The beautiful Princess Vasila, an orphan, who has been looked after by Baroness von Bergstein in a Grace and Favour house, is astonished when an Equerry arrives to take her to Windsor Castle to see the Queen.            She is not told until she arrives that Prince Gadelov of Saralovia, which is a small Balkan State, has appealed to Queen Victoria to give him a Royal British wife so that he can be protected from the grasping Russians.            When the Queen tells Vasila that she is to marry Prince Gadelov immediately, she is horrified and very frightened.            Without really thinking she runs away down a passage and out through a side door of The Castle. She then jumps into a parked van and its driver agrees to take her wherever she wants to go.            As they are leaving Windsor Castle, the van is stopped by Prince Gadelov arriving in an open carriage.  When she sees the man who is to marry her, she knows that she would rather die than allow him to...

Alone since the tragic death of her beloved parents, Indian-born beauty, Sita, has suffered a life of torment at the hands of her uncle, her reluctant Guardian, who despises, abuses and beats her. In despair on a voyage to Calcutta, she is on the verge of throwing herself overboard when she is saved by a handsome and mysterious stranger. Even after her saviour disappears, he seems ever-present in her thoughts and in the background of events as Sita is caught up in the political intrigue and turmoil surrounding the controversial Ilbert Bill, which aims to put Indian Judges back into the Indian Courts to sit in judgement not only on their compatriots but also on the British. Kidnapped by murderous men desperate to stop the Ilbert Bill, who say, "if your uncle wants you back, he will have to agree to kill it."Sita is locked into a cold damp cell in an ancient Fort and is desperate to escape when she is rescued by her hero, who she has sent her thoughts to that she is in desperate...

Handsome, distinguished and decidedly dashing, Theo, the Duke of Eaglefield, has the world, and most of its women, at his feet. But he takes all this attention for granted and is becoming tired and bored by it all. In fact his friend, Harry Hampton, tells him that he has no concept of the challenges and complexities faced by the ordinary man and that the people he encounters see only his riches and rank rather than the man himself.Protesting that this is untrue, Theo accepts Harry's challenge to walk the fifty miles from Brighton to his house, Eagle Hall, in Berkshire incognito and mixing with commoners along the way. He stands to lose his finest pair of horses should he fail and so he sets forth, leaving behind the glamour of Brighton's Beau Monde.The second morning of his pilgrimage, Theo comes across a beautiful young girl, Alysia, standing precariously at the edge of a deep pool next to a weir. She seems to be praying and, instinctively, he knows...

Beautiful and innocent, yet perceptive and intelligent the Rector's daughter, Odella Wayne, suspects that the local circus fortune-teller, Madame Zosina, is using her 'special powers' to hoodwink British sailors into revealing their warships' embarkation times at Portsmouth in order to pass the information on to Napoleon's spies and the French Navy is waiting to attack them at sea.This is 1814 and a year before the Battle of Waterloo when the French are Great Britain's deadliest enemies and they will stop at nothing to defeat and humiliate the British whenever they feel that they can get away with it.When Odella reports her fears to the dashing and handsome war hero, the Marquis of Midhurst, he asks her to risk her life for her country by drugging Madame Zosina and secretly taking her place in the fortune-tellers' tent at the circus.Drawn into the terrifying world of wartime espionage, Odella alone can potentially identity a French assassin on a mission to kill His Royal...

Already abandoned by her father, who long ago had left her and her mother for the gaieties and beautiful courtesans of the Second Empire in Paris, the lovely Lady Theresa Holme is lost when her beloved mother dies. She has inherited a fortune – but she finds that blessing is also a curse when her uncle and now Guardian, the new Earl of Denholme, insists that she must marry his son so that he can get his greedy fingers on her money. Her hatred of all men, inspired by her father's treachery and deceit towards her mother, is now confirmed and she flees to France accompanied only by her faithful companion, Gennie. As her mother has taught her the subtle art of French cuisine, she sets out to find work in France as a cook. By a lucky chance on the train to Paris she encounters a glamorous lady, who suggests that she tries the secretary of the Marquis de Sare. She is engaged and she and Gennie travel to the Marquis's enchanted but isolated château in the Pyrenees. Theresa...

