The Golden Redepennings

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Tea with Anne and her sons

“No, Stephen,” the Countess of Chirbury said, moving a delicate vase away from the questing hands of her eldest son.

“But Mama,” the little boy protested, “I need a place to hide my soldier. He is an exploring officer, like Papa’s friend, Mr Bear. And if John’s soldiers see him, they will shoot him.”

“Yes, they will,” his twin shouted. Then bit his lip at his mother’s frown. He stood and bowed to the Duchess of Haverford, his hostess. “I am sorry for shouting, Aunt Eleanor.”

“We do not shout in a lady’s parlour,” Anne reminded her son, who sent his impish grin her way and plopped back down on the carpet to turn some of the row of lead soldiers around, presumably so they could better hunt Stephen’s little exploring officer.

“Hide your man behind the cushion, Stephen,” Eleanor suggested. Cushions were much more robust than vases. When she had invited her niece-in-law and sons to tea, she had expected the children would come with attendants to keep them entertained. But apparently Hannah, their nurse, was on her afternoon off, and the nursemaid was a substitute, the usual nursery maid having eaten something that disagreed with her.

The inexperienced girl was out of her depth with the twins. She was sitting in a chair by the window showing a picture book to little Joseph, who at eight months old was regarding the illustrations with dark intense eyes. His father already called the boy ‘the Professor’, and he certainly showed no sign of becoming like his older brothers. At four years of age, they had more mischief apiece than a barrel of monkeys, though Anne would insist, and Eleanor agreed, that they had not an ounce of malice between them. Just boundless energy, creative imaginations, dauntless courage, an inborn need to each outdo the other, and a restless curiosity that led them from near catastrophe to close disaster, so that their father swore he was growing grey before his time.

A voice spoke from her doorway. “Good day, Mama, Cousin Anne, boys. We have a freshly waxed floor in the picture gallery, Cousin Anne. If I promise to keep them away from stairs and anything breakable, may I take my little cousins to test how well it works?”

Anne smiled beatifically at the Marquis of Aldridge, Eleanor’s son. “Would you?”

Aldridge winked at her and addressed her twins. “Boys, put your armies away in their boxes. Your Mama says you may come and play with me.”

“Can we go for a ride in your phaeton, Lord Aldridge?” John asked, as he obeyed the command with more haste than delicacy, throwing the toys into the little leather box they had arrived in.

“I have another plan,” Aldridge said. “You will like it.”

“Is it going to the kitchen to eat plums?” Stephen wondered, his own soldiers–even the precious exploring officer–being tossed carelessly into his own box.

“Something different,” Aldridge told them, holding out his hands. “Something fun.”

With a boy attached to each hand, he nodded to the ladies. “Send a footman when you want to retrieve your savages, Cousin,” he said, and led them away.

“He is very good with them,” Anne told Aldridge’s mother. “He will make a good father one day.”

 

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Making her an offer in WIP Wednesday

The Proposal. John Pettie, R.A. (1839-1893). Oil On Canvas, 1869.

Proposal scenes can be fun to read and to write. Especially when the hero gets it wrong! I’ve written three in the past month. Here’s the one from The Flavour of Our Deeds (out in March). My heroine demands an accounting:

“What can I do for you, Kitty,” he asked.

She took a sip of her brandy without taking her eyes off him. There was that chin again, lifted in the air as a signal that her calm tone of voice hid a wealth of feeling: trepidation and irritation mixed, if he knew Kitty. And he did. “You said you loved me, and that you couldn’t live without me. You said we would make it work. What did you mean?”

A fair question. The first part was easy. “I love you. I want you to be my wife, Kitty, to have and to hold for the rest of our lives.” His voice had dropped to a low rumble as his love for Kitty and, yes, his desire threatened to overwhelm him. “I thought to wait to propose until I could make a home for you, but if you wish, I will ask this very minute.” He set the brandy aside and fell to his knees at her feet to take her own glass from her unresisting fingers and possess himself of her hands.

She leaned towards him, moistening her lips so that a spear of lust shot straight to his groin, her eyes glowing in the candle-light.

“Will you promise to marry me, Kitty,” he begged. “If I could, I would be a younger man for you, one with greater wealth and a noble heritage. But no one could love you more than I. No one will cherish you more than I. Will you be my future, Catherine Mary Stocke? My wife, my life partner, my reason for my work and my comfort in my leisure, the mother of my children, should God bless us?” He leaned to meet her, and if he was confident of her answer, it was not arrogance. She had given him good reason.

She did not disappoint. “My answer, of course, is yes.” Then, being Kitty, she had more to say, leaning away from his kiss to say. “However, I have some questions.” Her tone hinted that she had better like the answers. He should have expected her to challenge him. He suppressed a smile. How he loved this woman!

He sat back on his heels. “Ask,” he invited.

