Showing results by author "Mary Jo Putney" in All Categories

Wearied by his years as a British intelligence officer, Simon Duval resigns his commission after Napoleon’s abdication. Hoping to find new meaning in his life, he returns to England, where he discovers his cousin’s widow, Suzanne Duval, the Comtesse de Chambron. Working as a seamstress, living in reduced circumstances, Suzanne has had a life as complicated as Simon’s. While both believe they are beyond love, their sympathetic bond leads him to propose a marriage of companionship, and Suzanne accepts.

Stephen Kenyon, Duke of Ashburton, has always taken the duties of his rank seriously - until a doctor's grim diagnosis sends him running from his world of privilege. Traveling incognito, he yearns to experience life to the fullest in what time he has left. When Stephen rescues a drowning child, he is drawn into the warm embrace of the Fitzgeralds, a family theatrical troupe brimming with laughter and affection. And their enchanting, compassionate daughter, Rosalind Jordan, stirs emotions he's never known before.

London, 1816. As a Royal Navy officer, Lucas Mandeville, Lord Foxton, has fought his share of battles on the high seas, followed by long years of imprisonment. But on this night, he’d rather be on the burning deck of a ship than in a ballroom, where it is just a matter of time before someone challenges him because of what happened on the Continent. When dark-haired beauty Kyla Douglas arrives, a whisper of scandal ripples through the ton. The disgraced divorcee’s entrance is an act of daring. Which is exactly why Lucas asks her to dance....

Troth Montgomery spends most of her time disguised as a man, going by the name of Jin Kang. While working as a translator and a spy, she encounters viscount and adventurer Kyle Renbourne, and realizes that her life is about to take a significant turn. Relieved to discover the true identity of the lovely Troth, Kyle feels passion ignite and is driven to possess her. Together, they start on a dangerous quest, but fate steps in and separates the two lovers. Though haunted by despair, passion and danger, Troth becomes the woman she was destined to be.

Honed by danger and haunted by the past, Lord Michael Kenyon finds it easy to risk his life for his country’s sake. But in the shadow of Waterloo, he faces a far more dangerous threat - the loss of his heart to the beautiful battlefield nurse who saves his life yet can never be his. Called a saint for her virtue and selfless courage, only Catherine Melbourne knows the tragic flaw at the core of her spirit. Then fate offers Catherine a fortune, a title, a heritage for her daughter - if Michael will impersonate her husband on a visit to a wild Cornish island.

A sheltered life in the countryside has left Diana Lindsay restless to see the wider world, for both herself and the son she is raising alone. She cannot marry, but perhaps as a courtesan she will find love and protection despite her painful past. Gathering her courage, she moves to London - and finds herself the city's most desired woman, as admired for her charm as for her beauty. But it is one man who captivates her - handsome, haunted, and harboring a secret as deep as her own....

Emma Stone was raised a part of a large, loving aristocratic family, but after she was orphaned she became a tired, lonely governess. Then through an act of kindness, she inherits an unexpected fortune and realizes that she can now have the husband and family she craves.

A master spy with the face of a fallen angel and a darkly heroic past, Lord Robert Andreville returns to his ancestral home in Yorkshire after a dozen harrowing years spying against Napoleon. But nothing soothes his ravaged spirit until a determined young beauty sweeps into his life. Half Mohawk and all American, Maxima Collins is a wary stranger in a strange land, but she will let nothing halt her journey to London to learn the truth about her father's sudden death...not even a self-appointed guardian who is all lazy charm and dangerous skill.

Guests are arriving to celebrate Christmas at Lady Holly's ball, and at the top of each guest's wish list is a last chance to find true love before the new year. Amid the sumptuous delicacies, glittering decorations, and swell of the orchestra, every duchess and debutante, lord and lackey has a hopeful heart.