She wasn't sad. Sad was the wrong word. Sadness did not capture the pain when a whole life had collapsed. Not sad. But broken, dazed and utterly forsaken even for misery. Home again after five years, in her quiet ancestral home in wartime England, Mona's past comes back to her in poignant, agonizing memories, memories of an ecstatic, clandestine love affair. Despite her unhappiness, Mona affects everyone with whom she comes into contact. The parson, the doctor, the landgirl and Michael the local Squire, are all changed as if ignited by a living flame.How a woman from the past threatens to destroy Mona's healing heart and expose the secret she thought was buried forever, and how through physical suffering she has a final chance of real happiness, are all told in this passionate and dramatic story by Barbara Cartland.

Relaxing in the Bohemian spa of Marienbad after a secret mission on behalf of Kind Edward VII, Ian, Lord Arkely is appalled to overhear the sound of a woman being horribly ill-treated by a man in the adjacent hotel room – that of Prince Friederich of Wilzenstein and Her Royal Highness Princess Mariska. Peering out across the shared balcony he spies the young, slim, utterly beautiful young Princess, clearly in pain.Lord Arkley is aware that the Prince has been wheelchair bound since being terribly insured in an anarchist bomb attack in which Princess has escaped injury. Clearly the paralysed Prince is taking out his resentment on the poor Princess, Lord Arkley thinks as he resolves to get to know this Princess in distress.'It is not so much that I am interested,' he tells himself, 'but extremely sorry for anyone so young and so attractive to be tied to such a brute, whatever excuses he may have for his behaviour.'Nevertheless, he is startled to receive a letter from the Princess...

The beautiful Ilesa Harle and her father, the Honourable Mark Harle, the Vicar of the village of Littlestone, are finding it difficult to 'make ends meet', owning little of value other than the run-down Vicarage that they live in and the two fine pictures by the famous painter of horses, George Stubbs, that they have inherited.The lovely Ilesa, therefore, lives a simple sheltered life with her father unlike her glamorous and worldly half-sister Doreen, who has been widowed and has inherited her husband's vast riches And Doreen aims to further her ambitious social career by marrying the dashing and aristocratic Duke of Mountheron, who curiously is a collector of George Stubbs's paintings as well.The trouble is that Doreen has been caught in the arms of one of her lovers by an unsympathetic man who is sure to tell tales to the Duke and then ruin her prospects of marrying him. Doreen begs Ilesa to cover for her and tell the Duke lies that she was at the Vicarage at the time in...

In Britain's Great Depression jobs are almost impossible to find. And the best innocent, bewildered and beautiful young Fiona can find is as a 'dance hostess' in a nightclub frequented by High Society – as well as London's seedy lowlife.Between fighting off drunken thugs, old men and lecherous Lords, she learns the harsh realities of life in this shady nocturnal world and loses her heart – hopelessly – to a man who's promised to another. And, her adventure takes her from London to Monte Carlo and back, she discovers how dangerously close to the gutter is all this 'glamour'.

Socialite and 'professional beauty', Lady Odele Ashford, is taken aback when her lover, the notorious womaniser Prince Ivan Katinouski, asks her to find him a young bride, who will give him the children he has always wanted, specifying that she must be pure and innocent and of noble English birth. At first she thinks that this will surely interfere with her own intimate relationship with the handsome and immensely rich Prince. But then inspiration strikes. Her own innocent eighteen-year-old niece, the blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful Charlotte Storr is the perfect match! When Lady Storr receives a letter demanding that Charlotte is to attend a ball at his huge Castle to meet her unwanted suitor, young Charlotte is horror-stricken because her heart already belongs to Honourable Shane O'Derry, an impoverished Irish aristocrat.Desperate to distract the attention of the Prince, Charlotte's brother Richard and Shane recruit another young beauty, a music teacher's daughter, Alana, to...