This one is from The Talons of  Lyon, which will be published in April by Dragonblade Publishing. This is the first proposal, made in front of a courtroom full of people. He has two more go’s to get it right:

The third magistrate took a turn. “One matter remains to be discussed. The guardian appointed in the will is dead. The guardian appointed as a replacement by the court in Norwich has proven unsuitable. The children will be in the custody of their mother, but they need a male guardian. If Lady Frogmore were to marry, the choice would be simple.”

The chief magistrate looked across the room directly at Lance. “Lord Lancelot Versey, you have been dedicated in your support for the lady and assiduous in your attentions. May we expect an announcement?”

Lance threw caution to the wind. “I wish for nothing more, Your Honours, but I thought it wrong to court the lady while she was in such trouble. We have not discussed the matter. My affections are fixed, but I have no notion whether the lady returns my esteem.”

Serafina, who was half fainting on Mrs Worthington’s shoulder looked up at that., her eyes widening. A tentative smile trembled on her lips.

“Well, Lady Frogmore?” asked the second magistrate.

Lance opened his mouth to object to the question, but the chief magistrate did it for him.

“Now, now, Wallace, we must not put pressure on the lady. The question of guardian can wait for another day, though until it is settled, the children and their mother will need to live in the household of a responsible and reliable gentleman approved by the court. Lady Frogmore, you are living with the Barkers, are you not? If Lord Barker is willing, you may have the children with you there.”

There wasn’t a lot more to be said. The magistrates discussed another hearing on the guardianship issue, and agreed with Mr Forsythe that they could make a decision on timing over the next days…

[The scene goes on to talk about closing of the case, but ends with this paragraph.]

Lance had to admit he was disappointed as the lady who held his heart walked off on Barker’s arm. Seraphina had not commented on his proposal? Was it a proposal? He had made his intentions clear, and she didn’t react at all. What did you expect, you idiot? She is desperate to see her children.

And in Perchance to Dream, the last novel in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, also being published by Dragonblade, the hero asks for the heroine’s hand in his daughter’s sickroom. They’ve been nursing her through diptheria. It’s scheduled for publication nearly a whole year away.

“I think you are right,” John replied. “But I didn’t want to talk about Tenby and Augusta, Pauline. I wanted to talk about us.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean,” she asked.

The words John had been rehearsing all afternoon had gone completely out of his head. “Pauline.” That was as good a place as any to start. “I wondered… that is to say, would you consider…” She was looking at him attentively, her brow slightly furrowed in question.

“I mean,” he explained, “you and I get on very well together, and I would count myself the happiest of men if you would consent to be my wife.” There. It was done. He waited anxiously for her reply.”

If he had to categorise her expression, he’d call it more bewildered than delighted.

“Because we have been alone together,” she said.

“No,” he replied adamantly. “That’s not it at all. I know we have been alone together and Tenby tells me there is talk…” From the way her eyes widened, he should have kept that to himself. “I already intended to ask you, Pauline. I have been unable to stop thinking about you since our kiss.”

“Marrying me?” Pauline’s eyes expressed doubt, but also, if John was not mistaken, longing.

“Yes, you and I,” he said. The silence stretched, until he added, “We deal very well together, you and I.”

***

Pauline’s heart yearned to say yes, but she did not want him looking back and regretting this day. How dreadful to be tied for life to yet another woman whom he did not set out to marry.

“John,” Pauline pointed out, “you were forced into marriage once, because a girl was compromised. I am not a girl, and my life will change very little if my reputation is damaged in some quarters. My family will still love me. You don’t have to do this.”

“This is what I want,” he insisted.

Pauline saw almost everything she had dreamt of within her reach. She could stay with John and Pauline and have the right to call them family. She could enjoy John’s kisses and more, perhaps have babies of her own. But would he come to resent her in time?

“If you are ready to marry, John, wouldn’t it be better to choose someone younger, who could give you half a dozen children? I am thirty, John.”

John rejected the suggestion with a fierce frown and a wave of his hand, as if throwing it away. “I want you. I want my friend, the lady I trust, the lady I can see as a partner for the remainder of my life.” His voice turned coaxing and he possessed himself of her hands.

“I know Cumberland has long winters but we grow good roses. I can build you as many succession houses as you want, and the garden will be yours to do with as you please. As for children, if I have Jane and you, I have enough, but you are still young enough to give me more, if we are so blessed. I will certainly try to fill you with my babies, and enjoy doing so, if you are willing.”

Was the room suddenly warm? Or was it John’s words, and the heat in his eyes, melting Pauline’s core. She would do it, she decided. Perhaps he did not love her, but he wanted her, and she loved him. It would be enough. And perhaps they would be happy after all, for had not Arial once said that it was marrying a friend that led to love between her and Peter?

John was still trying to persuade her. “We can move from Cumberland closer to your brother, if you prefer. Or I could take a house in London so we could spend part of each year there, with Jane and any other children we have, so they can grow up knowing their cousins.”

