Lace Balcony

A$12 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books · No longer available

Vianna Francis, known in the colony as `The Sydney Venus', is a notorious young mistress in keeping to a former gentleman convict, who uses her to entice wealthy men to his gaming tables. A woman of mystery, Vianna is a magnet for scandal. Was she the mistress of a Royal duke? A lady's maid who learned the tricks of the world's oldest profession when in service to a Parisian courtesan? Or the widow of a young man executed on the gallows? Men of high rank are determined to possess this passionate, mercenary beauty. The L'Estrange half-brothers were born only months apart. One brother is an idealistic dreamer, the other a volatile adventurer. And the rivals have two things in common - a fatal attraction to get-rich schemes that run afoul of the law -- and their obsession with Vianna.

• Binding: Hardcover

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