Called home from his Regiment in Calcutta after having inherited the title of the Third Duke of Invercaron on the death of his uncle, Talbot McCaron is dismayed to find not only that his highland estate is all but bankrupt but also that his family seems determined to marry him off to Lady Jane Dalbeth from the neighbouring Macbeth Clan. He soon understands the reason why, when he is informed that Lady Jane has inherited a vast fortune from her American Godmother. Strolling in the grounds of his new domain, he comes across a thin half-starved yet bewitchingly beautiful young waif who appears intent on drowning herself in a torrential cascade he cannot understand. With some difficulty in persuading her not to commit suicide, the Duke takes Giovanna, for that is her name, secretly under his wing and patiently waits to hear the reason for her desperation and terror. What he eventually discovers is a Devilish Deception – an extraordinarily wicked plot – that almost...

Still in mourning after the death of her father, Colonel Wallace, in a battle in India, the beautiful young Vina Wallace is astonished to receive news that not only had her heroic father saved the Maharajah of Kulhapur's life, but also that the Maharajah has died and left jewels worth a small fortune to her dead father.And now, as her father's only child, the jewels are hers.Vina is being looked after by her uncle and aunt and her aunt has grand ideas of shining in higher Society and being invited to parties at ancestral homes and by Queen Victoria to Windsor Castle.Unknown to Vina the news of her newly acquired fortune reaches the ears of the Duke of Quarington and his penniless brother Lord Edgar, who is desperate to find a way to repay his vast debts as the Duke is refusing to bail him out yet again.Fearing Vina will fall victim to fortune-hunters, her aunt and uncle plan to offer her hand in marriage to the dissolute Lord Edgar – an admirable solution to...

The Earl of Cariston is faced with insuperable problems as he has completely run out of money. He has sold everything on his estate that he can, but even so there is nothing he can do to support those who rely on him and they are on the verge of starvation.In desperation he calls into his Club to find an old friend, Lord Shield, and tells him all his woes. Lord Shield is in a bad way himself, but does suggest that he visits a certain Mr. Randon who is temporarily in London and beg for his help. Mr. Randon has made a fortune in America and used to be a good friend of the Earl's father.The Earl goes off in some trepidation to a hotel to meet Mr. Randon, who is very ill and on the verge of dying.He tells him his sad story and is astonished when Mr. Randon makes him a most extraordinary proposition.If he will agree to marry his daughter, Kristina, at eleven o'clock the next morning, the Earl will receive a very large sum to rescue and restore his estate!The Earl has no...

Protected by loving parents, young, beautiful and happy, Lady Ravina Ashley has the world at her feet. Unused to harsh words, she is taken aback when a stranger at a ball in London takes her to task for her behaviour towards a clumsy suitor.But Ravina hopes that one day she will fall madly passionately in love and refuses to think of marriage to anyone until then.With her parents away in the Balkans, Ravina leaves London to stay with her cousin, Dulcie, at Curbishley Hall, the Ashley estate in Dorset. She is travelling with Sir Michael Moore, who has begged a lift in her carriage to his home a few miles away from hers.To Ravina's surprise on the journey she once again meets the man who felt he had the right to criticise her behaviour – Sir Richard Crawford!Sir Michael's attentions, however, are far more complimentary and Ravina's belief in her own judgement of men cannot be shaken.What will happen when Sir Richard is forced to ask Ravina for hospitality at...

Samantha Clyde, the beautiful, and dutiful daughter of the ailing Vicar of Little Poolbrook in Worcestershire , lives a cosy sheltered life attending to her father's needs and helping out with the Church bazaar at The Castle her impoverished family once owned.Her world is turned upside down when celebrated fashion photographer, Giles Bariatinsky, is very struck by Samantha's enigmatic and unusual beauty and whisks her off to a glamorous new life as a model of haute couture in London.Bewildered and intimidated by London Society's decadence, she meets the dashing firebrand novelist David Durham, experiences her first ever kiss and loses her heart utterly in an instant.Almost as quickly, all her hopes and dreams are dashed when the man she loves despises her naivety. And since no other man will ever take David's place in her heart, Samantha takes refuge in a Convent, resolving to become the sophisticated woman of the world that she imagines David Durham desires –

