Author: judeknight

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Happy families (or not) on WIP Wednesday

Another excerpt from Jackie’s Climb, which is back with the editor and perhaps even being proofread as I write.

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That shall be all for today, Allegro,” Lady Riese said.

Apollo Allegro inclined his head politely and began to gather the neat stacks of paper into a file basket. Completed correspondence awaiting the viscount’s signature. Bills the viscountess had authorized him to pay. A pile of bills and correspondence that he’d been ordered to investigate further.

In theory, he was secretary to Lord Riese, the lady’s son, but the viscount had no interest in his lands and business affairs, and no head for them either. Oscar’s mother and Pol ran everything between them, Pol doing all the preparatory work and the management, Lady Riese making decisions.

Decisions that Oscar, Lord Riese, seldom overturned, except when his own interests were affected.

“About the dressmaker’s rent—” Pol began. Oscar had given him the order last night. Madame La Blanc’s rent—already double what it should be and due in less than a week—was to be doubled again. The dressmaker had already been told.

Lady Riese interrupted him. “My son has made up his mind,” she said.

Of course, Oscar had. The rutting villain wanted Madame’s seamstress. He probably had no idea that the girl was also Madame’s daughter. Pol made it his job to know everything there was to know about the people of the estate and the nearby village, the better to protect them from Lady Riese and her son.

Pol had no intention of sharing any of their secrets with his employers. Who were also his relatives, but a man didn’t choose his family. He tried another tack with the viscountess. “It will unsettle the other tenants, my lady.”

Lady Riese fixed him with her icy glare. “They will not question the viscount’s decision. Nor shall you. Remember your place, Allegro.”

Pol picked up his basket, bowed, and left the lady’s sitting room. He knew his place in the Riese household. Far beneath the viscountess and her children. Not quite a servant and certainly not part of the family. Required to be grateful for every bite of food and every thread of clothing.

He had been made aware of where he fitted in the Riese household from the first. He had arrived from Italy as a child of not quite ten to discover that the uncle who had sent for himto whom he had been sent after his mother’s death had also died.

Finding himself in the care of strangers after his mother’s death, missing his mother and the only home he had ever known, another death—and that of a stranger—was of little moment. In the face of his grief, the loss of his surname was no more than a blip. He still remembered the moment, though, when he ceased to be Apollo Riese and became Apollo Allegro.

“Your name is not Riese,” the viscountess had told him, her voice cold and harsh. “Your father never married your mother. You have some claim on us, for your father was my husband’s brother. You may stay as long as you obey orders and make yourself useful.”

Or, at least, those were her sentiments. He had been only nine years of age, and perhaps his memory of the exact words was faulty. Certainly, though,What was certain was that he had been called Apollo Allegro from that time, and he had been sent to the housekeeper to be put to work.

From that moment, Pol cleaned pots in the kitchen, polished silver, and emptied chamber pots. He initially slept in a little nook off the kitchen, although later he was given a room upstairs, near the family. He obeyed orders and made himself useful.

It could have been worse. The estate’s steward, the housekeeper, and the butler remembered his father, and though they expected him to complete the tasks they gave him, they also made certain he had time to play, plenty to eat, and as much affection as they could provide without the viscountess noticing.

He grew up in the servants’ hallservants’ hall, progressing through roles and taking on more and more responsibility. Lessons also had to be fitted into his busy day, for his grandmother, Clara Lady Riese, as she was known, had insisted he have the education of a gentleman. Or, rather, all his other activities had to be fitted around the lessons that he shared with his cousin Oscar, who—despite being the same age as Pol—was already the Viscount Riese.

Oscar was a bully, a sneak, and not very smart. The first two were a problem. The last was an opportunity, and Pol soon found himself trading help with homework for immunity from mean tricks and nasty tattling. “Help” being another word for doing the homework for Oscar.

“I won’t need to know all of this stuff,” Oscar insisted. “You shall be my secretary, Polly, and will deal with all my correspondence and other rubbish of that nature.”

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Tea with Belinda Westcott

The Duchess of Haverford’s waiting salon might intimidate any young lady. Bel Westcott was terrified. After the fiasco at the duchess’s venetian breakfast two years ago caused by food prepared by her own hands, she had good reason.

“Calm down, Bel. She is both wise and kind. She knows it wasn’t your fault.” Bel’s best friend Merrilyn Finchwater, ever loyal, had been there when half the ton was sickened by food prepared in Bel’s kitchen.

Bel had her doubts.

