Katie King is a girl with big dreams for the future! A dancer in the heart of London's theatre land, Katie is awaiting her big break, when her name will finally be in lights above the Gaiety Theatre. Fun-loving, cute and adoring of her charming boyfriend, the enigmatic Harry Carrington, Katie is sure that her unusual crowning glory of wild auburn curls will help catapult her out of the chorus line and into the leading roles she deserves. But Katie's dazzling smile masks a tragedy - she is desperately ill and her enforced absence from the stage means that she does not have the money for the private healthcare she so badly needs. A few streets away, illness has touched the life of another young woman with distinctive Titian hair, Larentia. She is nursing her sick father, the eminent historian Professor Braintree, and suffers similar horrors when he is diagnosed as incurable. Whilst brilliant and an expert in his field, the Professor's books gain him respect, not money and they too cannot afford the surgery needed. At first it seems that the only two things that the girls have in common are their astoundingly beautiful hair and a desperate need for money to employ the services of the pioneering surgeon Mr. Curtis Sheldon. However, the sudden death of the 4th Duke of Tregaron, a cad of the first order, whose unwanted attentions and lewd behaviour caused a naive Katie such pain in her first year in London, results in Harry coming up with a daring plan to capitalise on their short lived relationship. If Larentia agrees to play her part, and the new Duke, Justin Garon, believes their story there is just a chance that they can raise enough money to save both Katie and the Professor. But can an innocent young woman, with no experience of the darker side of life, be able to trick everyone? And what will be the ultimate cost of the deception if she fails? For this final curtain call Katie must sit back stage as Larentia prepares to give the performance of a lifetime.

After Cañuela’s father, Lionel Arlington, a senior Diplomat at the British Embassy in Buenos Aires, was wrongly accused in Argentina of being a traitor to Britain, he died, presumed drowned, after diving overboard to save a little girl who had fallen into the sea . The resulting scandal left the beautiful Cañuela and her ailing mother ostracised and outcast in London, living in a bare bedsitter under an assumed name. Although she now despises all Argentines, Cañuela is so desperate to earn money to be able to send her mother for a cure in Switzerland that she takes a job as secretary and translator to a famous Argentine businessman, Ramón de Lopez – a man who her mother says was among her father’s accusers and a former friend of his.So with no idea who she really is, her almost impossibly handsome employer is baffled by her intense animosity and curtness, even though she is very efficient at her job. Even more so when they travel to Buenos Aires and she saves Ramón de Lopez from scandal, helps him to further his political ambitions to be President of Argentina and finally rescues him from murderous guerrilla kidnappers, who intend to ransom him off for a huge amount of money. And it is here, at the height of peril and danger to herself, that Cañuela begins to realise that the powerful passion in her heart is no longer hatred but love.

Widowed Mrs. Mansforde and her younger daughter Philomena (or 'Mena' for short) are pleasantly surprised when elder daughter Lais returns unannounced to the family home.They have not seen her for an age, not even at her father's funeral. And the news she brings is not so pleasant as it seems that she too has been widowed, but already has another wealthy and prestigious husband in her sights, the highly respected Duke of Kernthorpe.The Duke, who is much older than Lais, has invited her to bring her mother to meet him, an invitation that Lais does not extend to young Mena, seeing how beautiful she has become.Mrs. Mansforde insists that Mena goes with her and then it is decided that she will pose as her mother's employed companion.Once at the Duke's Castle Mena goes for a walk in the garden and then sees a stallion and rider galloping towards her. The horse is clearly out of control and throws the rider so Mena rushes over to see if he has been hurt.He is a handsome young man and when he looks up at Mena he thinks, because she is so beautiful, that she must be a Greek Goddess.He is then most impressed when Mena calms the stallion down by talking to him in a quiet gentle voice.At the Duke's Castle love is to take each of the three women, Mena, Lais and their mother, by surprise and brings them ultimate happiness in the form of entirely unexpected suitors.And it seems that Fate has brought them together at the magnificent but mysterious Kerne Castle.

