Ladies in Love

She was a bewitching young girl, that pretty Polly Marsh, and she knew it. She also knew that beauty could be her passport into the castles where she had always known she belonged. So she set her sights on a duke and joined the firm of Westerman’s as a stenographer. Surely one of that noble family would notice her, and then all her dreams would come true! The trouble with pretty Polly Marsh was that she just didn’t know her place.

Poor Ginny Bloggs! She had inherited a fortune, a magnificent country estate, and her benefactor's disgruntled relatives, a quartet of querulous schemers horrified to find themselves at the mercy of a low, common girl, a total stranger - the coal merchant's daughter!

The Beast - that was what they called her. With her plump body and rough tomboy ways, she felt more like a clown. It was hopeless. Poor penniless Tilly could only sit among the chaperons as a paid companion to the spiteful Lady Aileen. The best she could do was sit…and dream. But suddenly Philip, Marquess of Heppleford, the most eligible bachelor of all, decided he wanted her for himself, to be his wife, and they were married. His intent was to keep his freedom, fulfill the conditions of his father's will, and shock his aunts.

Poor little Susie. A beautiful dreamer, she imagined herself happy in a rose-covered cottage, only to find herself mistress of a great damp castle and wife to the elderly Earl of Blackhall. Luck, not the lecherous earl, contrived to spare her, and by her wedding night she was transformed to a wealthy young widow. But her trials had just begun. The old countess was determined to turn the simple country miss into a sophisticated lady. Meanwhile, handsome Sir Giles was determined to unmask her as a dangerously cunning young minx.

Daisy Jenkins never expected to be anything more than trespasser on the idyllic lawns of Marsden Castle. Then, suddenly, she was admitted into the magic circle of the Earl and Countess of Nottenstone, to await the arrival of the notorious Lord Chatterton, her father - a stranger whosever name was foreign to her. She was Daisy Chatterton now, adrift in a sea of aristocratic sharks who seemed both to court and mock her.

Maggie Macleod was weary of life with a soul sickness that ate into every fiber of her being. In a mad way, it did not seem strange to her that she should be on her way to the high court to stand trial for the murder of her husband. Her marriage seemed to have been one long, dreary desert lit by flares of cruelty. But Maggie is innocent in the matter of her beastly husband's death, and she resolves to answer the question that plagues her: Who did murder the man?

She was the flower of an East End slum who rose to become a star. But Poppy Duveen quit the stage to marry Freddie Plummett, the only real gentleman she had ever known - the bounder who died. When Freddie died, Poppy was left the castle, but she was also left in the clutches of Freddie's formidable uncle, Hugo, the dazzling Duke of Guildham.

One minute Amaryllis Duvane is the belle of the London season - a "diamond of the first water", desired by every man and envied by every woman. Even better, she's about to marry the man of her dreams.