Just then, the rather stern young woman who was Her Grace’s current secretary returned. “She will see you now.” It didn’t help that she cast Bel a sympathetic glance.

Regal and dignified, in subdued silk and simple pearls, the duchess yet radiated warmth and welcome from her high-backed chair. A fine porcelain tea set, bright white with delicate lavender flowers sat on the table at her side.

“Come sit with me ladies. It is good of you to join me.”

Bel murmured thanks. Her Grace requested their preferences and made certain to satisfy the polite requirements of tea service.

“I’ve quite looked forward to speaking with you for some time, Miss Westcott. What is it that troubles you?” the duchess said.

Bel’s head jerked up from her absorption in her own slippers to gaze directly at the duchess. “I— The venetian breakfast so humiliated me. All those people ill, and your fete ruined. I can barely face you.”

“My dear! That was two years ago. And I have reason to believe it was not your fault,” Her Grace said.

“Quite right, Your Grace. Bel would never,” Merrilyn said. “Her cousin—””

“Yes, yes, Lady Finchwater, I know. The not so Honorable Cecil Hartwell had his grubby hands all over it. My son Aldridge assured me that was the case and that the miscreant was dealt with,” the duchess said.

Bel stiffened her spine. “But I bear the stigma even now.”

Her Grace studied Bel carefully. “So you do. And that ridiculous nickname follows you. Westcott Menace. What nonsense. It has recently risen again among the gossips.”

“Untruths are spreading again, Your Grace,” Merrilyninterjected. “Lady Arncastle attended the house party at Hartwell Hall and has piled story on story.”

Both women looked to Bel. She nodded firmly. “Most of the stories Lady Arncastle spreads are untrue.”

“Most.” The duchess’s eyes twinkled. “But not all?”

Heat crept up Bel’s neck and burned her cheeks. “There was one thing. I…”

“Poisoned Lady Sophie Gilray?” The duchess asked, brow raised imperiously.

“Never!” Bel exclaimed. “That is, I may have tainted the cocoa but it wasn’t meant for my cousin Sophie. And John, well I was mistaken in him, and I thought—”

“You thought to get your own back for what happened two years ago.” The duchess completed the thought.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

The duchess leaned forward and whispered “Good for you,” startling Bel right out of her attack of remorse. She sat back. “And I have reason to suspect things turned out well in the end.”

Merrily beamed and nudged Bel. “They certainly did. Tell her, Bel.”

Bel did better. She reached in her reticule and pulled out a card printed in formal letters, and invitation. She handed it to the duchess.

“Marriage to John Conlyn, Earl of Ridgemont! Oh well done, my dear. You may be certain I will attend.

Bel smiled then, confidently. Things truly had turned out well in the end.

Snowed by the Wallflower

By Caroline Warfield

Belinda Westcott doesn’t want to injure the Earl of Ridgemont. She merely wants to humiliate him. After all, one good prank deserves a payback. How could she anticipate that it would go so terribly wrong, or that he would turn out to be nothing like she expected?

Skilled in both chemistry and cooking, Belinda happily hides in her aunt’s kitchen rather than risk embarrassment at the ongoing house party. The unexpected appearance of the earl and a skating party present the perfect opportunity to embarrass him in front of some snooty society miss. Unfortunately, his partner is Belinda’s own cousin, and even worse, the cousin drinks the hot chocolate—laced with emetics—meant for the earl.

As plain Major John Conlyn, John had sunk into a morose of dissipation when first released from the army. Neither his actions nor his companions make him proud. The death of a beloved cousin shocked him back to sense. It also made him an earl and the heir to his grandfather, a duke. He’s been ordered to find a wife and settle down. He wouldn’t mind, but now he’s surrounded by flighty debutantes and their grasping mothers. The one woman who interests him avoids him. She acts as if she despises him. Is it possible he did something when out of control that he ought to apologize for, something he can’t recall?

https://books2read.com/snowedbywallflower

What happened at the Duchess of Haverford’s venetian breakfast? Be sure to read Jude Knight’s The Blossoming of the Wallflower to find out.

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Spotlight on Snowed by the Wallflower

Ever wondered what happened to Belinda Westcott after the debacle at the Duchess of Haverford’s garden party that appeared in my The Blossoming of the Wallflower? Then this is the book for you.

And it is, in any case, a Caroline Warfied, so you know it is going to be good!

Snowed by the Wallflower

An aggrieved Bluestocking takes revenge but misses her target. Is it possible she is also wrong about the man she loathes as well? Preorder for January 28 publication.

