The Audacious Adventuress

One of Cartland's better books with a strong female character!

“Two of us were chosen,” he replied, “both eligible bachelors. My God, Druscilla, I assure you that after this a fox has all my sympathy.” - hunting is a despicable act!

'“If you talk like that about the Duchess, I shall shake you, Druscilla,” the Marquis said sharply.After one glance the Marquis looked away from her, having an irrepressible desire to curse his wife or even strike her. This was the woman he was married to, the Marchioness of Lynche, the woman his friends would be asked to believe had captured the most fastidious and sophisticated bachelor in the whole gay coterie of young bucks, who had attached themselves to the Prince Regent! Had any man ever been trapped more neatly and completely?' - this book, perhaps more so than any other by Cartland highlighted the incredible hypocrisy and double standard afforded to men with respect to mistresses etc.

“So you intended to interfere in my private life,” he said and his voice was icy, “I did not – want – a scandal,” Druscilla stuttered. “I was – afraid – of what the Duke – might do.” “I suggest that in future,” the Marquis said, throwing the pieces of the note into the wastepaper basket, “you allow me to handle my own affairs in my own way” .... as sure that the Dowager spoke the truth when she had said that it was fashionable for a young man to have his mistress who he could show off to his friends. Preferably one who was desired by other men to give his conquest a poignancy that might otherwise have hardly made the expense worthwhile. - face palm...

Almost as though she heard her mother speak, she knew that the only way to make Valdo love her was to give him all her love, her whole heart and her whole soul. She had not realised this before, she had held back, suspicious and untrusting because of what she herself had suffered.“Then – what is – love?” Druscilla managed to ask him. “I think love is when a man feels that he belongs to a woman and she belongs to him,” the Marquis said slowly, “when he knows that they are together as one person so that without her he is incomplete.” - possibly one of Cartland's best explanations. Too often her endings read like the characters have developed crushes on one another but this novel was a marked improvement that doesn't read like a standard B.C. novel. 👏🏻❤