“Cumberland will do just fine, but I like the idea of visiting London from time to time,” Pauline told him. “Wherever we live, I would be proud to be your wife.”

John whooped, and grabbed her off her feet to swing her around in a circle, so that she laughed out loud. As he bent his head to kiss her, a voice from the bed asked, “What are you doing?” They had awoken Jane.

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The virgin hero on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from The Flavour of Our Deeds (Book 5 in The Golden Redepennings). My hero has been resisting the heroine for six years. She is a lady born, daughter and sister of an earl, wealthy and beautiful, with the world at her feet. He is base born, a commoner, a working man, too old for her, and in danger. She has finally got him to concede that he loves her, and wants to marry her. Some time. When the danger is over. In this scene, she demands that he thinks again.

In the next moment she was in his arms, and he was kissing her. “You will be the death of me, stubborn female,” he muttered against her lips, before covering her mouth again, one hand on her lower back pressing her against him, the other gently cradling the back of her head as he ravaged her with his lips and his tongue. This time, he was the one to draw back. “We have to stop.” His body belied his words. He was flushed and trembling, and the thin layers of their robes had not in the least disguised his arousal.

“Must we?” Kitty wondered, “If we are to marry within the week?” She had a theoretical knowledge of what came next. His kisses left her eager to put theory into practice.

She thought he would deny them both because she was young and innocent, and he would be taking advantage of her. What he said instead was unexpected.

“I am a bastard, Kitty. Got by my father on the pretty daughter of his gamekeeper. My only memory of my mother—or memories, because I think it happened many times—is of her crying after one of his visits.”

Kitty didn’t see the relevance. “You are not your father, Luke. And I am not your mother.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I made a promise to my grandfather, Kitty. When he lay dying, he begged me not to be like my father—careless with women and ruled by my pri— my lust.”

Still not relevant, Kitty thought, but Luke hadn’t finished.

“I promised that I would wait until marriage to experience physical intimacy with a woman, and would be faithful to my wedding vows once I’d made them. I swore it on the family bible.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Wait. Did that mean he had never...?

Luke was looking into some mental landscape—the past perhaps? “I’ve never found it hard to keep that promise, because I have seen so much misery arising from the behaviour my grandfather decried. My mother, and so many other woman. Even the ones who were eager risked being left broken hearted. Or they gave themselves to a man who died before he could put a ring on their finger, and his good intentions didn’t protect them or their baby from the consequences.”

He was right, of course. Kitty had seen it herself. Indeed, if not for Anne’s masquerade as a widow, she would have lived it, at least by association.

“Then along came you, Kitty. I have always struggled to resist you, and with each kiss it becomes harder and harder.” He chuckled suddenly, and his voice dropped to a low growl that vibrated in the places that ached for him most. “In more ways than one.” She caught the salacious reference, and her face heated. She licked her lips, which had gone suddenly dry.

Luke gulped and looked away. “Help me keep my promise, Kitty,” he begged.

Botheration. An appeal to her honour. “Yes, of course.” She turned her back on him to straighten the robe he had brushed aside during their kiss, drawing it closed high up her chest and belting it firmly. “Thank you for explaining.”

Luke had tidied himself while she was rearranging her robe. He offered her another brandy, but she refused. “If I must be good, another would be a bad idea,” she said. She returned to her chair, more determined than ever. “Luke, will you marry me and take me to Cumberland with you?” A special license was sounding more and more appealing.

Luke sat, too, smiling at her. “Are you going to argue with me for the rest of our lives together, heart of my heart?” His tone was one of enquiry rather than criticism.

“Only when you are wrong,” she retorted, then amended the statement. “No, for sometimes I might be wrong, but believe myself to be right, as when I saw no reason why you should not bed me, tonight. When you explained, I changed my mind. I would hope, Luke, that we can disagree in a civilized manner, discuss things, and reach agreement.”

“I beg you not to speak of bedding, my love,” he groaned.

“A special license?” she suggested, hopefully.

“A common license. In the morning, I shall speak with Rede, and with Uncle Baldwin about waiting a few days longer. Now go to bed, Kitty. You have won.”

Kitty widened her eyes. “I have won? That is not reaching agreement, Luke.”

“I misspoke. We have both won. You are correct that it is not my right to decide to keep you from my life in order to protect you from a threat that might not even exist. But Kitty, if you are in immediate peril and we do not have time for a discussion, I want your promise that you will obey me in that moment. We can talk it over when we are safe.”

That was fair, and quite a large concession. “I promise, Luke, unless you are the one in danger and I can do something to save you.”

Luke heaved a sigh. “I imagine that we will have many more vigorous discussions in our future, my love.”

Kitty blew him a kiss as she made her way to the door. “But imagine the fun we will have making up!” she told him, then slipped out the door, closing it behind her, delighted with her exit line.

