Jane Ashford

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD The daughter of free spirits who routinely outraged the haut ton, Emily Crane longed for a less scandalous life. Now she's the toast of society --- and she couldn't find it more tedious. Until, in the midst of yet another ball, she suddenly comes face-to-face with the darkly sensual stranger she once rescued from footpads. When danger seems to dog him at every turn, Emily is determined to unmask his foe. Now her London season promises to be infinitely more exciting. A former pink of the ton returned from the wilds of South America, Lord Richard Sheldon has only contempt for tiresome London chits. But the dauntless Emily Crane ignites a passion like no other woman has, and he finds himself stunningly intrigued. When the two become embroiled in a budding scandal of their own, they are forced into an engagement ... and they soon discover a most powerful attraction --- a desire more dangerous than any killer ...

THE APPRENTICE ADVENTURESS — Miss Miranda Dennison was a properly brought-up young lady with an improper appetite for adventure. She found it in abundance on the isolated estate of Baron Philip Highdene. There was the darkly handsome, brooding baron himself, married to Miranda's sister and clearly keeping her a prisoner. There was his friend, Alan Creighton, whose shocking reputation as a rake did not stop Miranda's heart from beating faster in his company. And there were mysterious threats to Miranda's safety that chilled her blood. Miranda had fallen head over heels in love. She had also plunged over her head into danger. And now, through a mystifying maze of romance and intrigue, she must somehow find her way to a happy ending...

SCANDALOUS SURPRISE. Miss Julia Devere was the most innocent and sheltered of young beauties. Her doting parents had succeeded in shielding her from exposure to the sordid facts of life in society, and now both they and she were delighted with her coming marriage to the handsome and wealthy Sir Richard Beckwith, the very model of righteous rectitude. Therefore when Julia spied the paragon of moral perfection in the arms of a young woman who clearly did not give a fig for the proprieties. Julia was more than shocked. She was awakened to the fact that the game of love could be played by very different rules than hers.... And unless she could beat Sir Richard's new light-of-love at her own game. Julia stood to lose all that she suddenly discovered she wanted....

When spoiled Lady Alicia Alston, privileged daughter of a duke, is accidentally tossed into a ravine after a wild gallop with Ian MacClain, Earl of Cairnyllan, she expects a proposal as soon as is convenient. The stubborn Scot has other ideas. It takes a headlong journey to prevent an elopement to give Alicia and Ian a chance to clear up misunderstandings and figure out what they find so damnably passion-inducing about one another....

RAGE AT FIRST SIGHT The first sight that Miss Susan Wyndham and Miss Marianne MacClain had of each other was enough to make their eyes blaze. For both were arriving at the first grand ball of the season at the same time--in identical gowns. But even this flurry of fury paled beside the emotion that each young lady felt when she saw the gentleman who stepped in to make peace between them. He was Randal Kenyon, Baron Ellerton, the most supremely handsome, charming, elegant, and eligible lord in London. And far from making peace, he sparked a battle between a pair of dazzling young beauties who had always had everything they wanted, and who now wanted only him....

The Bargain is an expansion and rewriting of The Would-Be Widow. To keep her fortune, a beautiful heiress impulsively weds a penniless officer dying of wounds received at Waterloo. But when the blasted man hasn't the grace to die, she suddenly finds herself with a healthy, vibrant husband who wants to renegotiate the terms of their bargain -- and ultimately possess the heart of his bewildered bride.

Sir Justin Keighley is all wrong for a proper young lady like Margaret Mayfield. Everyone knows he is shocking in his opinions, arrogant in his manner, and completely without respect for the common decencies of civilized society. Margaret absolutely will not marry him no matter what her parents say.

Miss Diana Gresham was only seventeen when she was lured by the scheming Gerald Carshin into making a ruinous misstep, only to be abandoned by that handsome scoundrel. Now she is twenty-five, beautiful, wealthy, vibrantly intelligent, but embarrassed by her previous misjudgment and wary of her own slumbering susceptibility. When she meets the divinely charming Captain Robert Wilton, she tells herself that this gallant officer is unlike the fops and fortune hunters who swarm around her at the fashionable resort of Bath. But could even he be trusted to want her rather than her wealth--or to take her as his bride when a scandalous rake from the past returns to embrace her again?

Lord Oliver Stonenden gets whatever he wants-except the beautiful and headstrong Katharine Daltry. Katharine is the only woman who has ever denied him, and he cannot forget her. When he sees a chance to aid her cause by seducing a troublesome countess who is threatening Katharine's family, he rises to the occasion. Katharine Daltry concentrates on developing her skill at painting and avoids Polite Society, not least of all the handsome, heartless Lord Stonenden, whose proposal she flatly refused five years ago. But when her country cousin appeals to her for help, Katharine quickly finds herself at the very center of both scandal and controversy. And it seems a heartless rake is just the ally she needs.

The Hartington sisters were three of the most captivating young ladies in the realm -- and suddenly among the most impoverished. The demise of their spendthrift father and the passing of their generous aunt left them with only their wits, wiles and beauty to fend off disaster -- and forced them to go their separate ways. Aggie, the eldest, became a governess. Thalia, the literary one, became a schoolmistress. Euphie, the musical one, became a companion to an aristocratic old lady. And all of them saw the future of their hopes and the men of their dreams slipping out of their reach until they discovered that three Hartington heads were better than one when it came to playing a winning hand in the marriage game.