At 17, fiery Juliet Cameron fell passionately in love and married the perfect companion for the adventurous life she wanted to lead. Lord Ross Carlisle is handsome, dashing, and as eager to explore the world as she is. But social constraints and fear of an all-consuming love that threatens to engulf her independent spirit send Juliet fleeing to the distant land where she was raised as a diplomat’s child.

They called him the Demon Earl. They said he could do anything. Son of a rogue and a gypsy, Nicolas Davies was a notorious rake until a shattering betrayal left him alone and embittered in the Welsh countryside. Desperation drives quiet schoolmistress Clare Morgan to ask the Demon Earl to help save her village. Unwilling to involve himself in the problems of others, Nicholas sets an impossible price on his aid-only if Clare will live with him for three months, letting the world think the worst, will he intervene.

Quiet young Leah lives a lonely life, her greatest pleasure being to play her Celtic harp in the woods. Her music attracts the attention of Ranulf, a faery lord who yearns to claim Leah and her music, so he offers her beauty, charm, and a season in London where she can find a grand husband. When the time comes to pay him back, he'll offer three choices, and surely one of them will be easy....

After building a fortune amid the splendor and dangers of the China seas, American adventurer and Merchant Prince Gavin Elliott is sailing for London, where he intends to establish himself in the society that forced his family to leave in disgrace when Gavin was only a child. But fate intervenes on an infamous island in the East Indies when he tries to save a European woman being sold at a slave auction. By the sultan’s decree, the woman can only be freed if Gavin wins her by enduring an ancient tribal challenge that may cost him his life.

From New York Times best-selling author Mary Jo Putney - a classic love story that has become one of her most beloved and acclaimed historical romances.

A cool master of sensuality, Rafael Whitbourne, the Duke of Candover, earned his rakish reputation in the silken boudoirs of London’s highborn ladies, never giving away his hand or his heart. Then a vital mission for his government takes Rafe to Paris to work with the Countess Madga Janos, “the most beautiful spy in Europe”. He is appalled to discover that the smoky eyed temptress is no Hungarian countess, but the deceitful doxie who betrayed him a dozen years earlier - the only woman he ever loved, and the only one he’s ever despised.

Tired of dealing with legalities relating to his father's unexpected death, new baronet Sir Philip Selbourne is ready to leave London and head home for Christmas. But having spent a boyhood rescuing strays, he's unable to resist helping a desperate young woman with speaking brown eyes and a kitten in her pocket.

Spirited and beautiful, Antonia Thornton is a baroness in her own right. Her companion and best friend is Judith Winslow, a quiet intellectual with a love of natural philosophy. Then, Antonia's childhood friend, Adam Yorke, returns from India and brings his friend, the outrageously handsome Simon, Lord Launceston.

James owns a shipping fleet and half a London gaming house and is a ruthlessly effective spymaster. He is seldom self-indulgent...except when it comes to the indomitable beauty who was once his wife. Laurel gave James her heart - until she saw him perform an act of shocking violence before her very eyes. That night she left her husband. Now, 10 years later, a chance encounter turns passionate, with consequences that cannot be ignored. They must face common enemies and a very uncommon love.

James Markland, Lord Falconer, knows that he is ugly, very ugly, and he lives a life of seclusion, wearing a heavily cowled mantle to conceal his face from the world. When he learns that a neighboring girl, the exquisite, young Ariel Hawthorne, is about to be sold into marriage with a revolting lecher, he offers her the only protection he can: his name. Of course it will be a marriage in name only, because what woman could want him? A talented artist, Ariel is cursed by her beauty and vulnerability. Though she never sees her husband's face, she is drawn to his kindness and generosity.

A sense of duty sends Bran Tremayne to Cornwall to confront his heritage of British nobility. Abandoned at birth, Bran wants nothing to do with the embittered remains of his family. But as a special agent for the Home Office, he senses trouble brewing along the coast. And he can't turn away from the vulnerable woman he encounters in the Cornish countryside. Merryn's amnesia makes her past a mystery to them both, but with her life in danger, the only thing Bran knows for sure is that the beautiful stranger needs his protection.