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Tea at Gunter’s with Kitty

Another excerpt post. This one is from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 of the Golden Redepennings. Kitty has taken refuge with her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, and they are out for the afternoon.

Afterwards, Her Grace ordered the open carriage to stop at Gunter’s for ices, sending a footman in to make the order, and eating the delicious confections in the carriage.

It was a sunny afternoon, and many other people had had the same idea. All four ladies were hailed by friends and acquaintances, many of whom came to chat for a time. Not all of them were welcome.

One of younger ladies who persisted in regarding Kitty as a rival to be brought low asked Kitty, “Is it true that your brother’s gamekeeper has been arrested for murder?”

Kitty opened her eyes as widely as she could. “Goodness, Miss Fairburn, who is spreading such a story?”

Miss Fairburn blushed. “I heard it somewhere.” She looked up and past Kitty’s shoulder. “I wondered if it was true.”

Kitty frowned, and shook her head slightly. “It does not sound likely,” she said. “I wonder which gamekeeper, and who he might be supposed to have murdered? And why?”

Lady Juliana Meredith leaned closer. “I heard that you were at the house when the man was arrested, and that the constable tried to arrest you, Lady Catherine.”

Kitty answered that perfectly true statement with a burst of laughter. The Duchess of Haverford broke from her conversation with a couple of matrons to say, “I can assure you that no constables have attempted to arrest a lady staying in my house, Lady Juliana.” She finished with a harrumphing sound that indicated her opinion of any constable foolish enough to try.

One could depend upon Miss Fairburn and her cronies to repeat juicy gossip, and to add speculation to make it more inflammatory. One could hope that the disapproval of the duchess might help to button their lips.

When Aunt Eleanor turned away again, Miss Fairburn changed the subject. “Such a pretty dress, Lady Catherine. Are you hoping to bring back the sleeve style from last Season?” She batted her eyelashes at the rest of the group as if hoping for applause.

Kitty chuckled again. “I am happy to leave the pursuit of fashion to you young ladies, Miss Fairburn. This is a gown from last Season. For some reason, I barely wore it, though I like it very much.” She lifted one arm. “The sleeves are particularly pretty, do you not think?”

“You were very polite to her,” Jessica said, after the group made their farewells and excuses, and moved away. “I wanted to scratch her eyes out, and she wasn’t even addressing her nasty comments to me!”

Kitty smiled again. “My niece’s nanny, Hannah, always said, A soft answer turneth away wrath. In my experience, a soft answer drives one’s would-be persecutors wild with rage. Their barbs have failed to pierce my armour, and yet, I have said nothing to which they can take offence.”

Jessica chuckled. “I shall remember that.” Jessica knew all about barbs from the likes of Miss Fairburn. She and her sisters Matilda and Frances had been raised and luxury and given every advantage, but in the eyes of Society’s high sticklers, nothing could wipe out the stain of their birth. They were all three daughters of the Duke of Haverford by different mistresses.

“Lady Catherine! Lady Catherine!” The voice, a man’s tenor blemished by a shrill nasal whine, could come from only one man. Kitty turned to look, suppressing the inevitable sigh.

Sure enough, Hardwicke-Chalmers came rushing through the crowd, oblivious to the child he nearly stepped on and the waiter whose tray of ices nearly flew up into his face. The waiter performed an aerobatic masterpiece of a maneuver, and continued on his way as Hardwicke-Chalmers skidded to a stop beside the landau and looked up into Kitty’s face with a delighted smile, sure of his welcome.

“You need to tell your brother to dismiss his butler, Lady Catherine. They told me at your house you were not in town.,” he said.

Her Grace answered the man while Kitty was still gasping at his impertinence. “I daresay, Mr Hardwicke-Chalmers, that they said she was not at home. And no more she is. Lady Catherine is my guest at Haverford House.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers gaped at the duchess as if surprised to find her there, then blinked hard and gulped. “That would be it, Your Grace,” he agreed.

He then turned to Kitty and asked what entertainments she was attending, as he wished to reserve as many dances as she would grant him, and if she was planning on taking in a musicale, he wished to claim the great honour of sitting beside her.

Kitty could scarcely believe the affrontery of the man, ignoring the existence of the duchess’s two wards and even the duchess herself. “I must defer to Her Grace,” she said, pointedly, who has been kind enough to chaperone me, along with her wards, Miss Grenford and Miss Jessica Grenford. The choice of invitations is entirely over to Her Grace.”

Hardwicke-Chalmers looked at the two Grenford girls, at the duchess, and then back at Kitty. “Awkward,” he said. “I will have to think about this.”

With that remark, he walked away. Even for Hardwicke-Chalmers, that was extraordinarily bad manners.

“Have you known Mr Hardly-Charming for long?” Jessica asked. The nickname fitted perfectly. Kitty giggled at the apposite mangling of the oaf’s name even as she answered.

