Showing results by narrator "Anthony Wren" in All Categories

Michael Belmont is heir to an Earldom, but he is also the family black sheep, a charming gambler leading a dissolute life in France. He has quarrelled with his father, who has threatened to disinherit him. When he reads in a newspaper that his father has died, he does not even have enough money for his fare home. But then he meets the beautiful young Lady Verna, seeking a chauffeur to drive her car home to England. Michael volunteers and while they are on the journey he falls under her spell.

Venetia was very lonely after the death of her parents. So when her cousin Mary begged her to help to save her from a forced marriage, Venetia was ready. Mary was in love with another man and expecting his child. Yet the Queen wanted her to marry the Earl of Mountwood at a moment's notice and go with him to India. A reckless impulse made Venetia promise to take Mary's place at the altar. She would worry about the consequences later.

When Rosina's dear friend leapt to her death after the man she loved betrayed her, she vowed vengeance on all men. Rosina declared that no man could be trusted, including Sir John Crosby, Member of Parliament, whom she had secretly loved since girlhood. Now a debutante, she found herself caught up in a whirl of social activity. An election was imminent and her father, Sir Elroy Clarendon, was favoured to be made a government Minister.

The Marquis of Wynstanton had become involved with one of the beauties of London Society - Locadi, Lady Marshall and when her husband died unexpectedly, the Marquis set out on a long journey to India and Nepal, as he wished to avoid any gossip arising about their liaison. After his return, he resumed the affair, staying on in London for some time when he should have gone straight to Wyn Castle and his country estate. Then he began to suspect that Locadi was using black magic to entice him to her and to induce him to propose marriage.

Charles, Lord Hartley, was at his wits end. He had spent a fortune on his cousin John, and still the embittered John demanded more money. Charles knew he needed an heiress and he became swiftley attracted to Cliona, who had recently moved in to the neighbourhood. He did not know that she was an heiress. When he found out, he felt there was no way that he could approach her with honour. But Cliona, a spirited girl, had her own ideas.

Returning from finishing school in France, Louisa Hatton was full of enthusiasm for the life ahead. She was convinced it would be exciting and romantic. But her parents had already planned a very suitable marriage for her to Lord Westbridge, their new neighbour. He was a cold, hard man and he wanted Louisa despite her protests. Her parents would not support her. Her father owed Lord Westbridge money.

"How could you, Mama? Papa has not even been dead a year!" When the beautiful Lucia Mountford's mother remarries less than a year after her father's death on the Titanic, she is shocked when the family's fortunes suddenly go into rapid decline and her mother becomes ill. Deeply in debt, her stepfather borrows a considerable sum of money from the handsome but roguish Lord Winterton.

Viola Brookfield has not a care in the world until the awful day when her parents are tragically killed in a road accident, leaving her all alone in the world. So when her Aunt Mary, Lady Wakefield, writes to invite her to come and live with her in India, Viola decides to accept. But when she arrives, she finds a country fraught with unexpected dangers and that her uncle, Lord Wakefield, behaves as if she is not welcome. Viola's life is further complicated when she meets the handsome but enigmatic Earl of Devonport.

The beautiful Vanessa Shotworth was being made extremely unhappy at the way she was being treated by her stepmother while her beloved father was away in India with his Regiment. When she was late for breakfast because she had been out riding on a lovely summer’s morning, she was humiliated by her stepmother by being told to scrub the kitchen floor or she will not be given anything to eat. Vanessa then decided to run away to her relatives in the North of England, having elicited the help of the faithful family butler, Bates.

When the Duke of Barningforde was told by his second son, Alastair, that he had married an actress in Paris without his approval, he exiled Alastair from England with only a very small allowance. His wife, Grace, actually came from a good Scottish family and was not an actress, but had a very fine soprano voice and sang with a famous French orchestra. But the Duke would not listen and Alastair and Grace never again set foot in their homeland.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Sir Robin Dunstead returns from India after his father's death to find that he now owns two of the largest ancestral houses in the country both containing superb art collections, but the houses and the pictures are in a very poor state of repair. Unfortunately Sir Robin's father had sold everything that was saleable in both houses and everything of value is entailed for future generations of Dunsteads. Robin is left with no income and finds he has not enough money to buy food for himself and sister Alena.

Rupert Fitzalan has succeeded his grandfather, Lord Fitzalan. Leaving behind his life in America, Rupert goes to claim his inheritance in the Scottish Highlands. This includes Castle Fitzalan, which he last saw at the age of eight. A series of revelations awaits him. First, the Castle is a wreck. Then there is the Fitzalan feud with the MacLeans, who are demanding the return of an heirloom they claim has been stolen from them. They are desperate to obtain it and attack and kidnap Rupert. Finally he meets the beautiful Celina Stirling who is engaged to her cousin, Hamish MacLean.

Shenda, the beautiful daughter of Lord Linbury, finds herself all alone when he dies. She finds a letter he has written to his friend, the Duke of Wellington, asking him to look after and protect her. The Duke is in Paris having just won the Battle of Waterloo and Shenda travels nervously to Paris to meet him and he quickly realises that as she is young and innocent, he cannot have her to stay in his own house. He, therefore, takes Shenda to nurse one of his young Officers who has been badly wounded at Waterloo. Captain Ivan Worth, as he calls himself, is really the Marquis of Kenworth.