The American Heiress

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by Daisy Goodwin


  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel

  are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE AMERICAN HEIRESS. Copyright © 2010 by Daisy Goodwin Productions. All rights reserved.

  For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth

  Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Goodwin, Daisy.

  [My last duchess]

  The American heiress: a novel / Daisy Goodwin.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  Originally published as: My last duchess. London: Headline Review, 2010.

  Summary: “Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts’, suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora’s story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James. “For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn’t always buy them happiness.”—DAISY GOODWIN IN THE DAILY MAIL”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-8708-0

  1. Americans—England—Fiction. 2. Aristocracy (Social class)—England—Fiction. 3. England—Social life and customs—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6107.O6625M9 2011

  823'.92—dc22

  2010048539

  First published in Great Britain by HEADLINE REVIEW, an imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP, an Hachette UK Company

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Chapter 1 The Hummingbird Man

  Chapter 2 A Spirit of Electricity

  Chapter 3 The Hunt

  Chapter 4 Hot Water

  Chapter 5 The Black Pearl

  Chapter 6 A Link in the Chain

  Chapter 7 Bows and Arrows

  Chapter 8 We Have a Rubens

  Chapter 9 The Double Duchess

  Part Two

  Chapter 10 Mrs Van Der Leyden Pays a Call

  Chapter 11 Euston Station

  Chapter 12 Two Cigarettes

  Chapter 13 The Coiled Serpent

  Chapter 14 Florence Dursheimer’s Day Out

  Chapter 15 ‘That Spot of Joy’

  Chapter 16 Madonna and Child

  Chapter 17 Bridgewater House

  Chapter 18 An Ideal Husband

  Chapter 19 ‘The Faint Half-Flush’

  Chapter 20 ‘That Pictured Countenance’

  Part Three

  Chapter 21 At Sea

  Chapter 22 The Homecoming

  Chapter 23 ‘A Bough of Cherries’

  Chapter 24 Protocols

  Chapter 25 Eros and Psyche

  Chapter 26 ‘Never to Stoop’

  Chapter 27 ‘Then all Smiles Stopped’

  Chapter 28 ‘The Dropping of the Daylight’

  Chapter 29 ‘Taming a Sea Horse’

  Chapter 30 ‘A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Name’

  Acknowledgements

 

 

 


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