“He has been pursuing me all Season. He seems to think that I am too old to be selective. What is awkward? And what does he have to think about?”

“Us,” Matilda provided. “If you are chaperoned by our guardian, he can hardly dance with you and refuse to dance with us.”

Kitty was quick to say, “Surely not. Would he say such a thing in front of you if that is what he meant?” Yes, she answered her own question. He is that crass and dense.

“A foolish and conceited young man, with little justification for either” the duchess said. “I believe him to have sufficient native wit if he cared to apply it, but instead, he depends on his mother to do it for him.”

Kitty was surprised, for the Duchess of Haverford seldom spoke ill of anyone.

“Have a care, dear Kitty,” Her Grace added. “Honoria Hardwicke-Chalmers’ sense of ethics is bound up with her own self-importance. If she has set her sights on your dowry to drag her family out of River Tick, she will not hesitate to be underhanded in her methods.”

“I will not give him the opportunity to stage a compromise,” Kitty promised, adding, “and I would not, in any case, marry a man who tried to force my consent, even if it meant giving up Society. Living without invitations is much preferable to living with a tyrant and a liar.”

She would have caught back the last sentence had she thought them through before she spoke them. The Duke of Haverford was both tyrant and liar, as well as erratic and a rakehell.

However, the duchess merely commented, “Very wise, my dear, but best avoid the need to make such a choice.

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Backlist spotlight on Unkept Promises

(Book 4 in The Golden Redepennings series)

Logline: She wants to negotiate a comfortable marriage; he wants her in his bed

“… oaths and anchors equally will drag: naught else abides on fickle earth but unkept promises of joy.” Herman Melville

Naval captain Jules Redepenning has spent his adult life away from England, and at war. He rarely thinks of the bride he married for her own protection, and if he does, he remembers the child he left after their wedding seven years ago. He doesn’t expect to find her in his Cape Town home, a woman grown and a lovely one, too.

Mia Redepenning sails to Cape Town to nurse her husband’s dying mistress and adopt his children. She hopes to negotiate a comfortable married life with the man while she’s there. Falling in love is not on her to-do list.

Before they can do more than glimpse a possible future together, their duties force them apart. At home in England, Mia must fight for the safety of Jules’s children. Imprisoned in France, Jules must battle for his self-respect and his life.

Only by vanquishing their foes can they start to make their dreams come true.

Buy links

Books2Read: books2read.com/Unkept-Promises

Excerpt

Jules made his way home in the early hours of the morning, a little drunk and a lot annoyed at a waste of an entire evening. “Good of you to come out on the first night of your leave, Redepenning,” said the admiral when he was finally able to say his goodbyes. Not that his note demanding Jules’s presence at his table had offered the choice of refusal.

The evening had comprised interminable discussion of the same points over and over—points on which Jules had given his opinion in his reports from Madagascar and the final one delivered this afternoon. They needed to oust the enemy from the two ports still in French hands, since the enemy used those bases to attack British shipping.

Most of the captains favoured a frontal assault. Jules, Fleming, and a couple of the other captains held the minority view, suggesting the British support the young king of the Merinas, who was in the process of conquering the whole island. The admiral was playing his cards close to his chest, but had dismissed them all with a promise to let them know what he would be recommending to the Admiralty.

No-one had said anything new, and Jules’s evening would have been better spent with his daughters and Kirana. Or even having the overdue confrontation with his inconvenient wife.

She had better not be in his bed. If she was, he’d pack her off to her own, as he should have done with Maureen when the little baggage met him there one night, naked between his sheets, after a very similar evening. Instead, tired, frustrated, and lonely, his willpower blunted by alcohol, he had accepted what she had to offer. If she was pregnant with his child, it must have been that night, for the next time—the only other time—he’d worn a pig skin, as he always did with anyone except Kirana. Kirana, who had been too sick to give him the comfort of her body for a long time.

He had been so depressed by the sheer emptiness of copulating with Maureen that he’d sworn off any repeat engagements, though Maureen had not believed he was serious, and he’d left for Mauritius and Madagascar before she could put it to the test.

He’d kept to his resolution, too, much to Gerta van Klief’s surprise. The widow had been quite put out when he explained he intended to honour his marriage from this point on.

Which, when Jules came to think about it, he could do while still enjoying the delectable package that might be waiting in his bed. She was, after all, his wife. For a moment, he let himself imagine unwrapping the unexpected gift that was, after all, his. No. They needed to get a few things sorted, first. A ship could only have one captain, and he was it. And he decided who was on his crew and where they went.

His key opened the front door, and he locked and bolted it by the light of the shuttered lamp left waiting for him in the entrance hall. He let himself into his bed chamber. His bed was empty; the sheets crisp and neat over the mattress. He did not feel disappointed. He would not feel disappointed.

But before he could think and put a brake on the action, he crossed the room to the connecting door leading to the one requisitioned by his wife, and turned the handle. It wouldn’t budge. She’d locked the door against him!