Belinda Westcott doesn’t want to injure the Earl of Ridgemont. She merely wants to humiliate him. After all, one good prank deserves a payback. How could she anticipate that it would go so terribly wrong, or that he would turn out to be nothing like she expected?

Skilled in both chemistry and cooking, Belinda happily hides in her aunt’s kitchen rather than risk embarrassment at the ongoing house party. The unexpected appearance of the earl and a skating party present the perfect opportunity to embarrass him in front of some snooty society miss. Unfortunately, his partner is Belinda’s cousin, and even worse, the cousin drinks the hot chocolate—laced with emetics—meant for the earl.

As plain Major John Conlyn, John had sunk into a morass of dissipation wen first released from the army. Neither his actions nor his companions make him proud. The death of a beloved cousin shocked him back to sense. It also made him an earl and the heir to his grandfather, a duke. He’s been ordered to find a wife and settle down. He wouldn’t mind, but now he’s surrounded by flighty debutantes and their grasping mothers. The one woman who interests him avoids him. She acts as if she despises him. Is it possible he did something when out of control that he ought to apologize for, something he can’t recall?

 

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In Regency England, what was a curate? What is a solicitor?

The lawyer writes the gentleman’s will while the curate acts as a witness.

My editor questioned a couple of terms in my book Jackie’s Climb, because she’d seen them in a different context. Here’s my answer, written into the author’s notes, in case other people have the same concerns. The question? Did the Anglican church at the time have curates? And what did they do? And should I have said attorney instead of solicitor?

In the Regency era Anglican church, a curate was an ordained minister of any age who was paid by the vicar to assist him in the parish.

A post as vicar of a parish was called a living, because it guaranteed a fixed amount of property or income (which the vicar would live on). This income came from tithes paid to the holder of the living, either great tithes or small tithes. A great tithe was 10% of all cereal grown or all wool shorn in the parish, and a small tithe was 10% of all other agricultural produce.

A vicar with a big parish, or one who simply didn’t want to do the work, could employ a curate to help him out.

In England, to this day, practitioners of law are either solicitors or barristers. A solicitor is a legal practitioner who undertakes a variety of legal work, and also prepares cases for a barrister. A barrister is a legal practitioner who pleads cases in court. In New Zealand, where I live, most lawyers are both.

In England prior to the 19th century, the term solicitor was used only for those who prepared cases for Chancery. A legal practitioner who prepared other cases was an attorney at law, or public attorney. This is the term that has prevailed in the United States, but in England during the 19th century it fell into disrepute because of the behaviour of private attorneys. A private attorney was anyone with the power to act on behalf of another person–to this day, we talk about “power of attorney”.

I could have chosen the term lawyer, which simply meant (and means) one whose profession is suits in court or client advice on legal rights. Solicitor is more specific.

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A rescue in WIP Wednesday

The first pages of The Secret Word, for your reading pleasure.

