Showing results by narrator "Anthony Wren" in All Categories

Lord Springdale is becoming increasingly irritated and tired of being told by his grandmother that he must marry and produce an heir to his illustrious title and estates. She keeps on telling him that, as he is the last of his line and at the age of twenty-seven, he must find a suitable wife and settle down. After a number of affaires de coeur with attractive married ladies, he is not in the least attracted to debutantes and so avoids their pushy mothers like the plague.

Lady Galina More and her brother, Georgie, the Earl of Ranmore, are in despair because they own two large historic houses which are entailed. Georgie decides he will have to marry an American heiress, so he opens his house in London, but has no idea how he can staff it or afford to entertain. He meets Mr. Craig Farlow, one of the richest oil millionaires in America who has brought his daughter, Ellie-May, to London as he wants her to marry a title and he becomes a tenant at Georgie's house in Park Lane.

Lady Dorianna Dale is packing her trousseau for her illustrious Society wedding to the rich Lord Buxton. She does not love him, she cannot bear him to touch her and she hates the sound of his loud foolish voice - but unless the wedding goes ahead, she and her Mama will lose everything and will have to sell their beautiful home, Ashburton Hall. Dorianna briefly meets the handsome and enigmatic Earl of Claremont at a London soirée and she longs to see him again. But how can this ever happen once she is married to Lord Buxton? She must take her destiny into her own hands.

Can you fall in love with someone before you meet them? Valona, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the deposed Prince of Piracus believes she can. Beautiful, spiritual and aching for adventure Valona is convinced that the perfect man exists because she has seen him in her dreams; all she has to do is find him. With no royal bride to offer the elderly King, it seems the only way to save Larissa from the threat of the encroaching Russian army is for Valona to take her place.

1820 is a worrying time for His Royal Highness Prince Lászlé as the might of the Prussian Empire moves ever closer to the boarders of his independent principality, Opava. Concerned for the welfare and happiness of his subjects, he reluctantly sends his beautiful daughter, Princess Zoleka, on a secret mission to the neighbouring state of Krnov, which is in crisis. Masquerading as Lady in Waiting to Princess Udele, the heir to the throne, Zoleka is horrified to discover that Krnov is in political turmoil.

Some girls can wait a lifetime for one man to fall in love with them, but Selena Norton is so pretty that every man she meets is promptly smitten. Selena longs for someone to see past her beautiful face and appreciate the intelligent, loyal, fun girl inside. Rescued by the chivalrous, but penniless, Earl of Wakefield from the lecherous clutches of yet another unwanted suitor, Lord Tavener, Selena is delighted to finally meet a man who seems to seek only friendship. Selena cannot believe the joy that the Earl has bought into her life.

Young, happy and deeply in love, the future looks rosy for local beauty Lilliana Parker and her beau Robert, the dashing Earl of Sherborne. Their friends and family wait with baited breath for news of their inevitable engagement, certain that nothing can harm the charmed life of this golden couple. However, fate has other plans and the Earl is called to rejoin his Regiment in India on a mission that is both dangerous and vital to Queen and country.

Lady Novella Crownley has been teaching at a girl's school far from her ancestral home, Crownley Hall, and 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 had remarried and the first time she met her new stepfather, Lord Buckton, she did like him at all.

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.

When Shona became secretary to the Marquis of Chilworth, all she was told was that they were going abroad so that he could write a book. She never suspected the dark secret in his heart or the terrible thing he meant to do. As they travelled on, she learned more about the tragedy that drove him, and she faced the fact that she was falling in love with a man whose heart was in the grave. Haunted by memories of his dead wife, the Marquis tried to shut out the possibility of a new love.

Carina was alone in the world and unsure of what the future held for her. Then a troupe of musicians, called "Bertie's Beauties", had an accident outside her gates and she found herself swept up in their fate as she took over from their injured pianist. Now one of the troupe, she went to perform at the Duke of Westbury's castle, never suspecting that the Duke would turn out to be the young man she had met for a few dramatic moments many years before. To hide her identity she allowed him to see her only when she was masked.

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.

On a hot summer’s day in 1880 the beautiful Lady Rosella is cutting a basket of blooms in her beloved Rose Garden at her aunt’s house in Hampshire. It is her seventeenth birthday and no one remembers it except for Thomas, the gardener’s boy. Later she is driven to Winchester and has an unpleasant encounter with two raucous gentlemen in the local tavern before going on to fit her first ball gown that her aunt has given her the money for just before she died. But who is the lovely masked woman she glimpses in the mirror at the dressmakers, a glorious vision clad in rose-pink silk?

Dalma Wickham, having been in Athens to learn Greek, arrives at a British Steamer to return to London to find that they will not allow her dog, Twi-Twi, on board. Because she is turned away from the British ship, she walks round the quay and sees a most magnificent yacht. While she is admiring it, a bomb goes off at the end of the quay and the seamen leave the yacht to see what has happened. On an impulse, because she realises it is her last chance of getting Twi-Twi to England, she slips aboard the yacht and hides in one of the empty cabins.