Since his beloved wife's death, Sir Robert Royden finds it unbearable to stay at home in his ancestral Manor House and instead spends his nights drinking and gambling away the family fortune in the low spots of London, leaving his beautiful young daughter Crisa to her own devices and her adored horses.One day, after a long absence, he brings to their home an American millionaire, who wants Crisa's hand in marriage in return for a large sum of money that will keep her, the family estate and her father in comfort in perpetuity. And so poor Crisa is virtually forced into marrying him and then finds herself in a 'golden cage', trapped at the huge and ugly New York mansion of the aged Silas P. Vanderhault. When her husband dies suddenly after a stroke on the Liner to New York, she is besieged by his grasping family, who have been cut out of his will as he has left everything to Crisa.She carefully prepares her plan and then manages to make her escape from them by using a false name...

Hugo, the Duke of Wynchester enjoys many affaires de coeur and his latest lover, the beautiful but scheming and spoilt Olive Lady Brandon, is trying to blackmail him into marriage by forcing her husband to divorce her.Storming angrily from her house, Hugo finds a strange stowaway aboard his carriage. It transpires that this frail elfin beauty is none other that Janeta Brandon, Olive's step-daughter, and that she is fleeing the marriage her stepmother has arranged to an old man known to beat not only his servants and horses but also his late wife. When the Duke realises that Janeta means to kill herself rather than face a loveless marriage, he is struck by a cunning way to rescue them both by announcing their 'engagement'. They are then married in a quiet ceremony in the Duke's private Chapel.It is only when Janeta saves him from death by poisoning by the hand of her stepmother that the Duke realises that he has been in love with her from the moment he first saw her. But surely...

Lord Salwicke is a very rich but worried man. His beautiful daughter, Tasia, is already twenty years of age, which has dampened his hopes of her taking London by storm. Though not quite an old maid, he fears she may have missed her chance for wedded bliss. So he decides to take matters into his own hands and finds her a suitable husband.But Tasia is not a young lady who likes being told what to do. Headstrong and stubborn she envisages marriage to a man who loves her, not a union of convenience to a man she hasn't met.Determined to show her father the error of his ways, Tasia masquerades as a tutor and manages to obtain employment as teacher to the Earl of Linsdale's two young sons, Peter and Simon. The boys have already frightened off previous learned tutors by their bad behaviour and flat refusal to take part in lessons.Entering the Earl's home, Tasia soon learns that due to an unhappy early marriage, the Earl has set his face against all women, seeing them as...

The dashing and raffish Justin, Marquis of Veryan awakes from a drunken sleep to the appalling realisation that in the throes of passion he has proposed marriage to renowned Society beauty Lady Rose Caterham. Worse, still, she accepted and will soon be spreading word of their ‘engagement’ like wildfire throughout the Beau Monde. Fleeing to his country house on the South coast with his close friend Sir Anthony Derville, he plans to enjoy some peace and quiet well away from the hullaballoo that is sure to ensue. But no sooner than he arrives, he is robbed in his own dining room by a masked highwayman! Immediately concerned for his neighbour, Ivana Wadebridge, despite his own father’s long-standing feud with her family, he visits her to ensure that she is safe and finds himself fascinated by her demure beauty. And then he stumbles upon a maze of danger, deceit and mystery in which his family treasures, and ultimately his heart, are stolen.

When Lord Rupert Brooke and his wife are killed in an accident, their only child, Titania, was forced to live with her uncle, the Duke of Starbrooke, who had never approved of her father's marriage and did not consider her grand enough to be a member of the Starbrooke family.Titania is forced to serve her cousin Sophie as no more than a lady's maid.Sophie is to marry Prince Frederick of Velidos, a small country in the Balkans and Titania is taken with her to pander to her every whim.Titania is brokenhearted leaving behind her horse which she adores and her Nanny who is the only person who really loves her.When she reaches Velidos, the King, who is the halfbrother of Prince Frederick, finds her in tears and does his best to comfort her.Secretly Titania rides with the King early in the morning before her cousin is awake and discovers that he prides himself on having no heart.How she gains the King's confidence, how she manages to save the King from being...