There is nothing for it – we will have marry for money!The Strathcarrons have lived in splendour in Lednock Castle in Scotland for many generations, but the family fall on hard times when their fortunes become depleted.An American guest, Larry Harwood, comes to stay and persuades the Earl of Strathcarron to travel to New York with him to make his fortune, leaving his wife, his son, Ewen and daughter, Moira, to the mercies of fate.Six months later the Earl returns a broken man, having lost the entire estate to the American's creditors.Ewen and Moira hatch a desperate plan to save the castle and their very inheritance from the clutches of the American bank.They realise that their only recourse is to make good marriages into wealthy families with the hope that they can bail out their father. They head for London, and its glittering social scene with the express purpose of not returning to Scotland until they have both found suitable spouses.But things do...

Notorious throughout the Beau Monde as something of a Casanova, the dashing and raffish Virgo, Marquis of Fane, cares little for the swooning Society beauties who fall at his feet.His true passion is for his racehorses and for art – and it is love at first sight when he sets eyes on a painting of the Madonna entitled The Virgin of the Lilies.But while investigating the painting's dubious provenance the Marquis encounters Cyrilla, the shy and beautiful daughter of the artist and is instantly, utterly bewitched.Soon their two hearts beat as one and their love seems Heaven sent."My darling, you are not only divine and ethereal, but also human," the Marquis exclaims. "Let me take you away – find a house – we will be alone!"But the Fate that brought them together seems bent on tearing them apart when Cyrilla realises no that matter how deep her love, she cannot do what he asks.

Impoverished and lonely but contented enough to live with her much-loved Nanny in the now-empty family home, shy, unworldly Pandia sorely misses her recently deceased father – the handsome Hungarian scholar and writer.When Selene, the capricious twin sister, who abandoned them years before, appears out of the blue Pandia is amazed, then appalled when Selene announces she's told the Social world that Pandia is dead! She then demands that Pandia impersonates her at a family funeral to cover for Selene's illicit tryst with her lover!Pandia reluctantly agrees and at the Church meets the dashing Lord Silvester Stone, a famous explorer and writer who ignites the 'fire in the blood' she inherited from her father.The passion between them is instant and electric. Pandia knows now that she will love Silvester forever – but how can she tell him that she is not who he thinks she is? Or that they can never ever meet again?

After years of caring for her ailing father, the Earl of Medwin, the ethereally beautiful young Lady Ancella Winn is pale, drawn and exhausted now that he has died and she is devastated. Worse still, she has nowhere to go, except for the home of her strait-laced and disapproving aunts. So when family friend and doctor, Sir Felix Johnson, suggests that it would be good for her health to travel to the French Riviera to work as the nurse-companion to an ageing Russian Princess, she nervously agrees. Although her new employer is difficult and demanding, Ancella is bewitched, first by the beauty of the Côte d'Azur and then by the Princess's ineffably handsome son, Prince Vladimer. Caught up in the glamour of the Monte Carlo Casino, the den of iniquity against which her aunts had warned her in no uncertain terms, it seems that she has won the Prince's heart as the feckless aristocrats around her lose fortunes at Roulette and Baccarat. But then to her horror her hopes of the love she has...

Michael, the Earl of Danesbury was being hounded to marry Lady Alice Randall, a woman he did not love. Even the Prince of Wales was determined to force him into marriage.Michael fled to his dilapidated ancestral castle for the first time since inheriting his title. There he heard a girl singing and fell in love.She was Bettina, daughter of an eccentric Major, a genius with gardens plants and herbs.Determined to put the castle gardens in good order, Michael hired the Major and found himself becoming more and more enchanted with Bettina.But Lady Alice came in hot pursuit, determined to use her powerful connections to snare him. His only hope was to enlist Bettina's help.Together they took an extraordinary gamble, one that could only succeed if it was protected by love.How love found the way to defeat Royalty and all its powers is told in this intriguing romance by BARBARA CARTLAND.

