Showing results for "Barbara Cartland" in Regency

When the Balkan Prince Stanislaus demanded an English bride, Queen Victoria decided to send him Lady Lavina, whose family had a slight connection with royalty. Determined to avoid this fate, Lavina threw herself on the mercy of the Marquis of Elswick, a disagreeable man who had turned his back on the world following betrayal by the woman he had loved. Surprisingly, he agreed to help by pretending to be engaged to Lavina, and, with her father, they left to visit her relatives in Scotland.

"Get away from me. As far as I am concerned, David, you are dead to me and this entire family!" The handsome Viscount Kennington has never enjoyed a good relationship with his father, the Earl, but he loves his grandparents and they love him. But when a family scandal is aired after the sudden death of the Viscount's grandfather, the Marquis, the family feud grows worse. The Viscount retreats to the huge mysterious house in Devon left to him by his grandfather.

Shana, the beautiful daughter of Lord Hallam has not yet been a debutante as she has been helping her father write his autobiography. Although retired from the Foreign Office, Lord Hallam agrees to go abroad leaving his daughter alone in the country. Before he leaves, he asks Shana to run an errand to the landlord of the village inn known as the Rose and Crown, where she finds there is a crisis in the kitchen and offers to cook luncheon for the Marquis of Kilbrooke and his shooting party.

Narina Kenwin is the only daughter of the Bishop of St. Albans and since her mother's death she has been living with her father. She is very beautiful and is happy, but when riding in the woods she wishes she had someone special with her. Narina receives a letter from her great school friend, Louise, who is married to Prince Rudolf, the Ruler of the small Principality of Alexanderburg in the Balkans. Louise begs Narina to come to stay with her immediately and is sending a Battleship to take her to Alexanderburg.

Tania, the lovely daughter of the late Lord Amesly, leaves her school in Paris and is travelling by train to Boulogne when her train crashes into another one. She is helped and befriended by a charming young Englishman - Captain Rupert More - and with him she reaches the ferry and unexpectedly meets two friends of her parents, Charles and Selina Bracebridge. Rupert becomes captivated by Tania, but since he is a soldier he may be sent away to war at any moment and cannot declare his hand.

The Marquis and Marquise de Castillon, together with their young son Jean-Pierre, were forced to flee France for England when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Jean-Pierre was educated at Eton and only returned to Paris when Napoleon came to power. It was not long before he joined Napoleon's Army, survived the Retreat from Moscow and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Whilst in hospital, he became friends with Colonel Hubert Dawlish who was in the next bed.

Queen Victoria sends for the Duke of Sherbourne and asks him to undertake a very secret mission on her behalf. It is so secret that only his loyal valet is told. The Duke agrees and it takes him to Greece. He visits King George who is the same age as he is and whom he has known in the past. He has been a great success as King, although he was only eighteen when he took over the throne and he is married to Princess Olga of Russia and they are extremely happy. The Duke envies them and, although he has been pursued by a great number of beautiful women in London, he has never yet fallen in love.

After the death of her parents, young Andrina Maldon has selflessly carried the responsibility of running a household impoverished by her father’s profligacy and also for the future happiness of her two sisters. Despite their striking looks, there is no hope of her sisters finding a suitable suitor without someone to introduce them into high society. So Andrina travels unchaperoned to London to seek the assistance of the Duke of Broxbourne, her father’s friend and the Godfather she has never met.

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.

On a hot summer’s day in 1880 the beautiful Lady Rosella is cutting a basket of blooms in her beloved Rose Garden at her aunt’s house in Hampshire. It is her seventeenth birthday and no one remembers it except for Thomas, the gardener’s boy. Later she is driven to Winchester and has an unpleasant encounter with two raucous gentlemen in the local tavern before going on to fit her first ball gown that her aunt has given her the money for just before she died. But who is the lovely masked woman she glimpses in the mirror at the dressmakers, a glorious vision clad in rose-pink silk?

The beautiful Aurora Hartnell has just left her Finishing School in Paris and returns home to Hadleigh Hall. It is Christmas Eve and she hears that an eligible bachelor, Lord Moreton, has moved into nearby Elton Hall. Aurora dreams that he is handsome, tall and exciting - until she meets him and finds that he is none of them. In no time Aurora has received an unwelcome proposal of marriage from Lord Moreton, but he appears to be strangely close to her intimidating stepmother, Lady Hartnell.