"No, Papa! I cannot believe that you no longer want me here."When Marina Fullerton's beloved mother dies in a tragic riding accident, she is horrified when her father sends her away from the family home in Harley Street, saying he is unable to bear her near him.She finds herself packed off to stay with family friends in Paris, chaperoned by her faithful maid, Ellen.Soon Marina finds herself captivated by her French host's goodlooking son – but is he what he seems? And when her father's urgent telegram summons Marina back to London, fate conspires to intervene in the shape of the very handsome and charming Sir Peter Bailey.Love awaits Marina after she returns to France – but is it with whom she expects?Find out what happens in this intriguing romantic novel by BARBARA CARTLAND

When you are the sole heir of an English Lord who has made his fortune after striking oil in Texas, it is hard to know if the young men hotly pursuing you are in love with your beauty or your money. Declaring herself to be only interested in marrying a man who loves her for herself, Henrietta Radford is forced to flee Texas and return to England to escape the grasping hands of penniless fortune hunter, Prince Vasily. Beautiful, intelligent and brave, Henrietta chaperoned by her aging nanny, boards The Boston Queen bound for Liverpool under the assumed name of Harrietta Reed.Reveling in the freedom afforded by shrugging off the mantel of heiress, Henrietta quickly forms friendships with the unlikeliest of characters – and just as swiftly makes an enemy, in the shape of Lady Butterclere, a powerful society hostess intent on bettering herself and her protégé Miss Romany Foss. Entering into a pact with a talented but ruthless musician who will stop at nothing, including...

The letter from the beautiful and innocent Una Thoreau's dissolute father seems urgent when it arrives at her Convent School in Florence, where she is being taught by very protective nuns.Since he abandoned his family and went to Paris to pursue a career as a painter she has barely seen him, so in response to his request that she join him, she departs immediately. On arriving in Paris she is horrified to find that her father has died in an accident, but she is not told that he was extremely drunk at the time. She is alone in the world – an innocent abroad in a fin de siècle City of sin. Alone that is until her father's agent, the scheming Monsieur Philippe Dubucheron, takes her under his wing and introduces her to the handsome ladies man, the Duke of Wolstanton, who has just arrived to stay in his grand house in Paris in order to escape from an affaire-de-coeur in Londonthat has become too difficult for him to handle. The Duke at first assumes that Una's naïvety and...

Teresa is everything her father Sir Hubert Bryan could wish for – clever, loyal and sharp-witted. The only problem is that she was born a girl and not the son he hoped would follow in his footsteps. But Teresa sees no reason why her gender should prevent her from being an asset to him in his mighty shipping empire, and tells him so.Sir Hubert is astounded at her request – he is far more concerned that his beautiful daughter will fall prey to the scavengers and fortune hunters amongst London Society. Having made his own vast fortune the hard way he is only too aware of what men will do to have access to the kind of wealth his lovely daughter will inherit.So when his dear friend the Marquess of Walstoke begs for help to prevent his heir Harry, the Earl of Lanbourne, making a disastrous marriage to a notorious actress he sees an opportunity to help his friend, and set a test of intelligence for his daughter too.Together, the two men hatch a plot to 'save'...

Left on the verge of starvation by her dissolute father's gambling and drinking, the beautiful but resourceful young Syringa Melton is at her wits' end. Not only has their delightful Manor House and all its contents been put up for sale at auction to pay off his huge debts, but also her beloved horse, Mercury. When the rakishly handsome Earl of Rothingham overhears her sobbing to Mercury in a last desperate farewell, his heart melts for her and without Syringa's knowledge he not only buys the Manor House and Mercury but as well, through a strange misunderstanding , Syringa herself!A man determined to avoid marriage at all costs, the Earl finds himself reluctantly but irresistibly drawn to this innocent beauty who compares him to the Roman God, Jupiter, no less! But soon the conceited but enchanting Lady Elaine Wilmot, determined to snare the Earl for herself, entraps Syringa in a wicked plot that leaves the young beauty terrified and threatened in the filth of Newgate Prison,...

Intrigue and imminent danger await the young men brave enough to join 'The Great Game', the political conflict between the British and Russian Empire, and Captain David Ingle is one the bravest as he saves a Fort in India from attack, disguised as a Muslim Holy Man.Returning to Calcutta, David is congratulated by the Viceroy for service to his country, but warned that the Russian agents he thwarted now threaten his life. More importantly his grandfather, the Marquis of Inglestone, has died in an accident and the family title and estate is his.Excited at returning to England to see Ingle Hall and the lovely grounds he remembers from boyhood, he is horrified to discover that his eccentric grandfather had become a miser and allowed the estate to fall into disrepair, refusing to spend a penny on it. Even more oddly, he had withdrawn the large family fortune, in coinage, from the bank and hidden it.David finds Ingle Hall dilapidated and without any servants. The only ray...

Petula is young, breathtakingly beautiful and, after her father's death, stricken with grief and with poverty as well. The family Manor is all but falling down, she is at the mercy of her dissolute loser of an uncle, who plans to sell her off in marriage and pocket the lion's share of her dowry! Then Fate in the shape of a carriage crash brings a dashing Major to Petula's door. And so begins Petula's thrilling rollercoaster ride through the twists and turns of love.