Winged Magic

Aged just sixteen and still at school, Christine Lydford is appalled when she is ordered by her stepmother to leave school to live with the Marquis of Ventnor on his grand estate where he is to oversee her continued education.
As if that was not bad enough, the Marquis is a notorious rake and even worse, her lady's maid lets slip that secretly Christine's hated stepmother has arranged for her to marry the Marquis.
And once Christine is safely married her stepmother will be able to continue her clandestine affaire-de-coeur with him. But little does she know that the Marquis is already becoming bored with her and is looking elsewhere.
But Christine is already in love with another. She elopes with her intended to Rome, after persuading her friend, the orphaned beauty, Mina Shaldon, to pass herself off as Christine, just until her friend is married and safe from the Marquis's clutches.
Timid little Mina is terrified, utterly in awe of the dashing sophisticated aristocrat, but she does not realise that he, like the entire household and the birds and animals in the gardens and the woods that are drawn to her as if by some special magic of hers, is smitten.
Soon Mina too has lost her heart, although she knows that a Society Nobleman such as he would never dally with a mere orphan such as her if he found out that she was an impostor.

Barbara Cartland was the world's most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.
She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.
Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.
She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven.
Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.
Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.
Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone's life.