Showing results by narrator "Philip Battley" in All Categories

Dreams of love are all well and good, but all Prunella Chuffington-Smythe wants is to publish her novel. Marriage at the price of her independence is something she will not consider...Robert Adolphus, The Duke of Bedwin, is in no hurry to marry, he’s done it once and repeating that disaster is the last thing he desires...Surely showing the man she’s not actually the meek little wallflower he is looking for should be enough to put paid to his intentions? When Prue is dared by her friends to do something drastic, it seems the perfect opportunity to kill two birds.

Senorita Lucia de Feria is possibly the most beautiful woman in the world and beyond a doubt the most beautiful that Viscount Cavendish has ever seen. Yet this mysterious beauty is up to something, something that has Cavendish convinced that her motives are less than pure. The viscount needs no further motivation to spend time in lovely Lucia’s company, but desire and intrigue make for unholy temptation. Lucia is not everything she seems to be. Lucia has secrets...secrets one man would kill her for.

When Nicholas Elyot and his friends set out to spend the Christmas season in the country, they are prepared for a hard journey in winter. They are also wary of violence on the road, for these are troubled times after the Great Pestilence, when bands of dispossessed and desperate men roam the countryside of England. It is not surprising, therefore, when the troubadours hired to provide entertainment at Leighton Manor are attacked in Wychwood. Yet why should this group draw the attention of outlaws, who are searching for something? Is one of the troubadours not quite what he seems?

Being dared to kiss a man in the moonlight is all well and good, but men and moonlight do not fall from the skies at will. Until they do. Under instruction from a friend, drab Alice Dowding lingers alone on a moonlit balcony. Not the most sensible course of action for a usually sensible girl. Yet, being sensible has gained Alice a seat among the wallflowers, and her only likely chance of marriage to a man she finds nigh on repulsive. Something must be done.

When the beautiful Lady Isabella Scranford finds herself in the family way and her lover refuses to do the honorable thing, she knows her life is at an end. With a reputation for being a cold-hearted bitch, there will be no sympathy for her, only shame and ridicule. Finding that even her best - and only - friend refuses to be associated with her any longer, Isabella decides she cannot go on and makes a fateful decision. When a filthy and frightening man rescues Isabella from drowning, she begins to believe her fate has taken an even darker turn. Yet appearances can be deceptive....

Dinah Osborne needs a husband and she needs one now. Not just any man will do. To meet the terms of her rather eccentric grandfather’s will, she must be safely engaged to marry a man of worth before her 21st birthday or she’ll not receive a penny of her rather large inheritance. Sadly her social climbing grandfather’s notions of worth and her own are not in the least alike, and nothing but a Lord will satisfy the terms of his will. But Dinah is alone in the world and has no entry into the select ranks of the ton. She does, however, know a thing or two about blackmail.

Lord Percy Nibley needs a wife, preferably before his mother’s nagging on the subject drives him to distraction....In desperation, the shy nobleman enlists the help of Baron Marchmain - Lord August Bright...August selects a suitable young lady for Lord Nibley; Miss Patience Pearson, a cool, level-headed woman, close to being on the shelf and with the reputation of a blue-stocking, meanwhile setting his own sights on capturing the heart of her vivacious younger sister, Caroline.

Lucretia ‘Crecy’ Holbrook has a secret, a secret she has kept for many years. Even her dearest confidant and sister, Belle, would not understand what Crecy is prepared to do, the risks she is prepared to take, to get her heart’s desire. For Crecy is not like the other smiling débutantes; she despises poetry, thinks dancing a chore, and is quite prepared to throw something at the next fool to compare her to Aphrodite. Far more likely to return from a country walk with a badger’s skull and some bloody, injured creature than a posy of wildflowers, Crecy is drawn to the dark, the damaged, and the unlovable. Her heart longs for one man alone, one with a wounded soul, one so dreadfully damaged that even her tender care might not be enough to save him.

Blackmailed by his sister into giving a Christmas house party to celebrate her recent marriage, Edward Greyston, Marquess of Winterbourne, is quite certain the next few days will be an utter nightmare. Nightmares, however, are something Edward is all too familiar with. After the bloody battle of Waterloo, he has returned from the war a changed man, full of rage and guilt. Suspecting one of his house guests, the bluestocking Belinda Holbrook is about to trap unsuspecting and gullible Lord Nibley into marriage, he goes to warn him, only to get caught himself. 

