The Unknown Ajax

Sir Waldo Hawkridge, wealthy, handsome, eligible, illustrious, and known as The Nonesuch for his athletic prowess, believes he is past the age of falling in love. But when he comes north to inspect his unusual inheritance at Broom Hall in the West Riding, his arrival leads to the most entertaining of ramifications.

When Gervase Frant, 7th Earl of St Erth, returns at last from Waterloo to his family seat at Stanyon, he enjoys a less than welcome homecoming.

Set in the Regency period, this is a classic tale of misunderstood love and an arranged marriage.

He had nothing to recommend him but his smile, and she was surely too old, and had too much commonsense, to be beguiled by a smile... Miss Abigail Wendover's efforts to detach her spirited niece Fanny from a plausible fortune-hunter are complicated by the arrival in Bath of Miles Caverleigh. The black sheep of his family, a cynical, outrageous care-for-naught with a scandalous past - that would be a connection more shocking even than Fanny's unwise liaison with his nephew!

Rich and handsome, the hope of ambitious mothers and despair of his sisters, the Marquis of Alverstoke sees no reason to put himself out for anyone. But when a distant connection applies to him for help, he finds himself far from bored.

Resourceful, adventurous and utterly indefatigable, Sophy is hardly the mild-mannered girl that the Rivenhalls expect when they agree to take her in. Kind-hearted Aunt Lizzy is shocked; stern Cousin Charles and his humorless fiancée Eugenia are disapproving.With her inimitable mixture of exuberance and grace Sophy soon sets about endearing herself to her family, but finds herself increasingly drawn to her cousin. Can she really be falling in love with him, and he with her? And what of his betrothal to Eugenia?

The legend of the Headless Horseman and a proposed marriage de convenance both have their impact on the mystery of a golden talisman ring and Lord Lavenham's young heir, Ludovic. Neither Sir Tristram Shield nor Eustacie, his young French cousin, share the slightest inclination to marry one another, yet it is Lord Lavenham's dying wish. For there is no one else to provide for the old man's granddaughter while Ludovic remains a fugitive from justice...

Society believes the worst of Justin Alastair, the notorious Duke of Avon who is clearly proud of his Sobriquet, Satanas. It is he who buys Leon body and soul from a scoundrel in a Paris backstreet.

Penniless Elinor is rather surprised at the carriage that meets her from the stage, and more so at the decayed grandeur of the house to which she's transported. Realising that there has been a case of mistaken identity she agrees to an audacious plan.

Venetia Lanyon, beautiful, intelligent and independent, lives in comfortable seclusion in rural Yorkshire with her precocious brother Aubrey. Her future seems safe and predictable: Either marriage to the respectable but dull Edward Yardley, or a life of peaceful spinsterhood. But when she meets the dashing, dangerous rake Lord Damerel, her well-ordered life is turned upside down, and she embarks upon a relationship with him that scandalizes and horrifies the whole community. Has she found her soul mate, or is she playing with fire?

When Sylvester, the Duke of Salford, first meets Phoebe Marlow, he finds her dull and insipid. She thinks he is insufferably arrogant. But when a series of unforeseen events leads them to be stranded together in a lonely country inn, they are both forced to reassess their hastily formed opinions, and they begin to discover a new-found liking and respect for each other. But what Sylvester doesn’t know is that Phoebe is about to publish a novel - a novel in which all London will recognize him as the villainous ‘Count Ugolino’

When Arabella first arrives in London, she has only one mission: to snare a rich husband. With a mind to beat the competition, she pretends to be a rich heiress and soon finds herself the talk of the town, pursued by the most eligible bachelors in the city. But she has her sights on one man only: the much-hunted Mr Beaumaris. Our feisty heroine puts up a fight and deals the worldly-wise Beaumaris a deft hand in the game of love; at first grudgingly charmed, he soon becomes smitten.

Captain John Staple’s exploits in the Peninsula had earned him the sobriquet Crazy Jack amongst his fellows in the Dragoon Guards. Now home from Waterloo, life in peacetime is rather dull for the adventure-loving Captain. But when he finds himself lost at an unmanned toll-house in the Pennines, his soldiering days suddenly pale away beside an adventure - and romance - of a lifetime.

The honourable Christopher Fancot, on leave from the Diplomatic Service in the summer of 1817, is startled to find his entrancing but incorrigibly extravagant mother on the brink of financial and social ruin - and more than alarmed that his identical twin, Evelyn, Earl of Denville, has disappeared without trace. Christopher, or Kit, the respectable brother, is forced into an outrageous masquerade by his wayward family's tangled affairs. But in the face of Evelyn's continued absence, even Kit's ingenuity is stretched to the limit.

It is in regrettable circumstances that beautiful Judith Taverner and her brother Peregrine first meet Julian St John Audley. The man, they both agree, is an insufferably arrogant dandy. But unfortunately for them, he's also the Fifth Earl of Worth, a friend of the Regent and, their legal guardian.