Showing results for "Secrets" in Victorian

Lady Olivia Haliford has had enough. Tired of seeing women lose their reputations, futures, and sometimes even their lives to scandal while the men walk free, she is ready to take back power and stand up for women everywhere. Along with her two closest friends, she plans to start an anonymous publication dedicated to dishing the dirt and exposing the secrets of society's most eligible bachelors. But in order to do so, she will have to make a deal with the devil....

It's 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, is offered a position as governess at Hartwood Hall. She quickly accepts, hoping this isolated country house will allow her to leave her past behind. Cut off from the village, Margaret soon starts to feel there's something odd about her new home, despite her growing fondness for her bright, affectionate pupil, Louis. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs Eversham, Louis's widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village.

Overprotective rake. Daring bluestocking. A marriage of convenience between opposites…who fall head over heels. Marriage? “No thank you, sir!” has always been Lady Calliope Seaton’s answer. But she needs access to naval documents to rescue her brother Spencer. And she’ll do anything to get them—even wed disreputable navy officer Nathaniel Fitzgerald, the Duke of Kelford.

It’s spring in Little Creek, and wedding bells are ringing. After their hasty marriage the Christmas before, Daisy Marshall is overjoyed to be finally marrying dashing Jay Fox properly, in front of the whole village. But then, on the evening of their wedding, amid the festivities, Jay disappears. Daisy doesn’t know if Jay is dead or alive, if she’s his wife or his widow. And what’s more, without her husband, she has no means of supporting herself or her household.

Holding the letter in trembling hands, Daisy’s future crumbled before her – the words engraved on her heart forever. The village of Little Creek, the long winter of 1867. The first flakes of snow are falling when Daisy Marshall, secretly engaged to her master's son, finds herself jilted at the altar. Heartbroken, Daisy flees to the small village of Little Creek, nestled on the coast of Essex. There she is warmly welcomed – but the village is poverty-stricken, suffering under a cruel lord of the manor. And when cholera hits, the villagers are truly in dire straits.

1901. When the Earl of Stainton dies in a tragic hunting accident, Giles, the eldest son of the noble Tallant family, must step forward to replace him as the head of the family. But Giles has avoided the Castle and his stifling relatives for years, deciding instead to forge his own path away from the spotlight. Now, he must put aside his ambitions and honour his duty to the family.

A jilted noblewoman forced into a dual existence half in and half out of the ton is unexpectedly confronted by the nobleman who left her behind 10 years ago, but before either can catch their breaths, they trip over a murder and into a race to capture a killer.

When life throws Molly Butterfield a curveball, she decides to spend some time with her recently widowed granddad, Wally, at Hawthorn Place, his quirky Victorian house on the Dorset coast. But cosseted Molly struggles to look after herself, never mind her grieving granddad, until the accidental discovery of an identical Arts and Crafts house on the Norfolk coast offers her an unexpected purpose, as well as revealing a bewildering mystery.

Twenty-one years have passed since Charlotte Booth fought to keep Ferndale Mill and her home at Windfell Manor following her traumatic first marriage. Now, highly regarded in local society and happily married to her childhood sweetheart, Archie Atkinson, she seeks only the best for their children, Isabelle and Danny. But history has a habit of repeating itself, and Danny's head is turned by a local girl of ill repute, despite his promise of marriage to the far more respectable Harriet Armstrong.

For most of her life, Judy Begg has been a loyal servant at Creek Manor and to Jack Fox, its future lord. But just as their childhood friendship blossoms into a secret engagement he abandons her to join his brother overseas. And with Creek Manor up for sale, Judy and her family lose everything. Devastated, Judy is nonetheless determined to make the best of her life. Resolving to forget about Jack, she battles to keep her family from poverty’s door and her mother from the hands of her violent husband.

Una Kelly has grown up to be a rough-and-tumble grifter, able to filch a pocketbook in five seconds flat. But when another con-woman pins her for a murder she didn’t commit, Una is forced to flee. Running from the police, Una lies her way into an unlikely refuge: the nursing school at Bellevue Hospital. Based on Florence Nightingale’s nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply.

Lord Richard Seaton will do anything to find his missing brother—even confront criminal lord Thorne Blackmore. Thorne’s price for information? Something Richard’s wounded heart vowed never to pay: marriage. And not to one of the stunning debutantes chasing him but to Thorne’s bluestocking sister, Jane.

When Lady Emma Bardsley’s vile husband sells her at auction, she is purchased by the rakish duke of Loxchester. For Sebastian, buying a pig farmer’s wife is the perfect way to avoid an arranged engagement, no matter the scandal. But Emma has a secret—she’s a lady in disguise. Emma hides her identity, hoping to run away. But she can’t hide her growing feelings for the amber-eyed rake who is showing her how much pleasure he can provide.

A scandalous book by an anonymous author takes London by storm, and everyone is convinced its villainous “Lord K” is the greatly admired Earl of Knightly. Heartbroken that he left her at the altar, Miss Regina Leyland impulsively sought revenge by revealing the true Knightly to the world but never expected the uproar to bring enemies to her door. To keep her identity hidden, she must trust the one man with the power to destroy her.

The utterly charming Emily Leverton has a dark past and is determined to leave it behind in her respectable new role as a governess. But when she is recruited by a secret network of governesses who spy on the ton, it may just be a way to redeem the dark secrets of her past. An ex-solider turned railroad magnate, Zach hunts killers for the Metropolitan Police by day and dutifully attends balls at night. In neither world has he met a woman with the brazenness to mock him.

Lady Hannah Simmons is a quintessential wallflower, unassuming, dowdy yet ignored by most. But underneath her plain exterior, Hannah is hiding a thrilling secret! Unbeknownst to the rest of the ton, she is Queen Victoria’s leading femme fatale, slipping unnoticed through the streets of London and listening to scandalous whispers from lords and ladies. But with daggers in her stockings and pistols in her pockets, Hannah's mission is to apprehend a deadly killer.

Logan Sutton lives in the shadowy underworld of London, rooting out evil before it can strike. He’s a nameless enigma prowling the streets to keep the innocent safe. His next mission? Seducing a beauty with ties to the villains he’s out to destroy. It ought to be simple: learn her secrets and then never see her again. Yet, there’s something about the midnight-haired temptress that won’t allow him to walk away.

At 17, fiery Juliet Cameron fell passionately in love and married the perfect companion for the adventurous life she wanted to lead. Lord Ross Carlisle is handsome, dashing, and as eager to explore the world as she is. But social constraints and fear of an all-consuming love that threatens to engulf her independent spirit send Juliet fleeing to the distant land where she was raised as a diplomat’s child.

Audrey Sheridan is London's sweetheart, a position that allows her access to the ton and all its secrets. As the enigmatic writer, Lady Society, she is wild, reckless, and speaks her mind. She matchmakes wicked rogues with their perfect wives. But there's one thing she's failed to find since her debut. A husband for herself. And there's only one man she's ever wanted. There's just one problem: He doesn't want her. What's a lady to do to mend her broken heart? Run off to become a spy.

In the genteel squares and stuccoed villas of late-Victorian Brighton, Ellen and Reynold Harper - twins, companions, colleagues, - ply their trade as portrait photographers. But at the golden hour, the girls arrive to pose for the lucrative - and dangerous - illicit photographs that really keep the Harpers' business afloat. This is the other, shadowy world of the city: a world of erotic tableaux, boundary-crossing music hall artistes, and the sinister figure of the local gangster, the Croc.