LITMIR.BIZ

As a cousin of Queen Victoria, the beautiful Princess Marigold is obliged to yield to the Queen's wishes when it comes to marriage – and the Monarch is most reluctant to allow her to marry the man she loves, Prince Holden of Allenberg, because she views his tiny European Principality as insignificant and uninfluential. So, although the Queen assents to their engagement, she puts obstacles in the way of their marriage in the hope that Princess Marigold will fall out of love with Prince Holden if she can keep them apart for any length of time. One such obstacle is the Royal order that Marigold travels to Greece to represent the Queen at the State funeral of Prince Eumenus. Determined to stay with her beloved Holden, the Princess comes up with a cunning plan. She will send another young woman in her place – and Prince Holden knows the ideal candidate, the beautiful young Vicar's daughter called Avila Grandell, who looks uncannily like the Princess and, being half-Greek, speaks the language fluently. And so, with her mother's concerned consent, this awestruck young innocent's adventure begins, voyaging to Athens and on to the island of Malia. Little do any of them expect Avila to be touched by the Light of the God Apollo and would then fall in love with a handsome charming Prince of her own!

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Pretty young Kelda Lawrence arrived at Mrs. Gladwin's Seminary for Young Ladies when she was fifteen, coming from the orphanage where she was sent for three years after her father and mother were tragically killed in an earthquake travelling in Turkey. At the Seminary she makes a firm friend in the beautiful Yvette de Villon who, although also an orphan, is from a wealthy French extended family. One day Yvette comes to Kelda feeling tearful and distraught because she has been summoned to go and live with her English uncle. This, Kelda thinks, does not sound so bad until Yvette explains that her uncle is 'horrible' and worse still lives in Dakar in the French West African Colony of Senegal as a recluse in a huge mansion.. When none of the school's Mistresses agree to accompany Yvette, to Kelda's amazement the Headmistress instructs her to go with her to Senegal and look after her until she can be handed over safely to her uncle in Dakar. And so begins Kelda's great adventure – and, when Yvette falls head over heels in love to a good-looking young man on the voyage, she and her new beau enlist Kelda in their plan to gain the acceptance of Yvette's uncle to their marriage. There are severe problems when they arrive in Dakar as Yvette's uncle has already promised Yvette's hand in marriage to the Governor-General. Little do any of them know that Kelda too is soon to lose her heart!

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Golden-haired young beauty Anona adores her father, the East India Company seafarer Captain Guy Ranson. So she is shocked to the core when he comes home to confess that far from being the successful shipowner she thought he was, he is a pirate, boarding cargo ships and threatening the crew and cargo unless they paid him a ransom. He describes himself as a 'highwayman on a ship'. Fearing that he has been identified and may face the gallows, the Captain is determined that his beloved daughter's name should not be ruined by his actions and comes up with a plan to ensure that she will be safe and anonymous. And so Anona appears washed up in a small boat on a Malayan beach owned by the Captain's good Chinese friend, Lin Kuan Teng, whom he knows will take care of her at his palatial Penang house. Feigning amnesia, she finds herself under the wing not only of her father's friend but also of the handsome Lord Selwyn who has just arrived in Penang to take possession of a huge mansion and a plantation that he has fortunately inherited from his great-uncle. In this exotic Paradise, Anona may not have truly lost her memory, but soon she has lost her heart. But surely her love is doomed once his Lordship discovers her true identity and finds out about her father's pirating?

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Rich, powerful and handsome, the Duke of Melyncourt is journeying to Paris on a secret mission for the British Prime Minister when he discovers that a bewitchingly beautiful flame-haired girl has stowed away in his carriage. Amé, as she is a called, has run away from the Convent where she is a novice and to which her unknown mother had entrusted her as a baby in arms. It transpires that she fled to enjoy a last taste of freedom after for some reason the sinister Cardinal de Rohan insisted that she take her nun's Orders without delay, far sooner than other novices would. The Duke knows that this French Cardinal is not to be trusted and agrees after much pleading to take Amé with him to Paris disguised as his pageboy. It is not long before the Cardinal's men are in pursuit, enquiring whether the Duke has seen the missing novice. And the Duke realises that there is something ominous afoot. So begins an adventure in which Amé and the Duke find themselves amid the turmoil between the Court of Marie Antoinette and subversive factions against the Queen led by the depraved Duc de Chartres. With everything at stake, including her life, how can Amé return to devote her heart to God when she has already given it to the Duke?

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Running away from the school that she hates, headstrong and rebellious, beautiful young Petrina Lyndon clambers over a wall into a country road, flinging her bag over before her and narrowly missing a dashingly handsome young Earl, to whom she complains about the 'horrible, beastly' Guardian who placed her at the school and how he never listens to her. She is even more shocked when the Earl reveals that he himself is actually her Guardian, the Earl of Staverton. And although he is not the elderly 'stuffed shirt' she expected, he is cold and unfriendly and unimpressed by her stated desire to go to London and become one of the 'Lady-Birds' that she has heard so much about. She tells the Earl that she wants to enjoy herself and not get married to some boring and stuffy aristocrat. The Earl is horrified at this unseemly and ignorant revelation and tells her so in no uncertain terms. Determined to dissuade her from a path that would lead her into depravity and danger the Earl insists that she allows him to launch her into Society as a debutante in an effort to marry her off. But Petrina has very different ideas. And she resolves to somehow steal his Lordship's heart!