If the lady had let go of her reticule, Christopher Satterthwaite might never have met her. A sensible person would have let Dasher Baggins take off with the scrap of lace and whatever was inside it. A sensible person would not have made a fuss in a street like this, where the law-abiding denizens knew better than to stand in the way of a villain, and where the villains would swarm like sharks at the hint of a victim.
A sensible person would not be in this street to begin with, not looking like a sweet and expensive confection in laces and silks, and certainly not screeching at the top of her voice, hanging on to her reticule for dear life, and beating the thief around his ears with her parasol.
Chris, who was mostly law-abiding, knew better than to interfere, but he couldn’t help himself. He closed the distance between himself and the little tableaux—outraged maiden beats off cheeky rascal—in a fast walk, designed not to attract more attention than he could help.
“Let go, Dash,” he told the boy. “She’s with me.”
“Aw, Fingers,” Dasher whined. “Don’t know what she’s got in there, but it must be worf somefing, way she hangs on.”
“My mother’s miniature, and you shan’t have it,” said the lady, who held her parasol ready but had at least stopped using it to beat Dash with. The poor lad should stick to mud larking. He was not a good thief.
“Get lost, Dash,” Chris told him, and flipped him a farthing.
Dash let go of the reticule to catch the coin, and then demonstrated the reason for his nickname, dashing off through the crowd.
“You should have held him while I called a constable,” proclaimed the lady.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss, but constables don’t come down here,” Chris replied. Up until now, he had been speaking street cant, or just far enough above it that Dash was comfortable, but now he changed accent and vocabulary to talk to the lady in a way she would respond to. A cut above hers, in fact, for her vowels were not quite as nasal nor her consonants as crisp as Chris’s grandfather’s. “It is too dangerous,” he elaborated. “Too many villains.”
The lady huffed with displeasure, setting the ruffles on her bodice quivering. “One would think there would be fewer villains if the constables did come down here.”
“Or fewer constables,” Chris argued.
She blinked at him as she absorbed the point, then huffed again. “I should not be here. I must have got turned around. Can you direct me to Meadow Court?”
“You do not want to go to Meadow Court,” Chris told her. If Bleak Street did not eat her up and spit her out, Meadow Court would swallow her whole. And there’d be no spitting her out, either.
The lady’s huff was more of a snort. “I decidedly do, sir,” she insisted.
“”Shall I tell you what will happen if you make it as far as Meadow Court?” Chris asked. It was a rhetorical question. “First, you shall be robbed of everything you have, including the clothes you stand up in. Then one of two things will happen to your naked person, depending on whether you fall into the hands of an organised gang or just a mob of the hopeless.”
He fell silent and watched to see how she would react. Not as expected. Her eyes widened—they were a lovely shade of blue. Her cheeks paled. So far, quite predictable. But then she pressed her coral-pink lips together and gave a sharp nod, as if she had presented herself with a compelling argument.
“Nonetheless, sir, I have an errand in Meadow Court that will not wait.”
“An organised mob will sell you to a brothel, where they will auction your virginity then put you to work servicing their clients until you drink yourself to death or die of an unspeakable disease,” Chris told her.
She paled still further. Not such an innocent that she did not know what he meant, then. “Nonetheless,” she repeated, but her voice shook.
“A mob will not bother with the brothel,” he continued, determined to make her change her mind. “And you will die of what they do to you.” He could not bear to describe it further, did not even what to think of her intimately assaulted by one brute after another, screaming for help that never came, dying in agony of body and soul.
“Nonetheless.” It was little more than a whisper, and she was so pale he thought she might faint.
“Why?” he asked. “What is so important that you are willing to die for it—die, most likely, without accomplishing it?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, considering. “I have no reason to believe you, sir,” she said. “All I know about you is that you belong so well to this street, in which you say everyone is a villain, that thieves do your bidding. Ama— My friend would not have written asking me to come to Meadow Square if it was as dangerous as you say.”
“I said the place had too many villains,” Chris pointed out. “Not that I am one. As it happens, I am not, but you have a point. We do not know one another. Please allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed. “I am Christopher Satterthwaite. And you are…?”
She curtseyed in response to his bow, “Clementine Perkins.”
“Miss Perkins, I cannot know what your friend had in mind—you are sure it was in her hand? But have you considered she might have been threatened or tricked.”
“Why?” Miss Perkins’ asked. “Why would someone bother?”
Chris had recognised her name and he knew the answer to that. Perkins was a common enough name, but combined with Clementine? She was the coal heiress, beyond a doubt, and her father was one of the richest mine owners in the United Kingdom.
Something about the way Miss Perkins was not quite meeting his eyes hinted that she, too, knew the most likely reason criminals would attack her.
“Option three,” he replied. “You must have thought of it yourself, Miss Perkins. I would have mentioned it before, if we had been introduced earlier. Option three is ransom, though that doesn’t mean that other criminal groups will not prefer option one or option two.”
Oh-oh. He had grown up in places like this, and knew better than to allow her undoubted charms to keep him from scanning the street, looking for danger. But despite that, he’d been distracted.
He should have run as soon as the first of the three men arrived at the mouth of the alley that led to Meadow Court. He would be hard pushed to make it out of Bleak Street now that three of them were gathered.. He certainly could not manage it with Miss Perkins in tow.
There was really only one option. “Miss Perkins, there is someone I would like you to meet. Step this way, please.” He offered her his arm.
She put both of hers behind her back. “I do not think so, Mr Satterthwaite. If that is your name. You keep telling me not to trust anyone and then insisting I can trust you.”
They were coming. All three of the Brown brothers, and behind them, the rest of the gang. Cautiously, for this was Ramping Billy O’Hara’s street, and he’d not take kindly to the Brown brothers trespassing on his territory.
Chris sighed and pointed. “See those men, Miss Perkins?”
She caught sight of Basher Brown’s grin and let out a squeak of dismay. Wise girl! She moved closer to Chris.
“This way,” Chris told her. He took her hand, and led her at a run up Bleak Street. To her credit, she ran like a deer, but the Brown gang was in full pursuit behind, and everyone else was turning away, pretending that they saw nothing.

