The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 1

Includes: The Mad Mistress A Desperate Gamble … on Love! Wealthy heiress Vanessa Hawkesworth is offered as the stake in a card game by her half-brother Gerald in order to cover his gambling debts. Clifford Stone, their nearest neighbor, only agrees to play for her hand in marriage in order to free her from Gerald’s excesses. Clifford is fascinated by the lovely if unworldly young bluestocking. As his attraction grows, so too does his certainty that his new-found love is in increasing danger from malevolent forces who will stop at nothing, not even murder, to seize her newly-acquired fortune. Vanessa must learn to trust a complete stranger with her heart, and her entire life. Stunned at her new fiance's accusations against Gerald, she is sure she is going mad, torn between loyalty to her family and the wildfire passion that flares every time Clifford touches her. As new a series of crimes in the district threatens her new-found love and happiness, Vanessa must gamble all herself in order to protect her beloved Clifford, and bring the men responsible to justice before it's too late. The Missed Match The wrong man! Beautiful heiress Charlotte Castlemaine is just about to elope with the man of her dreams when fate takes a hand in the form of handsome Thomas Eltham, the Duke of Ellesmere. Only a few minutes in his carriage nearly proves her undoing. Compromised by this near-stranger in front of her father, she faces the prospect of certain ruin, until Thomas declares that they are engaged. Charlotte’s passionate response to the Duke is bad enough; the fact that Thomas persists in making wedding plans even though he knows she is in love with another seems a disaster of the worse magnitude. Thomas has admired Charlotte from afar, but little thought he would ever have an opportunity to marry her until he overhears three of Charlotte’s supposed friends plotting her ruin. Determined that his long time enemy Herbert will never harm Charlotte if he can help it, Thomas warns her father that the young woman has fled, and races to the appointed meeting place before it’s too late. Thomas’s single kiss in order to make their supposed elopement look genuine sparks off an inferno of passion, jealousy, suspicion and revenge which can only have one outcome: the former soldier must fight for the woman he loves and all he holds dear in a cataclysmic battle that can have only one winner. The question is, will Charlotte prove Thomas’s enemy, or ally? Can she ever come to love this stranger with kisses like fire, or will she flee from the desire that blazes within her at his merest touch, scorching all reason and commonsense. Will Charlotte return to Herbert, or learn to trust the enigmatic Duke and help him in his quest for justice against the man who once tried to kill him? The Miss Matched Too Many Men? Lovely heiress Pamela Ashton finds herself driven to distraction by the number of suitors beating a path to her door now that she has inherited most of her father's estate. From the handsome but dull Earl of Ferncliffe, to the dashing but poor Captain Breedon, she is confronted with a bewildering array of men all determined to make her their own. But does Pamela want to be a mere ornament or possession of a greedy fortune-hunter? A breeder of children and the queen of gossip and sewing? Or is she destined for something greater? Only the debonair local minister Jonathan Deveril seems to view Pamela as something other than a bank account or status symbol. Is it possible that Jonathan holds the key to her future, and her heart? Jonathan's dark past holds shadowy secrets. As Pamela and Jonathan grow ever closer, their increasing intimacy becomes plain for all to see. The heat between them simply cannot be denied. But the mysterious forces from Jonathan's former life catch up with him, putting all he loves in peril. Soon Jonathan is accused of betraying Pamela in the worst possible way. Have all their heated embraces been nothing more than a lie? Pamela must risk all, her heart, even her life, to win Jonathan's love, and secure the happily ever after they both ache for....