Lady Lolita Vernon, daughter of the late Earl of Walcott and Vernon, has run away. Her stepfather, Ralph Piran, is forcing her to accept the attentions and perhaps an offer of marriage from his business partner, Murdock Tanner, who is very rich, but old and repulsive. While she is trying to cover her tracks in London, she bumps into a small boy, Simon, who is weeping because he has been beaten cruelly by his stepmother. Because it seems a strange coincidence and because Lolita is desperately sorry for the small boy, she listens to his story and agrees to take …

The handsome and very rich Marquis of Harlington has just ended yet another unsatisfactory love affair that has left him feeling bored with women and resigned to the fact that true love simply does not exist amongst the upper class echelons of Londont. Casting around for a speedy escape route, he is offered the perfect exit when the prime minister asks him to travel to Egypt and report on the Suez Canal, which is currently under construction. Delighted, the marquis visits his neighbour, Lord Durham, and is horrified to overhear him threatening to beat his daughter Delisia unless she agrees …

Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli asks Lord Kenington to travel to India to find out if reports about the Russian menace are really true. The liberal opposition in Parliament is sceptical and certain that Disraeli is manufacturing the scare asserting that the prime objective of the Russians in invading Asia is to wrest India from the British. On the train to India, to Lord Kenington’s surprise, a beautiful young girl asks if she can be seen speaking to him. Aisha explains that, owing to various mishaps, she is travelling alone and unchaperoned and is being pursued by Arthur Watkins, a man …

Destitute after the death of her beloved Papa, Carmela is miserable working as a nanny to the bratty children of the local vicar. So when her closest friend Felicity asks her to take her place in the home of her guardian, the dictatorial Earl of Galeston, she nervously agrees. The subterfuge is necessary to ensure Felicity can marry the love of her life , and because none of Felicity’s feuding family have set eyes on her since she was a child. Both young women are blue-eyed, blonde and beautiful. The Earl’s ancestral home is awe-inspiring, but it is the earl …

Teresa is everything her father Sir Hubert Bryan could wish for: clever, loyal and sharp-witted. The only problem is that she was born a girl and not the son he hoped would follow in his footsteps. But Teresa sees no reason why her gender should prevent her from being an asset in his mighty shipping empire.Sir Hubert is astounded at her request and is concerned that his beautiful daughter will fall prey to the fortune hunters amongst London Society. Having made his own vast fortune the hard way, he is only too aware of what men will do to have …

Sir Hereward Grantley is angry, as usual. A bad tempered man with little to commend him, he is determined that his niece, the orphaned Diona, will understand the great favour he has done by offering her a home. Never missing an opportunity to mention Diona’s penniless status and dependency, her uncle is an arrogant bully. Diona, aghast at being thrust into a world of unkindness and bullish behaviour after the love in her parents' home, mourns their loss and clings to the last thing that her popular, horse-loving papa gave her, her beloved Dalmatian, Sirius.Sir Grantley's sly son Simon is …

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 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. Horrified, Lucia discovers that not only has she been pressed into working for him as his secretary to repay the debt, but that she has been promised to Lord Winterton in marriage. In the meantime, Lucia is being secretly wooed by the staid but good-looking Edward de …

Venetia was very lonely after the death of her parents. When her cousin Mary begs her to help to save her from a forced marriage, Venetia is ready to help. Mary was in love with another man and expecting his child. yet the queen wants her to marry the Earl of Mountwood at a moment's notice and go with him to India. A reckless impulse makes Venetia promise to take Mary's place at the altar. She would worry about the consequences later. Lord Mountwood is handsome, but haughty and autocratic, demanding instant obedience from his servants and his wife. When …

Sir Robin Dunstead returns from India after his father’s death to find that he has inherited two of the largest ancestral houses in England, but no money to restore them. Amazed to find both houses empty of servants and in a state of disrepair he berates himself for not returning home earlier. Stunned to learn that his father has sold everything of value that is not entailed and has squandered the family fortune on selfish pursuits, Robin is left with no income and not even enough money to buy food for himself and his sister, Alena.In complete despair, Robin commissions …

All eyes are on Lady Tamina Braithwaite as she dazzles the cream of London society at a masked ball. Dressed as a bird of paradise, even the sumptuous silks of her costume cannot detract from the glow that love has given her. In love for the first time with a handsome young politician, it would appear that they are a couple destined for great things. But is she the only one who is pretending to be something other than she is? Underneath Tamina’s frothy exterior there is an intelligent young woman who values truth and loyalty above all else. A …

Helsa, the exceptionally beautiful daughter of the Reverend Alfred Irvin, is thrilled when she learns that Irvin Hall, their vast ancestral home, has been rented for a large sum by a certain Lady Basset. Her Ladyship wishes to host a grand house party and has invited a number of distinguished guests including the handsome Duke of Mervinston. Helsa’s friend, Mary, agrees to play the vital role of lady’s maid to Lady Basset. But at the last minute, Mary cannot do it as she has to visit her ill grandmother. So Helsa fills in and plays the lady's maid. Helsa uncovers …

Lady Novella Crownley has been teaching at a girls' school far from her ancestral home, Crownley Hall. One day her mother asks her to return. She leaves at once only to find that so much has changed since her last visit home. Her beloved father, the Earl of Crownley, had died some years earlier, leaving her mother lonely and unable to cope on her own. Unknown to Novella, her mother remarried and the first time she meets her new stepfather, Lord Buckton. In her absence, Lord Buckton has been selling off everything at the hall he could lay his hands …