 

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Tea with an old friend

An excerpt post. I am currently going through the edits for Jackie’s Climb. My hero and heroine have come to London with his grandmother and her mother, seeking the help of an investigator. When the Duchess of Winshire discovers her old friend Clara Lady Reise is in Town, she sends her stepson to bring the party to stay at Winshire House.

We are fortunate the duchess is in town and remembers Gran fondly,” Pol commented.

“She has been very kind,” Jackie said.

The duchess had said that Gran had been kind to her, when she was a young bride and still finding her feet as a duchess. It was hard to imagine the commanding grand lady had once been unsure of her place. Now, said the duchess, she could return the favor.

“She has been very helpful,” said Pol. The four of them had agreed not to disclose the details of why they were in London to anyone but the enquiry agent, and even then, they had intended to be judicious about what they said.

Gran must have forgotten, for within ten minutes of her reunion with the duchess, she was spilling out everything. Her belief that Pol was the real heir to his grandfather and that her daughter-in-law had hidden the truth. The terrible treatment Pol had suffered in what should be his own house. How Oscar and his mother terrorized the neighborhood, with the connivance of the local magistrate. The trumped-up charges against Pol and Jackie. Even her own poisoning.

When Pol, Jackie, and Madame de Haricot du Charmont had joined the two older ladies, Her Grace knew everything. She asked how she could help. “I will, if you have no objection, ask Wakefield and Wakefield to send an enquiry agent to discuss your case. I am familiar with the firm, and agree they are a good choice.”

The agency had responded to the duchess’s note to say that someone would call as soon as possible. “Do you want to be part of the meeting with the enquiry agent?” Pol asked Jackie. “This affects you as much as it affects me.”

“I would like that,” Jackie agreed.

Her gaze moved to a point behind Pol’s shoulder. He glanced back. A footman was standing a few paces away, waiting to be noticed. “Lord Riese, sir. Mr. Wakefield has called to see you. He is in the Chinese parlor.”

“Thank you,” said Pol. “Can you show us to the Chinese parlor? Jackie? Are you coming?”

Having a guide was essential. The whole of the first floor of the town house was given over to reception rooms of one kind or another. The Chinese parlor must have taken its name from the style of the interior. Everything from the wallpaper and light fittings to the furniture and ornaments was in the chinoiserie style that had been highly fashionable in the middle of the previous century.

The person who was waiting for them did not fit Pol’s picture of an enquiry agent. He was expecting some bluff burly character of indeterminate middle age, with a working man’s coat and flat cap, and perhaps a flashy waistcoat.

This man was dressed quietly but neatly in a gentleman’s morning attire—the kinds of garment worn by a solicitor or a physician—or, for that matter, any gentleman with no particular desire to scale the heights of fashion.

In appearance, nothing about him stood out. Dark hair, hazel eyes, medium height and build. He was notable only for the smile he was addressing to the other occupant of the room.

The other occupant was a surprise. The Duchess of Winshire sat with the enquiry agent, engaged in warm conversation. She stood when she saw Pol and Jackie, and the man rose, too.

“There you are. Miss de Haricot du Charmont, Lord Riese, allow me to make known to you Mr. Wakefield.” She put an arm on Mr. Wakefield’s arm. “David, dear, do give my love to Prue. And let Antonia know that I was very proud of her last night.”

Mr. Wakefield bent for the peck of a kiss she placed on his check. “I will leave you to business,” she said, and sailed out of the room.

“Her Grace is godmother to my eldest daughter, who is currently enjoying her first Season,” Mr. Wakefield explained. He shuddered. “Unlike her poor Papa.”

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Spotlight on A Twist Upon a Regency Tale

Tomorrow, I begin to go through the editor’s comments on Jackie’s Climb and sometime this week I will reach the midpoint of The Secret Word. These are the next two novels in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, so I thought it might be timely to remember what has come before!

The concept was to take inspiration from traditional fairy tales but reinterpret the elements into a Regency romance, with no magic, the fairy tale elements reinterpreted into natural happenstance, and the roles of hero and heroine reversed. As the series name says, A Twist Upon a Regency Tale.

