The Eternal Collection
Скачать книги из серии The Eternal CollectionA Magical Moment
The beautiful Lencia is the image of her dear departed Mama and so is still the apple of the eye of her widowed father, the Earl of Armeron. Knowing how deeply Lencia and her younger sister, Alice, are missing their mother, their father promises to take them to see the fabulous historic Châteaux of the Loire Valley in France of which the most exciting and impressive of all is Château Chaumont. But to their chagrin, their hopes are totally dashed when the Earl returns from a trip to the South of France with a new wife on his arm, a stepmother who sees Lencia's beauty as distinct competition for her husband's attention and so she becomes increasingly hostile to the two sisters. Nevertheless the sisters have their hearts set on their French adventure and set off in secret, Lencia disguised in her late mother's clothes and her make-up to look like an older Society lady who is chaperoning the young Alice. By sheer chance they happen to meet on their journey the dashingly handsome Duc de Montrichard, the Guardian of Château Chaumont, who on an impulse invites them to stay with him in his own sublime Château! And soon, while Alice's heart is fit to burst with excitement as they start to explore his Fairytale world, Lencia's is becoming filled with love for the dashing Duc. But, tragically, it seems that her love is doomed since it is based on deceit!
Look with the Heart
After their family mansion burns to the ground, the lovely Erlina Sherwood and her little brother, the 6th Baronet of Sherwood go to the neighbouring estate to ask if they can stay at Meldon Hall. It is just about the only habitable residence in the village left after the Marquis of Meldon on inheriting the family seat disavowed the place and everyone in or near it. Because of his neglect, the Hall has fallen into disrepair – and since local workers and even the Vicar haven't been paid most of the local houses are falling down and most of the villagers have left the area in despair. Expecting only to find the Hall's caretaker in residence, Erlina is taken aback to find a strange man sitting alone in the darkness of the shuttered drawing room – Soon she is discover why the embittered and blind «Wicked Marquis» has so cruelly neglected his people and property. Meeting his greedy, unscrupulous cousin and his beautiful lover, she also realises there are people in the world who far more wicked than the Marquis, with whom she is falling in love.
Helga in Hiding
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 in love with the Duke, Helga is smitten and finds that playing the part of the lovestruck fiancée requires no acting at all. But all that changes when by chance Helga again meets the dreaded Bernard Howell, who pursues her brandishing his horse whip and she races back to Rock Castle to the Duke to save her –
Love has his way
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 as he is. Then the more that the reluctant newlyweds become acquainted, the less the urgency they feel to put this forced 'marriage' to an early end. Perhaps after all she has the makings of a Marchioness of Sarne!
Imperial Splendour
In St. Petersburg on a mission to glean intelligence for the Prime Minister on the likely intentions of Czar Alexander with regard to the ongoing war in which both Russia and the UK are at war with Napoleon's France, the dashing and eminently eligible bachelor Duke of Welminster is beset by diplomatic problems. The War aside, there is the issue the Princess who is pressing upon him the attractions of her daughter Tania. At thirty-three, the handsome Duke has vowed never to marry but has no choice but to agree to meet the young woman. But when he does, he finds Tania dancing with another young girl called Zoia. This other girl seems to him 'as if she moves amongst trees covered with blossom and the whole world awakens with spring'. Instantly he is entranced. Then when he discovers she is the daughter of famous French composer Pierre Vallon and she plays for him, he is utterly smitten. But after he suffers a near-fatal injury and Zoia and her father are forced to flee the city or die, it seems that love is doomed by War.
This Is Love
When her chaise is damaged in an accident far from her home, the beautiful young Lady Athina Ling has no choice but to stay at a nearby Posting inn while awaiting its repair. There she is appalled to hear the pitiful screams of a young boy who is being savagely beaten by the 'gentleman' who appears to be his Guardian. After bravely going to the child's rescue, Athina discovers that he is Peter, the nephew of the handsome Marquis of Rockingdale whose estate neighbours her own and that he, Peter, is the heir to a very considerable fortune. Seeing the child's horrific wounds, the Marquis agrees to help Athina protect and look after him – but he also needs her help with a great problem of his own. Namely that he must become engaged to be married before Queen Victoria will allow him to take up the important position of State he craves of the Master of the Horse. Which the Marquis is superbly qualified to excel at as he has been closely involved with the breeding and training of horses all his life. So to help protect the boy, Athina agrees to a pretend engagement to the Marquis to satisfy the demands of the Queen. But the threat is far worse than either of them could ever have imagined. As they strive together to save the boy from his murderous stepfather, they begin to realise that their engagement is no longer a pretence and that, in fact, this is love!
Never Forget Love
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 that the whole family joins his house party at his magnificent stately house, Lyn, which is not too far away. There Nerissa discovers the secret curse of the Lynchester Dukes that they will never be happy once they inherit the title and then, through her special perspicacity and a vivid dream, when she talks to the ghost of a long dead Duchess, she puts the curse to rest. The Duke's heart is now set forever on Nerissa and he risks life itself and their future happiness in a cunning but perilous gamble when both of their hearts are at stake.
Love at The Ritz
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 sophisticated society. And although the handsome Marquis has all London's Society ladies, not to mention the Cocottes of Paris, at his feet – and despite the fact that his mother has promised his hand in marriage to Princess Helgie of Whitenberg – he finds himself bewitched with Vilma. For her part, she too is deeply in love – but how can she tell him now that everything he knows about her is a lie?
Love comes to the Castle
The brooding and haughty, handsome yet strangely haunted Earl, Lord of all he surveys in an ancient Lincolnshire castle with its dungeons, priest holes and dark secrets…
The forlorn young beauty, grief-stricken and alone in an exotic flower-filled villa in sun-kissed Sorrento…
274. Good or Bad
After their beloved Mama passed away, Amalita and Carolyn's father, Sir Frederick Maulpin, could not bear living in the family home that reminded him so painfully of her. So he left his daughters behind for Paris, perhaps hoping to rediscover the raffish man-about-town he once was. To the girls' chagrin, he immediately fell in love with and married a Frenchwoman called 'Yvette', whom his daughters considered vulgar and quite unsuitable for their adored Papa. Now, to their horror, they receive a letter informing them that their father and Yvette have drowned in a yachting accident in Nice. Not only have they lost their parents, now eighteen-year-old Carolyn has no one to present her to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and chaperone her at debutante balls on which all her hopes are pinned. But her elder sister, Amalita, has a plan – A letter to her father's old friend, the Marquis of Garlestone, secures an invitation to stay in exalted company, where Amalita, dressed as a far more mature woman, chaperones Carolyn in the guise of their stepmother, whom no one in London had ever met. And so their charade begins as, meeting the Marquis's dashingly handsome son, the Earl of Garle, and his cousin, Timothy, they both become love-struck, but also hopelessly out of their depth and confounded by their own deceit –