Madalena

Sheila F. Walsh

Madalena de Brussec and her twin brother, Armand, are smuggled out of France in the Spring of 1812, when their father - at odds with the Emperor Napoleon - fears arrest as any moment. They come to England, to their aunt, who, used to her own conventional, biddable offspring, has never met anything quite like these two volatile seventeen-year-olds. She finds them a mixed blessing, particularly Madalena, who seems to he forever making scandals. A delightful mixture of innocence and Parisian maturity, Madalena meets and falls completely in love with the mysterious Devereux, Duke of Lytton, a government agent who allows her to believe he is a smuggler. Her love is to be tested throughout a series of events which would have daunted anyone less totally committed. Meanwhile, her brother Armand is following his own pursuits - pursuits destined to end in near disaster. And in France, their father is finally arrested. . Madalena is a refreshingly different heroine, whose effervescent character makes this a memorable romance of Regency times. **When lovely young Madalena de Brussac first saw the Duke of Lytten, she was disguised as a boy, and he was cloaked in mystery** as he rode his great stallion on a secret mission along the storm-wracked coast of Cornwall. **The next time Madalena met the Duke was amid the dazzling brilliance of a London ball**, as he paraded with his beautiful mistress to scandalized whispers. **By now Madalena knew that no proper young lady would become involved with this man who had lost count of his conquests in love**, and who revealed so little of the private, quite possibly evil, intrigues he pursued in Regency England and France. **But Madalena was no proper young lady. She was a woman hopelessly in love - and heedless of the cost....**