Showing results by narrator "Anthony Wren" in All Categories

Michael, the handsome Earl of Monkford, returns from fighting in the Napoleonic War to find that his beloved home, Monk Hall, once a Monastery, has become thoroughly dilapidated from lack of money. tAnd his estate has been sadly neglected with broken down farms and barren fields. tHis mother, the aging Countess, and his cousin, the beautiful Linka, who he grew up with, have done their best to keep everything going with much difficulty.

The beautiful Lola Fenton lives happily in a small cottage in the depths of Worcestershire, but she is suddenly orphaned when her father and mother are killed in a railway crash. Her uncle, the Earl of Kencombe, comes to the funeral and then tells her that, as she has no money, she will have to come and live with him. He obviously has no wish for her to do so, but feels that it is his duty as her legal Guardian.

When Madelina Winston, a beautiful American heiress, arrives in England, she has at first only one thought on her mind, to try and trace her late father’s English family. Her stepmother, Mrs. Winston, has other ideas. Madelina might have beauty and a fortune, but as far as Mrs. Winston is concerned she lacks the crowning glory of life, an English title. Mrs. Winston knows that there are many impoverished aristocrats hoping to marry money and wastes no time in setting about finding a likely candidate for Madelina’s hand.

Prince Serge of Tamrush, who himself had been sent a bride by Queen Victoria to save his Principality from invasion by the Russians, was now being asked by Prince Igor of Dubrik for the hand of his beautiful daughter Lavinia for the same reason. He decided not to tell Lavinia of Prince Igor’s request until after her birthday party. It was on that occasion she would meet Prince Igor for the first time and her father hoped that they would be attracted to each other.

The beautiful Ariana Dancer is orphaned and has led a cheerless life in London with her disagreeable Guardian, Uncle Konstantin Bardici. He has shown little interest in his niece and she has been left very much to her own devices. One day Uncle Konstantin suggests that Ariana marry an Albanian Prince - one who is seeking an English wife and who claims to have fallen in love with her portrait - and it does not take much to persuade her to agree.

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.

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.

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.

On the eve of his 65th birthday, Sir Nigel Ingram, Surgeon Vice Admiral, RN, has a massive heart attack and dies at his home in Salisbury, Wilts. His 35-year-old partner, Callum Ryan, is with him. After the funeral Callum has to arrange for a thanksgiving service at Salisbury Cathedral followed by a reception at The Salisbury Guildhall for nearly 500 people, such is the legacy of Sir Nigel’s remarkable naval career. Callum Ryan is now left with a void in his life to fill and, although an only child from Liverpool, feels lost with a touch of the "navy blues".

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.