The legend of the Headless Horseman and a proposed marriage doe convenance both have their impact on the mystery of a golden talisman ring and Lord Lavenham's young heir, Ludovic. Neither Sir Tristram Shield nor Eustacie, his young French cousin, share the lightest inclination to marry one another. Yet it is Lord Lavenham's dying wish. For there is no one else to provide for the old man's granddaughter while Ludovic remains a fugitive from justice.

In an 18th-Century England of wit, womanising and powdered wigs, provincial Philip Jettan runs the risk of irreproachability. Cleone Charteris stands in no such danger. The golden-haired, headstrong despair of men, she seeks a husband who can duel and dice with the best of them. So Philip leaves for Paris, where his father's hopes and his lover's ideals are realised but with unforeseen consequences for them both.

Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.

Shot-proof, fever-proof and a veteran campaigner at the age of twenty-five, Brigade-Major Harry Smith is reputed to be the luckiest man in Lord Wellington's army. But at the siege of Badajos, his friends foretell the ruin of his career. For when Harry meets the defenceless Juana, a fiery passion consumes him. Under the banner of honour and with the selfsame ardour he so frequently displays in battle, he dives headlong into marriage. In his beautiful child-bride, he finds a kindred spirit, and a temper to match. But for Juana, a long year of war must follow.

When spirited, independent Miss Annis Wynchwood embroils herself in the affairs of a runaway heiress, she is destined to see a good deal of Lucilla s uncivil and high-handed guardian Mr Oliver Carleton."

The Honourable Christopher Fancot, on leave from the Diplomatic Service in the summer of 1817, is startled to find his mother on the brink of financial and social ruin, and more than alarmed that his identical twin has disappeared without a trace.

What with the concern over Lady Cardross s heart and pocket, the much-tried Earl almost misses the opportunity to smooth the path of true love in his marriage."

Finding so young and pretty a girl as Amanda wandering unattended, Sir Gareth Ludlow knows it is his duty to restore her to her family. But it is to prove no easy task for the Corinthian.

Captain John Staple s exploits in the Peninsula had earned him the sobriquet Crazy Jack among his fellow Dragoons. Now home from Waterloo, life is rather dull. But when he finds himself lost and benighted at an unmanned toll-house in the Pennines, his soldiering exploits pale away besides an adventure and romance of a lifetime."

Upon meeting his stepmother and young half-brother on his return from Waterloo, Gervase Frant, Seventh Earl of St. Erth, detects open disappointment that he survived the wars. The dangers of the Lincolnshire countryside could never be more unexpected . . .