Bøger af Fiona Buckley

The eleventh enthralling adventure to feature Ursula Blanchard, reluctant spy in the service of Queen Elizabeth I February, 1571. Ursula is once more plunged into affairs of the state when she escorts her foster daughter Margaret to the Netherlands to meet her suitor. The queen's spymaster, Sir William Cecil, learns that the wealthy Italian banker Roberto Ridolfi will be hosting their forthcoming wedding - a man who he fears may once again be plotting to put Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne. But Ursula is also about to come face-to-face with her greatest enemy - and the exiled Countess of Northumberland is not the only figure from Ursula's past to put in a surprising appearance.

Happily married to her third husband, Ursula Blanchard is rudely shaken on receipt of a threatening letter from the exiled Anne Percy, Countess of Northumberland, whose treasonous plot against Elizabeth I, Ursula helped foil a few months previously. Ursula dismisses the Countess's letter as idle threats, but then a series of strange events rocks Ursula's household - and Ursula herself is accused of witchcraft. Could Anne Percy really be orchestrating a plot against Ursula from her exile in the Netherlands? And, if so, how can Ursula prove it before she is hanged as a witch?

July, 1573. Recently widowed, Ursula Blanchard is living a quiet life on her Surrey estate, caring for her infant son. But her peaceful existence is shattered when Ursula's neighbour Jane Cobbold is found dead in her own flowerbed, stabbed through the heart with a silver dagger - and Ursula's manservant Brockley is arrested for the crime. Determined to prove Brockley's innocence, Ursula seeks help from her old mentor Lord Burghley. But when a second death occurs and the queen's new spymaster, Francis Walsingham, gets involved, once again Ursula is reluctantly drawn into matters of espionage and affairs of state.

Widow Ursula Blanchard is urged to remarry for the sake of Queen and Country in this latest enthralling historical adventure January, 1576. After three husbands, widow Ursula Blanchard has no desire to marry again. However, she is not in a position to refuse when Sir Francis Walsingham decides she must wed Count Gilbert Renard, the illegitimate son of King Henri II, in order to build a strategic alliance with the French. When the Count arrives at her country home to pay court, Ursula's misgivings grow stronger. Then one of her household staff is found dead at the bottom of the stairs. An accident - or something more sinister? The disturbing chain of events that follows sees Ursula heading on a perilous journey in a race against time to prevent a national catastrophe. En route she will encounter danger, hardship, conspiracy - and murder.

Melanie Purvis knows when she marries Indian doctor Avtar Singh that she must give up a way of life she has always loved. Raised in the west of England, she is deeply attached to the countryside and to her grandfather and the family home. But she loves Avtar, and she is willing to become a part of his world, even if that means living in India and sharing a house with his family.Arriving in Chandigarh, in northern India, Melanie receives a warm welcome from all of Avtar's relations except Aunt Asha, who seems to resent not only Melanie's happiness but also her Englishness. At first Avtar's love is enough to sustain Melanie as she tries to adapt to life in an essentially alien land. But Melanie never really feels at home-with her new country or with herself.It's three years since she's seen England, and Melanie feels she must visit her grandfather an old man who cannot live much longer. Avtar is strangely opposed to her trip, afraid, perhaps, that if she leaves India she'll never return.When a letter from England forces Melanie to a moment of decision, she knows that whatever she does, her life with Avtar will never again be the same.A NOVEL OF INDIA BY THE AUTHOR OF THE DISPUTED CROWN"Valerie Anand can honorably bear comparison with the likes of Mary Renault..." Bestsellers

