Antoinette George

Soldier and secret agent during the latter part of the Napoleonic wars when Wellington and the British army were endeavouring to force the French back out of Spain. He was handsome, charming and lover of many women, but saddled with a wife he neither loved nor wanted. Nicholas de Bresancourt, Duc de Valenciennes, was a complex man of many talents, but also a tormented one. Memories of his horrific experiences as a small boy in France before he escaped from the Revolution continued to haunt him.Book Five and Conclusion: England1816He was still not totally healed from his injuries received at Waterloo, but he'd looked death in the face and miraculously survived. Bonaparte is no longer a threat so Nicky and the wider Granville family were looking forward to a happy and peaceful future. Except... Miles Ashcroft was worried. The spymaster knew Frederick Bernheim had also survived and was out there, somewhere, possibly now in England. Deranged and obsessed with revenge against Nicky, The Shadow, and the people who were responsible for his father's death twenty-five years before. A death, he claimed, that had changed the course of his life. As Ashcroft had feared, a fiendish plot and trap was sprung and everyone was caught up in it. A terrifying, nightmarish scenario that could only have been conceived by someone as crazed as Bernheim. Even Ashcroft, Ricky Ambrose and Jack had been sucked in, and some of the family's retainers and servants, but they hadn't hesitated to help, even at risk of their own lives. Can the family survive? Will they all meet a grisly fate or can the rescue party save everyone in time? And if they do come out of it alive, at what cost will it be to all involved? Facing a pack of starving lions would traumatise most people, and when someone literally looks death in the face, it tends to make them reassess their life... their past and their future... but sometimes the trauma can have a much deeper impact...

Soldier and secret agent during the latter part of the Napoleonic wars when Wellingtonand the British army were endeavouring to force the French back out of Spain.He was handsome, charming and lover of many women, but saddled with a wife he neitherloved nor wanted.Nicholas de Bresancourt, Duc de Valenciennes, was a complex man of many talents, but also a tormented one. Memories of his horrific experiences as a small boy in France before he escaped from the Revolution continued to haunt him.Part 3: France 1814Still saddled with a wife he despises for her treachery, but besotted with the little daughter he discovers he has fathered, and now a rich man due to his unexpected inheritance, Nicky has returned to France to try and reclaim his long-lost family estates and restore his former, but now ruined family home in Valenciennes. The French monarchy has been restored, Bonaparte is in exile in Elba, and there seems to be peace in Europe at last.However, Nicky has suddenly left Valenciennes. Lord Ashcroft is at the bottom of it, as the intrepid Bella has discovered and, fed up with fretting and fuming in London, she has gone off in search of her errant spouse, accompanied by Jack Vallance, a young groom with an unfortunate background but some very useful talents. From Valenciennes to Paris, and thence down to Nice, while Bonaparte's supporters secretly plot his return to France, Bella has doggedly tracked her husband. Now aware of what he's up to and the danger Frederick Bernheim presents to him, her family, and her country, not to mention herself and Jack, Bella inadvertently finds herself caught up in a desperate situation where her life, and Nicky's, are at stake and there is only Jack to help.

Soldier and secret agent during the latter part of the Napoleonic wars when Wellingtonand the British army were endeavouring to force the French back out of Spain.He was handsome, charming and lover of many women, but saddled with a wife he neither loved nor wanted.Nicholas de Bresancourt, Duc de Valenciennes, was a complex man of many talents, but also a tormented one. Memories of his horrific experiences as a small boy in France before he escaped from the Revolution continued to haunt him. Part Two: Spain 1813Obsessed with the mysterious woman he's had to leave behind in London, Nicky must nevertheless turn his mind to his mission. He has to run to earth and stop Frederick Bernheim, the agent now plotting to de-stabilise Wellington's increasingly successful military efforts in Spain.Frederick Bernheim, son of the man responsible for the demise of Nicky's parents, his own nightmare incarceration in a grim fortress prison at the age of only four, and guilty shortly after of the nearly causing the death of several of his adoptive relations who had saved his life and helped him escape from France. The coincidence is both surreal and frightening, and memories of what happened to him have plagued Nicky ever since and coloured his whole life.Despairing of finding any clue to trace his target and now operating deep under cover, disguised as an itinerant singer working in common bars and hostelries, Nicky finally gets a lead through a chance meeting with a young prostitute. However, he's in Madrid and cut off from Wellington's forces.With no other help to hand, he runs to earth an old gypsy associate of Francis Granville from his Shadow days, and it's down to just the two of them to thwart Frederick Bernheim's nefarious plans and dispense with the man himself. However, as Nicky discovers, he's even cleverer and more dangerous than his late father...