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Arriving alone and unannounced at her Aunt Lily's Paris home, the innocent young beauty Gardenia is overwhelmed by a whirl of glamourous parties, exotic food and endless champagne. Her aunt, the imposing Duchesse de Mabillon, is it seems a well-known and popular Society hostess ¬who counts Lords and Comtes among her many friends. Indeed, already at her wits' end after the death of her mother, Gardenia is so shocked by the immediate and over-insistent attentions of a drunken Nobleman called Comte André de Grenelle that she faints. And her mind is hardly set at rest when, after coming to her rescue, a haughty and disdainful Lord Hartcourt warns her to leave her aunt's house and stay elsewhere. Her aunt plies her with fabulous clothes and introduces her to her sophisticated world and slowly Gardenia's eyes are opened to the decadence and deceit behind the glamorous façade. The innocent and trusting Gardenia has suddenly become embroiled in a world of women of low virtue, international espionage, intrigue and terrible danger. Luckily for Gardenia, the handsome Lord Vane Hartcourt is a gentleman of honour who would steal nothing – except perhaps her heart.

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Left penniless and alone after her parents' sudden deaths, beautiful young Alina Langley is desperate to earn some money to pay off their debts when, quite out of the blue, her friend the glamorous Denise Sedgewick, arrives at her home from London in a smart carriage. Now a famous Society beauty she has come to ask Alina for help. The man Denise loves has gone to Rome, upset after Denise deliberately made him jealous at a party and Denise is desperate to follow him and win him back. Her plan is to travel with her cousin, Lord Teverton, who is on a special Diplomatic mission for the Prime Minister, but her father will not let her go without a proper chaperone. Since there is no one else she can really trust, she persuades Alina to pretend to be her mother, Lady Langley. Dressed as a sophisticated woman of nearly forty when she is just twenty, Alina meets the unfriendly but handsome Lord Teverton, who is instantly entranced by her. The trouble is, so is the persistently amorous Prince Alberto Borghese, who pursues Alina with considerable determination and cunning. And when Lord Teverton comes not once but twice to her rescue, Alina realises that she has fallen completely in love with him, but how can she explain that she is not the woman of the world she pretends to be but a simple girl who has never before been kissed?

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Beautiful young Roxana Barclay cannot bear to see her wealthy widowed mother, Lady Barclay, marry a raffish fortune-seeker five years her junior. And so she flees to join her Dutch aunt and uncle, who are Missionaries, on their voyage to Bali in the East Indies. Matters are complicated further when Roxana discovers en route that her aunt is with child. Tragically her aunt dies of a fever after the difficult birth of her son, Karel, and then her grief-stricken uncle is found dead too, struck down Roxana is convinced by a Black Magic curse. Terrified of the colonial Dutch authorities, who would force Karel into an orphanage if they discovered his existence, Roxana entrusts him for safekeeping to a Balinese family. To her horror the repellent overweight Dutch Governor takes a predatory interest in her, making it clear that if she refuses to become his mistress he will have her imprisoned or she will be thrown of the Island of Bali. Which she become so attached to. Worse still the Governor introduces her to a dashing new arrival, Count Viktor van Haan, who also takes a keen interest in her and her beautiful wood carvings, which express so much of her and her attitude to life. But soon Roxana is surprised to find herself confiding in this handsome stranger and the Count is equally surprised to find that he has fallen in love!

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All alone and penniless after the unexpected death of her much-loved father, the lovely but innocent Minella Clinton-Wood is desperate. But who can she turn to? Her Aunt Esther has made her reluctance clear, describing the idea of Minella living with her as 'a burden'. But then she finds a letter to her father from her slightly older friend, Connie, the local Parson's attractive daughter, thanking him for some mysterious kindness. "Someday perhaps I will be able to do something for you," Connie has written to him. Maybe, Minella thinks, Connie can help her. Arriving in London, she discovers that her friend is one of the famous Gaiety Theatre's exotic and flamboyant Gaiety Girls. And Connie immediately begs the demurely beautiful Minella to stand in for one of them who is ill at an exclusive party, which is given by the dashingly raffish and handsome Earl of Wynterborne at his sublimely impressive country home, Wyn Castle. Naively Minella agrees to the subterfuge – and soon finds herself dressed up to the nines in a decadent Social world beyond her experience as she has been brought up quietly in the country. Doubling the deception after the party is over, the Earl asks her to travel with him to Egypt, pretending to be the wife who had once betrayed and left him for another man. So Minella embarks on a voyage of discovery, deception and perhaps love.

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Having lost her parents in a tragic carriage accident, beautiful but innocent young Cornelia Bedlington, living in Ireland, has inherited an enormous fortune and her Uncle George decides that she needs a chaperone for the coming Social Season in London. Who better than her glamorous Aunt Lily who knows everyone smart! Unbeknown to George or Cornelia, though, Lily is in the throes of a love affair with the startlingly handsome Drogo, the Duke of Roehampton, who is struggling financially and she comes up with a Machiavellian deceit designed to make Drogo rich and save Lily the trouble of chaperoning Cornelia. Her suggestion is that Drogo marries Cornelia while secretly continuing his liaison with Lily! When this fascinating stranger, the Duke, suddenly proposes marriage, Cornelia is swept off her feet. And they are married in the most glamorous Wedding of the Season attended by the King and Queen. But just as love for the Duke blossoms in her heart, she is heartbroken to overhear her fiancé plotting their future together with Lily and then realises the horrible truth. Soon, though, amid the heady glamour of gay and exotic Paris, she enlists the help of a sophisticated Socialite, Renée de Valmé, in a desperate and cunning plan of her own to ensnare the dashing Duke's heart for herself alone!

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