When Ivon de Clairpont lies down for the night by the blacksmith's fire at Gildenford, sleep does not come easily. The great Norman knight knows himself to be an unwelcome visitor in England, for he is a member of the large party traveling with Alfred Atheling, an exiled son of the deposed English king. Ivon's intuition proves correct, for the evening in Gildenford is his last as a free man.In darkness, Ivon and his fellows are assaulted and taken hostage by soldiers loyal to England's current ruler. And in the morning, Alfred's followers are systematically executed-until only a handful of their original six hundred remain. Ivon is one of the few survivors, but, to his mind, his is a state worse than death: The once-powerful knight is sold as a slave to Eric Olafson and put to work on the Dane's farm in isolated Northumbria.Refusing to accept a life of servitude, Ivon ceaselessly plots his escape. After one particularly harrowing attempt to flee, he is nursed back to health by Gunnor, a young bondswoman who is determined to make him her own. With Gunnor's help, Ivon begins to accept the fate that has made him a thrall, but he never forsakes his only inheritance: the memory of freedom.For Ivon's descendants, this legacy is a bitter blessing. The knowledge of a glorious past rules the dreams of future de Clairponts-who must live with the results of their determination to return the family to what it once was.

In the worlds of passion and politics, Ursula Blanchard knows to follow her heart -- if she is to keep her head....Happily married and enjoying the life domestic, Ursula has her mind on family matters, not court treachery, as she begins to plan a betrothal for her young daughter Meg. When the powerful Duke of Norfolk extends an invitation for Ursula and her family to travel to London to meet Edmund Dean, a potential suitor, Ursula's hopes are quickly dashed: there is something in Dean's eyes that Ursula distrusts. Furthermore, she has also stumbled upon a rapidly accelerating plot closing in on her dear half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I, whom she is sworn to protect. When murder strikes the Duke's household, and a ciphered correspondence hints at the return of the deposed Mary, Queen of Scots, it's up to Ursula to keep the intrigue under wraps while racing to preserve the Queen's life. With Meg quickly falling in love with the wrong man, Ursula must walk a knife's edge to save her innocent daughter...and an unknowing throne.

March, 1588. As King Philip of Spain amasses a vast fleet of warships ready to invade England, Queen Elizabeth and her advisors seek a possible alliance with the Duke of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands. Ursula Stannard finds herself plunged into a hotbed of intrigue and rumour at the Duke of Parma's court, a place where no one is to be trusted.

Loyal Servant. Devoted Friend. Perfect target. Rumor has linked Queen Elizabeth I to her Master of Horse, Robin Dudley. And what rumors, at that: but for his ailing wife, Amy, Dudley would wed her majesty, the gossipmongers are whispering. To quell idle tongues, Elizabeth dispatches Ursula Blanchard to tend to the sick woman''s needs. But not even Ursula can prevent the "accident" that takes Amy''s life. Did she fall or was she pushed? Was Ursula a pawn of Dudley and the Queen? Suddenly Ursula finds herself at the center of the scandal, trying to protect Elizabeth as she loses her heart to a Frenchman who may be flirting with sedition against her Queen. She can trust no one, neither her lover nor her monarch, as she sets out to find the truth in a glittering court that conceasls a wellspring of blood and lies.

By the Queen''s command, she carried a letter that could alter the course of history -- or eclipse her own future.... Eager for a respite from her role as handmaiden to Queen Elizabeth I, Ursula Blanchard agrees to travel to France to help her first husband''s father bring his young ward home to England. But duty soon calls. Fearing that the pro-Catholic forces threatening to tear France asunder will spread to Protestant England, the Queen instructs Ursula to deliver a secret letter personally to Catherine de Médicis, offering to mediate the crisis. Not only will the perilous journey separate Ursula from her young daughter, it will bring her closer to a man she can neither trust nor forget -- her estranged second husband, Matthew de la Roche, avowed Catholic and enemy of Elizabeth. As it becomes clear that someone seeks to thwart her mission, she realizes she can trust no one but herself, and that only she can uncover the truth hidden in the shadows of treason, greed, and desire that darken her way.

Journeying to the side of her young ward, who has risked the queen's ire with her infatuations with the married gentlemen at court, Ursula Blanchard receives a new mission to spy on Mary, Queen of Scots, at the castle in which she is being imprisoned, an assignment that proves more dangerous than anticipated. Reprint.

July, 1573. Ursula's neighbour Jane Cobbold is found dead in her own flowerbed, stabbed through the heart - and Ursula's manservant Brockley is arrested for the crime. Determined to prove Brockley's innocence, Ursula seeks help from Lord Burghley - and finds herself drawn into matters of espionage and affairs of state.