A shy English Rose blossoms into an exotic bird of paradise in this thrillingly romantic twist on the tale of Cinderella. With her slender, graceful, almost elfin beauty, Odetta may not look like a Cinderella but it’s she who must stay at home while her aristocratic friend is dressed by the great couturiers and dances at Society balls. That is, until she’s whisked to Paris as her friend’s lady’s maid – and, on a crazy impulse, borrows a fabulous dress and a mask and slips unnoticed into a Venetian Masked Ball. As she’s marvelling at the whirling waltzes, Chinese lanterns and glamorously costumed guests, a tall, handsome masked and cloaked man asks, ‘Are you waiting for some laggard partner or have you just dropped down from the sky to bemuse us poor mortals?’ Cinderella has gone to the ball! No longer ‘Miss Nobody from Nowhere’, she lives the dream, playing the part of a French Princesse and quickly finding her feet in the fashionable world… But just as quickly she loses her heart to her masked hero – and her impossible dream becomes a nightmare because her new life and love is all a lie.

Queen's Ford, built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and home to the noble Forde family for centuries, is crumbling into ruin. Devastated by the reduced circumstances in which he finds himself due to the outlandish spending of his late father, the current Lord Fordcombe simply cannot afford to repair it. With only a few loyal servants to serve the family, even the once beautiful gardens and stables are shabby and unkempt. In fact the Forde family, blue-blooded and aristocratic, who have entertained more than one English Monarch during their illustrious past, are now so poor that they struggle to find money for food. Driven beyond endurance and crushed by the monotony of poverty, Jeremy, the handsome twenty-one year old son of Lord Fordcombe decides that something desperate must be done. Artfully persuading his eldest sister, Mariota, to sacrifice her principles and go along with his daring plan, she joins him in holding up a coach masquerading as highwaymen. But as the usually honest and kind Mariota catches a glimpse of the terrified woman they are robbing, she knows that this is something she should never have allowed. About to call off Jeremy, who is wild-eyed with excitement and oblivious to the upset he is causing, she suddenly sees a gentleman taking aim with his gun behind her brother. In a split second she fires, blinded to the consequences of her actions through her love for her brother. As the dust settles on the lonely road she realises that the handsome Earl of Buckenham is injured and, eager to avoid the gallows, the subdued siblings bring him to their home to heal. Desperately sorry by the trouble they have caused, Mariota proceeds to nurse him better, praying for forgiveness and willing the Earl to improve. But the unforeseen dramas that arise from that one action alter the lives of everyone involved forever.

Beautiful young Aspasia Stanton and her twin brother Jerry are horrified when they receive a letter addressed to their uncle and Guardian, the much-loved Reverend Theophilus Stanton, from Her Grace the Duchess of Grimstone. In it she coldly announces that that “having reached the age of sixty-five, you are retired from your Living and you will vacate the Vicarage within a month of this date.” Whatever are they to do? Without the Reverend’s stipend they will have nothing at all to live on and Jerry will be forced to leave Oxford University. And what of Little Medlock’s parishioners, who love their Vicar so dearly after all his years in their Parish? Although the Duchess is known by all the locals as a completely ruthless woman without a heart, Aspasia resolves to go to visit her and throw herself on her mercy, saying, ‘I will do – anything you ask of me if Uncle Theophilus may remain at Little Medlock.’ The poor innocent Aspasia has no grasp of the evil that goes on behind Grimstone House’s imposing doors or of the terrible things that the wicked Duchess will demand of her as her side of the bargain. But then Fate sends the imperious yet handsome Marquis of Thame to visit the Duchess, a gentleman unimpressed and undaunted by her disreputable and wicked ways. But will he step in to save Aspasia from utter humiliation and dishonour?

Innocent and lovely Shimona BardsleyÕs father, the celebrated actor Beau Bardsley, has fallen desperately ill and yet he insists on persevering with the eveningÕs performance as Hamlet at The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. A concerned Shimona accompanies him to the theatre where she overhears the notoriously disreputable Duke of Ravenstone Ð known as ÔHis DisgraceÕ Ð offering her father the huge sum of five hundred guineas to find him an actress to play Ôa partÕ for just two nights. Desperate to raise enough money to take her father to a warmer clime and thereby save his life, Shimona accepts the DukeÕs offer and finds herself reluctantly embroiled in a deception that her conscience finds hard to bear. Unchaperoned in the grand Ravenstone House in London with the devilish Duke and an imperious Clan Chieftain, Shimona is afraid, alone and in trouble Ð But soon, to her bewilderment and ecstasy, she finds that she is also in love. Ê