210. The Power and the Prince

Socialite and ‘professional beauty’, Lady Odele Ashford, is taken aback when her lover, the notorious womaniser Prince Ivan Katinouski, asks her to find him a young bride, who will give him the children he has always wanted, specifying that she must be pure and innocent and of noble English birth. At first she thinks that this will surely interfere with her own intimate relationship with the handsome and immensely rich Prince. But then inspiration strikes. Her own innocent eighteen-year-old niece, the blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful Charlotte Storr is the perfect match! When Lady Storr receives a letter demanding that Charlotte is to attend a ball at his huge Castle to meet her unwanted suitor, young Charlotte is horror-stricken because her heart already belongs to Honourable Shane O’Derry, an impoverished Irish aristocrat. Desperate to distract the attention of the Prince, Charlotte’s brother Richard and Shane recruit another young beauty, a music teacher’s daughter, Alana, to pose as a young Noblewoman in the hope of distracting the Prince away from Charlotte. Alana is an ethereal and almost mystical beauty, who is an exceptional musician like her father. Reluctantly entangled in a web of intrigue Alana is at first repelled by the playboy Prince, yet finds herself drawn by some strange magical Power in his possession.