Showing results by author "Mary Lancaster" in All Categories

Love at first smile… Charmingly wicked, Johnny Winter has spent his adulthood drifting from scandal to scandal. However, inheriting the dukedom of Dearham has him considering his responsibilities, one of which is to right the wrong done to a distant cousin twenty years ago. His search takes him to Maida Pleasure Gardens, where he is distracted by an unusual and intriguing beauty.

Thief or gentleman, he is uniquely dangerous! Governess Matty Mather has grown to love her pupils of the Dove family. When a borrowed ring is stolen from Catherine Dove and her friend, now in their first London Season, the redoubtable Matty goes alone to Maida Pleasure Gardens to confront the thief – who turns out to be outrageous, charming and utterly mysterious.

Orphan Gillie Muir makes ends meet by holding genteel card parties for friends and visitors to the newly fashionable spa town of Blackhaven. But when Lord Wickenden, known as the wicked baron, makes her a shocking proposal, her world is turned upside down.   

Newly widowed, wicked Kate Crowmore is in trouble. Scandal has broken over her head, and someone is trying to kill her. When she seeks refuge in Blackhaven, she doesn't expect a clergyman to be the solution to both these problems. Tristram Grant is not just any clergyman. The cast-off, illegitimate son of an earl, and a one-time army officer of great promise, the charismatic new curate is making his mark in Blackhaven. As soon as he sees the beautiful, defiant Kate, he sets his heart on her. And he is used to achieving his goals. 

There can only be one reason for the proud duke of Alvan’s proposed visit to Audley Park. He means to offer himself for Lord Overton’s beautiful daughter Thomasina, thus saving the family’s waning fortune. In the midst of the hectic preparations for his arrival, Overton’s least marriageable daughter Charlotte remembers to collect her younger brothers from school for the holidays.

Rebecca, Lady Cornish, is lonely. She comes to Maida Pleasure Gardens, masked and alone, just to feel part of a world that still dances and laughs. But she repels all company – until the mysterious Ludovic Dunne refuses to be dismissed. Intrigued and unwillingly attracted, Rebecca begins to wonder if he might become a friend.

Ruined and abandoned by her betrothed, Lady Juliet has no choice but to take the stagecoach home to her family in Yorkshire. Fortunately, she is protected on the journey by a handsome and amusing self-styled “wastrel”. Daniel Stewart - together with his enormous, unruly mongrel dog - is reluctantly answering a summons to his grandfather’s deathbed. But instead of the prodigal’s traditional fatted calf, he is presented with the miserly baron’s temper and a parcel of resentful relatives. Juliet faces recrimination and isolation in her own home.

At 28, Lady Arabella Niven is gentle, sickly, and firmly on the shelf. Having disobliged her father by refusing her last chance of marriage, she has been sent in disgrace to Blackhaven with two domineering aunts. Her one wish is to be left alone in a quiet cottage to write books on history. However, everything changes when she tries to rescue a naked man apparently drowning at sea. Thus begins an odd, fun friendship that quickly becomes passionate. For Captain Alban, the hero with a shady past, is rebellious and unconventional by nature.   

Eager to outshine her older sisters, Henrietta Maybury is disappointed to discover the first man to make her heart race is the scion of a banking family, and therefore quite ineligible as a husband to a viscount’s daughter. But as it turns out, Captain Sydney Cromarty is even less marriageable than she first imagined. For beneath his respectable facade, he’s a notorious smuggler – as Henrietta discovers during a reckless evening at the Hart Inn. And the more she learns, the more he fascinates her.

Escaping to Maida Pleasure Gardens for an evening of anonymous moonlight waltzing is bliss for Viola Dove, compared to the strained formality of her first London Season. But the excitement reaches fever pitch when an escaped convict is pursued through the gardens – wounded and in desperate need of help. So, of course, Viola hides him in her family’s cellar. Lord Dominic Gorse, the rakehell son of a marquis, is ill-suited to confinement, whether in Newgate or a surprisingly comfortable cellar, cared for by the beautiful, intriguing Viola, a parcel of lively children, and a very large puppy.

Two years ago, the charismatic young Earl of Wenning abandoned his bride on their wedding night, leaving her to face the humiliation and inevitable suspicion of guilt alone, while he pursued his diplomatic ambitions abroad. But the resilient Grace refused to crumble. Setting aside her bewildered grief, she has become a fashionable socialite living on the edge of scandal, surrounded by male admirers. Now, she awaits her husband’s return with a little revenge in mind.

Hazel is ruined. With no money, no near family, and the stagecoach to her old governess’s home vanishing into the distance, she is forced to accept the help of the one man she never wished to set eyes on again. To Hazel, the handsome and respected diplomat Sir Joseph Sayle is an infamous rake who took advantage of the princess she served. She hates his arrogance as much as his inexplicable effect on her senses. Under normal circumstances she would never have dreamed of setting foot in his curricle, least of all when he was, by his own admission, “not entirely sober” after a night’s carousing.

Lady Cecily, a daughter of a duke, has a habit of getting into trouble. Perhaps it’s her natural curiosity or maybe, she likes excitement, especially where the notorious Lord Verne is concerned. When she’s mistaken for a hussy at the Hart Inn — by every fault of her own — staring at the handsome lord through a partially opened door in a private parlor and watching him out of her chamber window in the middle of the night — is it any surprise he abducts her? Of course, she foolishly imagines her rank and her identity are enough to protect her.

Lady Alba Snowden lost her first love when she was 17. Since then, no man has touched her heart - until the summer she encounters wild, fun-loving Russian Prince Yuri Volkov, who is visiting London with the tsar. Dazzled by Alba’s beauty, Yuri follows her to her country home, determined to melt her frozen heart. In the process, he helps her family out of several scrapes and falls in love. But summer is not their time, and Alba and Yuri separate over misunderstandings and the ill will of others.