Dishonoured and ashamed, the ton's scandalous darling, "Beau" the Marquess of Beaumont, is forced to flee England to escape debtor's prison. After a chance encounter, it appears Miss Millicent Sparrow is his only remaining friend, however unlikely...when his father dies suddenly and Beau inherits the Dukedom...he finds a woman in despair and, moved by pity, he offers her the protection of his name by marriage. But Milly becomes impossible to overlook, and the more Beau needs his wife, the less interested she seems in her gorgeous husband.

Alone and far from home in the big city, Violette is on a mission to find a missing man, a war hero who never made it home, and she doesn't want a chaperone. Though she refuses to reveal who she is, or what the man means to her, the chivalrous Aubrey Russell doesn't care. Accidentally thrust into the headstrong young lady's path, he decides she needs a protector. Determined that the girl should not ruin herself in pursuit of the truth, Aubrey dogs her every step... and finds himself in a spot of bother.

Sebastian Grenville, the duke of Sindalton, known as Sin to the ton, has had his fair share of scandal. His father's involvement in what became referred to as "The Scandal of the Century" plunged him into the spotlight at the tender age of 12, and he's been there ever since. Egged on by his best friend, Beau - the marquis of Beaumont - his life is one of dissipation and ease. But every duke needs an heir, and everyone knows Sindalton is on the market for a wife. 

1815 - Along the wild and untamed coast of Cornwall, smuggling is not only a way of life but a means of survival. Henrietta Morton knows well to look the other way when the free trading 'gentlemen' are at work. Yet when a notorious pirate, known as The Rogue, bursts in on her in the village shop, she takes things one step further. Bewitched by a pair of wicked blue eyes, in a moment of insanity she hides the handsome fugitive from the local militia. Her reward is a kiss that she just cannot forget. But in his haste to escape with his life, her pirate drops a letter.

Alexander Sinclair, Fourth Earl of Falmouth, has a reputation for rebelling in vice. Wine, women, and gambling are only one side of this dangerous man, for the earl has a second life, leading a criminal gang, smuggling contraband between France and Cornwall. Seeking ever more risk, Alexander often leads his men on their nighttime missions. One unlucky night the revenue men appear, and the smugglers sail into a violent storm in an effort to escape, but the ship and all aboard go down.

Oxford, Spring 1353. When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William's death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot.

Widowed farmer Ned Hardy is facing a bleak winter and a lonely Christmas alone, when a beautiful young woman turns up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, frozen and terrified. Stunned by the arrival of a fine lady who looks like a Christmas angel, all of Ned’s protective instincts flare to life. Grace Honeyfield is on the run from her abusive brother and the terrifying man he’s forcing her to marry. Escaping into the darkness on a snowy night, she stumbles onto an isolated farm, and into the arms of a handsome farmer.

Oxford, Autumn 1353. St. Frideswide's Fair is a great annual event in Oxford, bringing together merchants and buyers from all over England and Wales, and from as far away as Flanders and France. Yet the earnings from the fair, granted to the Priory of St. Frideswide centuries before, are resented by the town, and resentment can turn to violence. Under the unscrupulous Prior de Hungerford, even more trouble is brewing.

Oxford, Spring - 1354. When the series of accidents to the building of the chapel at Queen’s College begin, they do not appear a cause for concern, but they grow more serious, and stonemasons are injured. Nicholas Elyot becomes involved after it is discovered that an intruder has reached the college by way of his garden. When Jordain Brinkylsworth’s youngest student goes missing, it seems at first that his disappearance is unconnected, yet he is one of the ‘poor boys’ supported by Queen’s. Surely this serious and studious boy cannot be responsible for the troubles? 

Oxford, late summer, 1353. On hearing that his cousin is short-handed for the harvest, Nicholas Elyot takes a group of friends back to the family farm to help. When a deer hunt in Wychwood ends in tragedy, suspicion is directed toward the huntsman, a boyhood friend of Nicholas. But the victim has made many other enemies, any one of whom could have shot the fatal arrow. Can Nicholas uncover the real killer before it is too late?

When the novice Emma Thorgold goes missing from Godstow Abbey in the summer of 1353, the hunt is on throughout the Oxfordshire countryside. Bookseller Nicholas Elyot and scholar Jordain Brinkylsworth are anxious to help the girl, but her stepfather has other intentions. Why is he so determined to shut her away for life? Or worse? And will she be found unharmed?