Princess Zelda of Brienz in Switzerland is being harassed by her father to marry a King or Prince of one of the small countries of Europe. Zelda is very beautiful and determined when she does marry it will be for love and only love and she cannot possibly fall in love with any of her father’s suitors. She runs away from her home to her cousin, Prince Johann II of Liechtenstein, who has always been very fond of her. She tells him that she is determined to find out the truth about a scandal that has been repeated ever since she was born.

The beautiful Alvita who had lost both her parents, was living quietly in her family home in Southern Russia. Her father had been Russian and her mother had been English. Alvita was pleased to receive a visit from her brother, Ivor, but shocked when he told her that they must leave Russia immediately, as a Revolution was inevitable and would start very soon. He had brought with him his friend, Nicholas, who said that he would help them pack up as many of their treasures as they could and make their way to England. Alvita felt a little unsure of Nicholas, but thought that perhaps she might be mistaken.

Lorena Conway has devoted most of her life to being a secretary to her father, a noted historian. Sir Arthur suddenly dies and leaves Lorena with too little money to maintain her childhood home. Wondering how she will survive, the beautiful Lorena overhears a friend of her neighbour plotting to kill the Earl of Bramfield, who has recently and unexpectedly inherited from his father and whose vast estates lie near her home. Realising that she has no option but to try and convince the Earl of the peril he is in, Lorena sets out to confront him.

The Earl of Rockhaven calls on his friend the Vicar, the Reverend Simon Wolverham, to ask if his beautiful daughter, Lucinda, will pretend to be his own daughter, Muriel, who is away in Scotland staying with her aunt. Fortunately the girls have similar looks and Lucinda could easily be taken for Muriel. The Earl explains to the Vicar that a certain Baron Schlesinger and his son, Kurt, from Germany have invited themselves to luncheon at his nearby ancestral home and are insistent that his daughter is present for the occasion.

The lovely red-haired eighteen year old Lady Viola Francis is orphaned. She and her fortune are in the power of her stepfather, the sinister Sir Rudolph Vane. Violas late father, the Earl of Galhampton, was passionately interested in motor cars and from an early age Viola worked with him on his engines. Now she wants to fulfil his ambition to build one that can be sold to the growing numbers of people keen to acquire this new and expensive form of transport. Sir Rudolph, however, has other plans for her and her fortune and wants her to marry the ineffectual Lord Carncross.

The beautiful Ilena Foringham not only helped her father, who was a senior Member of Parliament, with his speeches but she also assisted Lord Witherington with his. She had always found him a tremendous bore, but when he eventually proposed marriage to her she knew that this was something that she could not bear and that she could never be happy with him. As Ilena realised that her parents also wanted her to marry Lord Witherington, she knew that she had no option but to run away.

The dashing Duke of Selchester is on his way to visit Lord Upminster at Copple Hall when a stagecoach crashes into his own travelling carriage, buckling its wheel. Worse still, his beloved pedigree stallion, Salamanca, needs re-shoeing. Arriving on foot at the nearest village, he finds a beautiful Verena Winchcombe, who agrees to take him to the local blacksmith. It transpires that she has been awaiting the arrival of someone she calls 'the Odious Duke', who is due at Copple Hall.

The impetuous and dashing Marquis of Troon is to marry the disreputable Lady Dilys Powick against the advice of his closest friends. In celebration he arranges a steeplechase event full of prizes, but one of the guests suddenly dies from a heart attack. The Marquis is shocked to hear that he has been named in the will as the guardian of the guest’s daughter! Throw in a kidnapping, crime and a dangerous trip to London, and you will be gripped by this story.

Beautiful Lady Lucilla Welton is all alone in the world, having lost both her parents in a tragic accident. She has nowhere to go and so she stays with her cruel and distant Aunt Maud, who wants to marry her off as soon as possible. An ardent suitor is at hand – the rich Texan, Harkness Jackson – but his proposal is not one Lucilla could ever contemplate. She has already met the only man who will ever find the key to her heart – but the handsome Marquis of Castlebury is enthralled by another and for him, Lucilla seems to be no more than a casual friend.