His indignation expressed itself in a raised fist, ready to pound on the door and demand entrance, until his sense of humour caught up. So much for planning to turn her out of his bed. What a hypocrite he was being, desiring the damnable woman even while he was suspicious of her motives and annoyed about her existence.

He turned towards the bed. He’d be sleeping in it alone, apparently.

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Tea with Kitty

“It is always lovely to see you, Kitty dear,” said the Duchess of Haverford as she sipped her tea, “but I did not realise that you had come to town with Chirbury and your sister.” It was more of an opening than a statement. Kitty’s sister Anne, another of her goddaughters and wife to her nephew, the Earl of Chirbury, had visited just two days ago, to see whether Kitty had come to the duchess for help. “She has taken flight with our gamekeeper and his son, Aunt Eleanor, after hearing two people plot to kill him. We hoped she might come to you.”

Well, here she was. It remained to be seen what for.

“I did not, Aunt Eleanor. Indeed, I came to London hoping to find them, but they have already left for Longford Court.”

Eleanor inclined her head.

“I need your help, Aunt Eleanor. Or, rather, Lucas Mogg needs your help. You remember him? He  helped to save Dan last year from the man who wanted to take him.”

Yes, Eleanor well remembered the attempt on the son of young Jules’ Redepenning, and Mr Mogg’s role in it. “A good man,” she agreed. “A pity he is not of your class, my dear, for I know you have a tendre for him.” Although Eleanor supposed it was too late for such considerations, if they had been travelling together. She hoped they had not been travelling together.

“We have been travelling together,” said Kitty.

***

In The Flavour of Our Deeds, which I am currently writing, Kitty and Luke, with Luke’s son Paul, are on their way to London, having failed to find Kitty’s sister Anne and her husband at their Essex estate. Once in London, they will seek help from the Duchess of Haverford and her son Aldridge.

 

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Backlist spotlight on The Realm of Silence

The Realm of Silence

(Book 3 in the Golden Redepennings series)

Rescue her daughter, destroy her dragons, defeat his demons, go back to his lonely life. How hard can it be?

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved…  the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.” George Eliot

When Susan Cunningham’s daughter disappears from school, her pleasant life as a fashionable, dashing, and respectable widow is shattered. Amy is reported to be chasing a French spy up the Great North Road, and when Susan sets out in pursuit she is forced to accept help from the last person she wants: her childhood friend and adult nemesis, Gil Rutledge.

Gil Rutledge has loved Susan since she was ten and he a boy of twelve. He is determined to oblige her by rescuing her daughter. And if close proximity allows them to rekindle their old friendship, even better. He has no right to ask for more.

Gil and Susan must overcome danger, mystery, ghosts from the past, and their own pride before their journey is complete.

Buy links

https://books2read.com/TheRealmofSilence: https://books2read.com/TheRealmofSilence

Excerpt

Four years had passed since he last crossed verbal swords with Susan Cunningham, and she looked no older. Did the infernal woman have the secret of an elixir of youth? She had been widowed long enough to be out of her blacks, and back into the blues she favoured: some concoction that was probably the height of fashion and that both hid and enhanced her not insubstantial charms.

As always, she was perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly behaved. And he undoubtedly looked every bit as if he had been travelling for weeks, apart from the brief stopover in Derby with his sister.

She was breathing quickly, fear for her child flushing her face. To one who knew her, and who watched her closely, she held her composure by a thread.

The crowd of onlookers leaned forward to catch his reply. “Is there somewhere we can discuss your business in private, Mrs Cunningham?”

That fetched a considering nod. “Miss Foster, may I present Colonel—no, Lord Rutledge? He and I grew up on neighbouring estates. Lord Rutledge, Miss Foster’s niece Patrice is, we presume, with my daughter.” She indicated the child shifting nervously from one foot to another nearby, with Miss Foster firmly gripping her shoulder. “Patrice’s sister Clementine. But shall we seek privacy for our discussion?”

Until this moment, Gil had wondered if he was setting up a false trail. After all, he was not certain he’d seen Amy in Stamford. Why would The Goddess be hunting for her in Cambridge if she was a day’s hard ride away? But the girl had been dressed like the child Clementine, and was of the right age and appearance. Besides, if he were wrong he’d make it up by devoting himself to helping with the search. The interview in Essex with his reluctant sister-in-law would need to wait until The Goddess’s child was safe.

He gave Moffat the signal to deal with their mounts and the packhorse, and followed Mrs Cunningham into the inn. Susan, he said silently, though underneath that silence earlier names sounded in his head. Joan. Athene. Boadicea. Just as her father had named his sons for battle-tried kings and emperors who led successful armies, he had given his daughter the names of female warriors: a saint, a Goddess, and a queen. The ten-year-old girl who followed the boys at their games demanded and won a more common name, but to his mind it had never suited her as well as those bestowed upon her before God, at her baptism.