The Pride of Lions: Soldier and secret agent during the latter part of the Napoleonic wars and present at the epic Battle of Waterloo in 1815; he was handsome and charming, a lover of many women, but saddled with a wife he neither loved nor wanted. Nicholas de Bresancourt, Duc de Valenciennes, was a complex man of many talents, but also a tormented one. Memories of his horrific experiences as a small boy in France before he escaped from the Revolution continued to haunt him.Book 1: Gambling LionLondon. June 1812.He was carrying important dispatches from the British Army HQ in the Peninsula to the War Ministry in London and hadn't been home for a year. While waiting for confidential and urgent documents to take back to the Army high command, Nicholas de Bresancourt is ordered to meet an inscrutable gentleman in the innocuous-sounding Department of Information in Whitehall. Lord Ashcroft wants to utilize his talents to track down a dangerous French agent who has been causing trouble for those still battling Bonaparte across Europe, and has now turned up in Spain. Meanwhile, Nicky also takes the opportunity to catch up with his adoptive relations, including the dying family matriarch, the nearest thing he's ever had to a grandmother, as well as the wife he was inveigled into marrying and now wants rid of. Unsurprisingly, being Nicky, he decides to take a few hours off for a bit of personal R&R, away from the stresses of family matters and work. Good looking, charismatic and a consummate lothario, he heads out on the Town with a few regimental friends and they take him to a new gambling salon in Mayfair which is all the rage: Le Lion D'Or, owned by a mysterious masked woman who calls herself La Lionesse. Inexplicably fascinated by the lady, who in turn seems very taken with the handsome soldier, she asks him up to her private quarters to continue their game of cards and he accepts, and that's when she raises the stakes...

Compelling romance and swashbuckling thrills. The dramatic and gripping story of one man with two lives and the woman he craves, but cannot have...He was the handsome aristocrat and charismatic adventurer who created a dynasty and she was the feisty, unconventional woman he loved. He was English and she was French, two strong-willed people determined never to give in to each other, and a devious, diabolical enemy determined to exact revenge on the smuggler who had constantly evaded him and thwarted his nefarious plans, Set at the end of the 18th century when France was on the cusp of a bloodthirsty Revolution, this is an exciting and unputdownable tale of daring escapes, broken promises, distrust and misunderstandings, all threaded through by a passionate and turbulent love affair, a scorching romance that wouldn't be denied.Part 1: The Elusive Smuggler France 1790. A country in turmoil and you're desperate. Your family has been unjustly thrown into a fortress prison for reasons nothing to do with the Revolution and it's down to you to rescue them, if you can, before they meet a grim fate. So what to do when you only have a crippled brother to aid you? With law and order breaking down and justice gone missing, you decide only someone with a ruthless reputation can help, a devious and cunning criminal, if you can find the man you've heard about. The brutal and corrupt Regional Governor has been trying for years without success, but that won't discourage you because you're an exceedingly determined woman, wilful and somewhat eccentric, and you'll pay or do anything if this man can help facilitate an escape from the fortress and get your family out of France. Marie-Catherine de Mornay had always got her way and done what she wanted, and succeeded, but that was before she met The Shadow. However, Edgar Bernheim, the venal Governor, had his own private agenda, for which the Revolution was merely a front, and was an exceedingly vengeful man people took on at their peril...