusioned and vows never to marry unless it is for love alone.So she is horrified when her stepmother arranges for her to be wed to the Marquis of Melverley, who, although dashingly handsome, is a notorious 'ladies' man'. Despite her pleas, her father will not help her and she has no choice but to run away. But to where?Then Imilda has a cunning idea. Since his return from the War, the Marquis has never returned to his family seat, Melverley Park, which stands empty apart from a skeleton staff. And so, clutching a forged a letter of introduction from the Marquis, Imilda arrives to take charge of the estate's Herb Garden. While exploring The Park's library, though, she finds to her horror that a gang of...

Ceylon born and bred, yet English through and though thanks to their stern father, who is the local Vicar, beautiful young Dominica Radford and her five sisters are excited when one Sunday a very handsome English gentleman comes calling on their father in their rundown Vicarage in Colombo. But excitement turns to shock when Lord Hawkston out of the blue asks for Dominica's hand in marriage for his twenty-four year old nephew Gerald Warren, who is running Lord Hawkston's estate in Northern Ceylon. Having discovered that Gerald, recently spurned by a previous fiancée, is drinking heavily, letting the Hawkston tea estate go to wrack and ruin and treating his native lover cruelly, Lord Hawkston is desperate to see him married and settled and so sees the intelligent and sensible Dominica as the perfect bride for him.Overwhelmed by his Lordship's generosity in giving her a glorious trousseau of pretty clothes, Dominica initially agrees, but soon she realises not only that she does not...

Rivalled only by the King's mistress, Lady Panthea Vyne was the most widely adored young beauty at the sumptuous Court of Charles II. But she could only think of the mysterious highwayman who had once saved her from a harrowing life of misery and shame - and now she learned he was under a sentence of death. Just as she despaired of ever clearing his name, she felt the full fury of the King's mistress. With all evidence pointing to her, she, Panthea, was being charged with murder! And the only way to clear herself was to betray the man she loved....

After her father dies in a riding accident, Gina Borne's mother loses the will to live and soon follows her husband to the grave. Not only is Gina grief-stricken – aged just 18, she faces a miserable, lonely life in the gloomy shadow of her pious uncle, who's known as "The Preaching Peer". Seeking escape, she successfully applies for a job as "companion" to the Earl of Ingleton's sickly seventeen-year-old ward, Lady Alice Hanbury.It seems as though the spectre of Death is still stalking her when she finds herself at the ancient Ingle Priory, haunted by the spirits of a white lady, tortured prisoners and a crying child. Even her new charge, Lady Alice, seems to be at death's door – and Gina realises that an evil housekeeper is slowly draining Alice of life with daily doses of poison. It seems too far-fetched to be true – surely the Earl, kindly as he is, will never believe her... Plagued by ghosts in the night, Gina strives to save her new friend from this slow, cold...

Since their adored father, Lord Shenley, passed away, the beautiful young Kyla Shenley and her little brother, Terry, have no one to care for them except for their despised stepmother, Sybil, who has already taken a lover and is plotting to get her greedy hands on the children's large inheritance.When Kyla overhears her plans to ensure that young Terry has a 'fatal accident' and to drug Kyla and hand her over to a ghastly old man called 'Lord Frome' to face a life of debauchery, she sees no alternative but for them both to flee as far away as possible from their appalling stepmother.Heading for Lilliecote Castle and their beloved Nanny who works there for the Earl of Granston, they are accosted by a highwayman in a wood, but he turns out to be a particularly nice 'gentleman of the road', who demands only one of their sandwiches and even offers his protection should they find themselves in dire straits.When they arrive at The Castle, Nanny suggests that...

With their beloved parents long passed away, the beautiful Angela Brooke and her brother Trevor are penniless and the upkeep of the dilapidated family Priory is all but impossible to manage. Then one day Trevor returns from London with an exciting plan, a chance for Angela to earn the princely sum of one thousand pounds, which is more than enough to solve their financial problems just by playing 'make-believe' for a very short time. The legendary George Edwardes, the impresario behind the famous and glamorous Gaiety Girls and the shows at London's Gaiety Theatre has promised that the Gaiety Girls will appear in an exclusive show at the Marquis of Vauxhall's own private theatre. The trouble is that the star of his play based on The Rake's Progress, which the Marquis himself has written to entertain his guests, has been taken ill and, afraid to disappoint the Marquis, George Edwardes is desperate for another angelic beauty to take her place. Who...

After an evening dinner with renowned French ballet dancer and beauty, Nicole de Prêt, handsome young buck about town, the Marquis of Sarne, is stirred from a deep sleep to realise that he has been drugged and then rendered unconscious.And he is in a strange bed in a strange house somewhere in London.Far worse though is the revelation that in his stupor someone has married him to some young servant girl he does not even know by his bitter enemy, Lord Kirkhampton.To avoid the likely scandal and humiliation that his predicament will bring him, he decides to take his 'bride' to his house in Grosvenor Square and there to arrange a divorce as best he can.But soon he realises that this girl was not a willing participant in Lord Kirkhampton's deceitful trick nor is she the plain servant girl he had assumed at first.In fact Romana Wardell is startlingly beautiful and attractive, remarkably intelligent and every bit as appalled by their situation...

When her father, a famous archaeologist, died, he left young Zaria Mansford with little other than debt, poverty, the memory of his bullying and a useful knowledge of archaeology and Arabic. She is close to starvation from lack of money and there is nothing that could help her make her lonely way in the world. But then to her amazement she is informed by her father's Solicitors that she has inherited her rich aunt's fortune, including a sumptuous yacht, The Enchantress. The yacht she is told has been chartered by a wealthy American for a voyage to Algeria and he needs an assistant with a knowledge of archaeology and Arabic as he intends to start excavating a Roman site close to the City of Algiers. Soon Zaria finds herself secretly taking the place of the young lady employed for the job and, after meeting in strange circumstances the handsome Chuck Tanner, who is in desperate need of her assistance and she then becomes embroiled in a maze of subterfuge and deceit. Before long...

It is almost impossible to believe, but it appears that the handsome young Italian Prince Antonio di Sogino has stolen an exquisite Florentine antique necklace from Jennie, the Marchioness of Kirkham, with whom he has enjoyed a brief dalliance on a visit to London. Distraught and terrified that her ageing husband will discover the loss of the necklace, she seeks help from her brother, Lord Mere, a military hero and a close confidant of Queen Victoria. Determined to help his sister Lord Mere travels to Florence and uncovers a sinister blackmail plot by the ugly and depraved Prince Vincente Gorizia, trapping a young beauty named Florencia into an unholy marriage. Lord Mere is struck hard by this appalling injustice and smitten in a trice by Florencia's ethereal Raphaelite beauty, as he has always admired and been enchanted by Raphael's paintings of other worldly Madonnas. Heroically he proposes to challenge her persecutor and meticulously plans his campaign to rescue Florencia...