He expected her to demand answers as soon as they were private, but she had never behaved like the other women he knew. She stood, seemingly at ease, one golden brow arched, and waited for him to speak. She took his breath away. She always had.

“How long have the two girls been missing?” Saturday, the ostler said, which would fit. But it seemed unlikely such a devoted mother would have so long delayed the search.

“Saturday,” Susan confirmed, “though the school found out only today, and told me when I arrived unexpectedly.” She seemed to think that required further explanation. “I was journeying back to London from Michael’s estate in the north, and diverted on a whim to visit Amy.

The girl could have been Amy, then. “What would she be doing in Stamford?”

“Stamford! I can imagine no reason why she and Patrice might go to Stamford, or how? I have been asking about carriages, but… Wait. You saw her in Stamford?”

“Yesterday morning. I did not see her clearly. She was dressed like Miss Clementine here. One of those bonnets. Black half boots. A skirt and coat thing. Both blue. Wool, I think.”

“A pelisse, yes. In bishop’s blue over a lighter coloured skirt. The Fellowes’ Academy requires all its students to dress the same. And her companion would also have been wearing the uniform.”

“She was with a boy. Or, at least, someone dressed as a boy. Thin face. Dark hair from what I could see under the cap. Tall for a girl, if it was a girl. Taller than Miss Cunningham by perhaps five inches. Their governess, or whoever it was, ordered them into the post chaise and they took off on the North Road.”

“Governess.” Susan’s brows drew together as she thought about that.

“It must have been someone else,” Miss Foster proclaimed.

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Forbidden love in WIP Wednesday

“Bullseye!” crowed Paul. “That’s all five, Dad!”

“You can barely count the third one,” grouched Luke Mogg. “It was right on the line.” The boy was better by far than Luke had been at twelve. Not just with a bow, but with knife, pistol, and bare-handed. Even now, Paul could hold his own against most grown men. Once he had his adult growth and strength, perhaps Luke would be able to relax a little.

“Let’s try for five more,” he suggested.

Paul put five more arrows into the turf in front of him, and Luke held up one hand while fixing his eyes on his watch. The exercise was not just about accuracy, but speed. Paul could count only those arrows that hit the target within sixty seconds.

As his hand came down and the first arrow flew, he heard the sound of someone running. “Stop, Paul. Someone is coming down the path.”

A moment later, Lady Kitty burst into the clearing. Her face lit up when she saw him, and she didn’t slow, but continued running until she was standing before him.

As always, Luke’s heart ached at the sight of her. Lady Catherine Stocke, sister to his employer’s wife, as far out of his reach as a star, and as tempting as a siren. Especially since he knew she thought herself in love with him.

The Earl of Chirbury, his employer, would dismiss him if he knew Luke loved her in return, and kill him if Luke ever hinted that he had once stolen a kiss. A mistake. His birth and his age made him an unfit groom for a lady such as her, even if he was free. As it was, his self-imposed mission barred him from any personal happiness until he had seen Paul safe at last. He should regret the kiss, but he could not.

How far had she run? She was trying to talk, but was heaving for breath. He made out the words, “Warn you.”

He cast a glance the way she had come and nodded to Paul, who nodded and nocked another arrow.

“Take your time, my lady,” Luke advised. “Do you want a drink? Here, come and sit down.” He offered his arm, and she let him support her to the bench by his front door, while Paul stood sentry over the path.

She shut her eyes and took several deep breaths, then opened them again. “I came to warn you, Luke. I heard two men planning your murder. Yours and Paul’s.”

Luke cast another anxious glance at the path.

“Tomorrow night,” she assured him. “They are coming for you tomorrow night.”

“You had better tell me the whole story in order.” He thought about it. “Me and Paul.”

(From The Flavour of Our Deeds, which is currently up to 9,000 words, so about an eighth of the way through.)

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Backlist spotlight on A Raging Madness

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies want them destroyed before they can make it real.

“Envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

See more and buylinks.

Extract

They had history together, not all of it good

He had embarrassed Ella, which was not well done of him. Particularly since she would need to share his bed this night. Just as well Farnham could not possibly know that. The lousy carbuncle would undoubtedly share the news that Alex Redepenning had been seen with a woman in Stoke-on-Trent but would not be able to identify Ella; would not know that Alex and Ella had been living together since she turned up in his room at the inn.

Living together in the chastest of senses, but Society would say he had compromised her beyond all saving, except by marriage. He was surprised at how tempting that sounded! He’d vowed never to marry except for love, and had sworn off love by his early twenties: a bad experience with an older woman, and then with Ella.

The arrogant cub he’d been resented her choosing Melville instead of him, though he’d never let his interest in her show, certain she would find him as unworthy as Lady Carrington had.

Yes, marrying Ella would be a blessing, not a burden. For Alex. But it would not be fair to Ella.