International intrigue. The terrifying threat of Russian invasion. A hurriedly arranged marriage, ordered by Queen Victoria, of a young British beauty to a Balkan Prince to prevent a Revolution orchestrated by the Russians. In a romantic adventure that resonates thrillingly today, lovely golden-haired Lady Gloria Winton is sent on a Battleship to a faraway land to marry a man she's never met and who, already, she hates intensely. But can her hate turn to love as together they flee the murderous Russians?

After her father the Earl of Cuttesdale suffers a riding injury, his lovely young daughter Lady Vilma accompanies him to Paris, where they are to stay at a friend's Rue St. Honoré home while he receives treatment from a Parisian expert. Because he is a proud man the Earl wants no one to know he is temporarily disabled – so they travel under one of their lesser-known names, calling themselves Colonel and Miss Crawshaw.To Vilma's astonishment the celebrated hotelier Cezar Ritz arrives at their door with a strange request – to borrow some of the house's chandeliers for the hotel. After agreeing to help him, Vilma soon finds herself at The Ritz, where she has an unpleasant encounter with an over-amorous French Comte – and is rescued by a dashing Englishman: the Marquis of Lynworth. Assuming that Vilma is a lowly electrician's assistant, the Marquis is nevertheless taken with her – and soon he is escorting her around Paris, introducing her to all the sights, the restaurants and...

Things had been bad enough for the inspiring and beautiful young Helga Wensley when her much-loved father died some five years ago, leaving her and her mother in penury. Recently her ailing mother too has passed away, which means that her stepfather, Sir Hector Preston, is now her Guardian. To make matters worse he promises her hand in marriage to a cruel and uncouth man called Bernard Howell, a Fate that she considers worse than dying. As her mother suggested soon before her death, Helga goes for help to her estranged Aunt Millicent, a glamorous actress from the notorious Gaiety Theatre – and her life changes forever.Putting herself forward for a 'role' paying her one thousand pounds in which she pretends to be the fiancée of the dashing Hugo, Duke of Rocklington, Helga finds herself with the most sought-after bachelor in the whole of the Social world at his fabulous country seat, Rock Castle. And, despite Aunt Millicent's firm instructions not to fall...

After the Battle of Waterloo and the subsequent Army of Occupation in France, the Earl of Monthurst returns to his ancestral home in England to find it in a very bad condition. Because labour had not been available during the war, The Hall, which goes back to Tudor times, was badly in need of repair, while the farms on his extensive estate were untenanted and the fields unploughed. Not only had all the local men been taken by the Army, but a large number had not returned. The villagers had faced near starvation and many older people had died from want of attention. The Earl had unwisely brought back with him a French Comtesse, who was very beautiful and possessive and was obviously determined that he should marry her. He had thought that he and the Comtesse could arrive quietly and remain unnoticed in his home. However, he finds the Vicar's daughter, the lovely Raina Locke, is determined to make him realise his responsibility towards his people who have suffered so acutely...

At the tender age of twenty-one, demure beauty Karina Burke looks considerably younger. Having lost her parents at an even younger age, she is beholden to her imperious Aunt Margaret and Uncle Simon, who have taken her in at their sombre mansion, Letchfield Park. Now they are insisting that Karena should marry her cousin, Cyril, and, as if the fact that she does not love him is not enough, he is also mentally deficient and repellent.With the invaluable assistance of her charming Cousin Felix, she runs away from her uncle and aunt and finds herself in the middle of the sophisticated Social world that revolves around her new employer, the immensely handsome, famous but unfriendly City magnate, Garland Holt. And, although Garland's incorrigible cousin, Jim, declares his love for her, as does the increasingly suspect Cousin Felix, Karina is aghast to discover that it is only the aloof and unreachable Garland Holt that her runaway heart desires.