The handsome and eligible Prince Ivan of Rusitania urgently needs to find a bride who is very young, very pretty and very rich.His cousin, Prince Peter of neighbouring Voskia, is determined to prevent him marrying as he intends to inherit Rusitania. He needs revenge on Ivan.Peter invaded Rusitania hoping for a quick victory, instead he suffered a disastrous defeat.Danger follows Ivan from Rusitania to Paris and then to London, where he meets Lady Cecilia Beaumont, who undertakes to help him find a suitable bride.Almost-on-the-shelf, Cecilia is intelligent, stylish and very wealthy. Wary of suitors after her fortune, she has given up on marriage and devotes herself both to her father, the Earl of Yarlington and the clinic she has founded to help the poor of London.Soon Cecilia finds her life threatened and her heart captured.Then she meets Peter's and Ivan's ex-mistress, the voluptuous Countess Natasha. Neither is what they seem on first sight.What happens...

After her father's heroic death through the treachery of a Russian femme fatale, young Solita found herself in the care of her 'Aunt' Mildred in Italy – the cousin of her father's comrade in arms Hugo Leigh.On Aunt Mildred's death, a destitute, angry and hurt Solita travels to England to confront her errant Guardian, now Duke of Calverleigh, who had vowed to care for her but apparently neglected his duty for ten long years.It is true, he had forgotten her – largely thanks to his all-consuming infatuation with a beautiful Russian Princess. The chastened Duke determines to take Solita under his protective wing – and, as his charm and kindness dissolve her resentment, Solita's acute intuition and talent for language soon expose the wicked Princess's plot to overthrow the British Raj in India.In this well woven tale of intrigue, Solita and her Guardian are both in mortal danger – and when she saves the Duke's life, not once but twice, he sees this...

Can you fall in love with someone before you meet them? Valona, the eighteenyearold daughter of the deposed Prince of Piracus believes she can. Beautiful, spiritual and aching for adventure Valona is convinced that the perfect man exists because she has seen him in her dreams; all she has to do is find him. Valona is excited when she is asked by her wealthy relation the Duke of Inchcombe to become LadyinWaiting to his sister Lady Rose. Together they will travel to the Balkans, where Lady Rose is to make a politically astute marriage at the request of Queen Victoria. Having lived in impoverished seclusion all her life Valona believes that her dreams of travel are finally coming true.However, after helping star crossed lovers Lady Rose and the Marquis of Dorsham find true happiness it seems that it is Valona's dreams of romance that will be shattered. With no royal bride to offer the elderly King, it seems the only way to save Larissa from the threat of the encroaching Russian...

The beautiful Ariana Dancer is orphaned and has led a cheerless life in London with her disagreeable Guardian, Uncle Konstantin Bardici. He has shown little interest in his niece and she has been left very much to her own devices. One day Uncle Konstantin suggests that Ariana marry an Albanian Prince – one who is seeking an English wife and who claims to have fallen in love with her portrait – and it does not take much to persuade her to agree. Even before she sets out for Albania, she begins to dream of romance and her lonely heart ensures that she quickly fancies herself in love with a man she has never seen. She is sure in her heart that she will find everlasting happiness with Prince Stefan of Dukka in the depths of Albania.!But the journey she must take to fulfil her dreams is longer and more treacherous than she could ever have imagined. When she and her hapless maid are kidnapped en route to Castle Dukka by brigands, the rosy future she dreamed of becomes...

For years Celina Storton had been in love with Robin, the Earl of Torrington, but he spent his time in Paris, pursuing beautiful women and the more the merrier.Then his mother's illness forced him to return to England, where she demanded that he marry quickly, as she had not long to live.She had chosen his bride for him – Celina.He was horrified by this threat to his liberty, but since Celina was an old friend and as he loved his mother, he agreed.Only when the wedding was over did his mother reveal that she was not as ill as she had seemed.Furious at the way he had been tricked into marriage, Robin turned on his wife, certain that she must have been party to the deception. But Celina was innocent and became angry at his accusations. She was ready to walk out on him, but then she discovered that his tenants had been illtreated during his long absences in Paris.She set out to improve their lives, and became so determined to achieve this end that she almost forgot her...