She was moving around the small cabin, brewing his willow bark tea and pouring him a cup, retrieving the canister of tea leaves she had purchased at the market and brewing another pot, bringing him a cup of that, its fragrant delicacy taking away the bitterness of the willow bark.

If he drank it all, he would need to ask for her help to relieve himself. Just to pass him the pot and perhaps hold a blanket for his privacy. Not the prurient fantasies that flashed across his mind and stirred his recalcitrant member. Simmer down, he told it. Not for you.

She poured another mug of tea and took it to Big Dan at the tiller, receiving the man’s soft thanks.

Alex let his eyelids fall and watched Ella through his lashes as she moved around the cabin finding places to stow their possessions, every movement graceful and economic. She had blown out the candles she’d lit to illuminate her work on his leg, but plenty of light entered the cabin from the doorway and the small windows on either side of the boat. She slipped glances at him from time to time, the colour coming and going in her face. What was she thinking?

Was she as attracted to him as he was to her? Or was she just embarrassed at the situation in which they found themselves? He had never been able to read her. Sometimes, he was sure she saw him merely as a friend. Sometimes, not even that, though those occasions were mostly his own fault.

How often had he looked up across a campfire, or a room in a scurvy little billet in some benighted village on the fringes of a war, or a bedside where someone in his command lay depending on Ella’s care and met her eyes? And seen in them an echo of the wanting in his own?

Was it his imagination; his own longing misinterpreting an innocent glance? Even if it were not, she had never once, since her ill-judged marriage, by word or deed given him reason to think she would act on that attraction.

Only a reprobate would take advantage of a woman under his protection, especially a woman persecuted as Ella had been. Alex could not be such a scoundrel, but perhaps Jasper had unwittingly done him a favour. Because even with the increase in pain, his physical response to Ella’s presence had proven beyond doubt that the injury had not made a eunuch of him as he had feared. The pain would be a timely and much needed reminder to keep his hands and other bodily parts to himself.

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Backlist spotlight: Farewell to Kindness

He thought he had buried his heart with his children. He was wrong.

Helped by the earl who hurt them, hidden from the earl who hunts them, Anne and her sisters have been accepted into the heart of a tiny rural village. Until another earl comes visiting.

Rede lives to avenge the deaths of his wife and children. After three long years of searching, he is closing in on the ruthless villains who gave the orders, and he does not hope to survive the final encounter. Until he meets Anne.

As their inconvenient attraction grows, a series of near fatal attacks draws them together and drives them apart. When their desperate enemies combine forces, Anne and Rede must trust one another to survive.

Farewell to Kindness is Book 1 in the series The Golden Redepennings.

Excerpt

That night, Anne dreamt of dancing with Lord Chirbury. In her dream, they didn’t walk decorously away after the wild excitement of the dance, to find her sisters and go tamely home. In her dream, the first vigorous dance led to another, even wilder, and part way through the second he swung her out into the shadows as she’d seen some of the village men do with their wives and sweethearts. In her dream, he’d caught her up into his arms and pressed his lips to hers.

“Call me Rede,” he insisted, his voice husky as she’d heard it once or twice, his vivid eyes burning into hers.

In her dream, she confessed that she’d been thinking of him as ‘Rede’ ever since they met in his woods and picked berries together.

“Anne,” he murmured, holding her closer.

There was something not right about the embrace, about the kisses he showered on her face. Drifting awake, she acknowledged she expected more: not a hug such as Ruth or Kitty might give; not a flurry of pecks like those she received from Daisy and Meg.

She had never been kissed by a man, but something told her that, if Rede ever did kiss her, it would be a different kind of kiss to the ones her sisters gave. It would be a kiss that spoke to the strange, unsettling physical responses that troubled her body when he was near; when his gloved hand touched her hand or the small of her back; when his hard body tensed under hers as she leaned across to untangle the brambles; when he moved smoothly through the dance, displaying his strength and fitness, the lines and angles of the muscles in his thighs and shoulders. Or now, when she thought of all those things.

She felt herself blush in the dark. Such foolish thoughts. Rede—Lord Chirbury—wasn’t for her. With her past and her need to keep Kitty hidden, she could not be wife to a peer, and she would not be anything less than a wife. Quite apart from the morals of such a choice, she wouldn’t take any risks with Kitty’s chances of being reestablished in the life to which they’d been born.

The heat in her face increased, as she acknowledged to herself that she was rushing her fences. Apart from those few heated glances, which she—in her inexperience—might have misunderstood, Rede had shown no signs of wishing to bed her, let alone wed her.

The thought should have made her feel better. Odd, then, that she felt slightly disgruntled. Did she want him to proposition her? Like his impertinent cousin? Surely not.

But a small voice deep in the back of her mind said that she would like to know he desired her as she did him, even if they never acted on that desire. Which, of course, she assured herself hastily, they never would.