So far, the following are published (story title then the folk tale that inspired the story):

  • Lady Beast’s Bridegroom – Beauty and the Beast
  • One Perfect Dance – Cinderella
  • Snowy and the Seven Doves – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
  • Perchance to Dream – Sleeping Beauty
  • Weave Me a Rope – Rapunzel
  • The Sincerest Flattery – The Goose Girl
  • Inviting the Wild – Little Red Riding Hood
  • The Worth of an Earl (in Hot Duke Summer) – Aladdin
  • Hold Me Fast – The Ballad of Tam Lin
  • The Trials of Alaric – The Princess and the Pea

Also, in the Lyon’s Den Collected World, I’ve got:

  • The Talons of a Lyon – The Frog Prince
  • Crossing the Lyon (in Night of Lyons) – Rose Red and Snow White
  • Hook, Lyon and Sinker – The Little Mermaid
  • Thrown to the Lyon – The Tinder Box

Here’s what I can tell you so far about 2025. (And it is early days for all except Jackie’s Climb, The Secret Word, and The Lyon’s Dilemma. Everything is else up for grabs.)

  • Jackie’s Climb — Jack and the Beanstalk
    When Jackie overreaches herself while trying to make enough money for the rent, is it a disaster? Or the start of a new and better life?
  • The Secret Word — Rumplestiltskin
    He has fallen in love with an heiress, but mortgages his future to a gambling den owner in order to win her. And now the debts has come due.
  •  A Gift to the Heart — Tatterhood
    This is a Swedish folk tale about twins, one ugly, one beautiful. I’m not far into plotting yet, but my twins will be brothers.
  • The Night Dancers — Twelve Dancing Princesses (with a nod to Ten Lords S-leaping)
    This involves Christmas and the Twelve Nights of Christmas song, a secret tunnel, a fairly tame hell-fire club, and an unexpected love match or two or seven or eight.

The novelette in a Dragonblade Collection has the title No Time for a Scoundrel. It might be my riff on The Nightingale, and might involve the gambling den owner that appears as the villain in The Secret Word. Or not. We’ll see.

And as for the fourth Lyon’s Den book, it is called The Lyon’s Dilemma, and involves half sisters who look alike but are opposites in morality and temperament. It is based on the Arabian tale The False Prince, but there are many dark twin stories in the history of all cultures (so another couple of siblings, but this time one good and one bad). The hero of The Lyon’s Dilemma is Dorcas’s brother in law, Kempbury.

And here, dear readers, is an early preview of the covers for the novels.

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The schoolhouse in WIP Wednesday

An excerpt from A Bend in the Road, a novella for the next Bluestocking Belles box set.

Justin Bannerville dismissed the children for the day and set about straightening the schoolroom. Putting everything away where it belonged was the last task he assigned every day, but it never ceased to surprise him how much even the older children missed. A lid off an ink pot. A crumpled piece of paper tucked out of sight under a desk. (Smoothed out, it proved to be the dart Gareth and Billy had been tossing back and forth until he caught them at it. He had wondered where that had gone.)

Several items went into his desk drawer for tomorrow, when he would hold each one up and ask the owner to collect it. He hoped a moment of shame might make the perpetrators more careful in future, but so far, it had not had the desired effect.

Was he expecting too much? The smallest of powder monkeys soon learned to keep his kit and his duty station immaculately tidy. Mind you, the navy used a heavy hand to enforce discipline, even on those most junior crew members. Justin had never liked the practice. Whipping or birching might enforce obedience, but it created fear and resentment, too. Justin had seen crews turn sour under the rule of a bully, and a surly crew was ripe for mutiny.

Justin would not have used birching in his schoolroom in any case, since he taught both boys and girls. No man worth his salt would raise his hand against a female, and Justin couldn’t consider it fair to birch boys and not girls.

“They are not a bad lot,” he reminded himself. Their untidiness might offend his navy-trained sensibilities, but they were mostly good students. With a few notable exceptions.

“Milly Stone is heading for a sharp set down.” Milly Stone was the daughter of the butcher, and revelled in her reputation as the prettiest girl in the village. She was fifteen, and her ambition in life was to better her mother’s achievement of marrying by sixteen and having her first child before her seventeenth birthday. She had set her sights on becoming the schoolmaster’s bride, and was doomed to disappointment.

“Silly chit. She is half my age and has considerably less than half my wits.”

As if his thoughts had conjured her up, Milly sashayed through the door, all ready for conquest. “Mr Bannerville?” She’d either been stung by a bee or she’d been pinching her cheeks and biting her lips. Given that she had also unbuttoned the top of her dress and folded the pieces back to give herself a decollatage that would not have disgraced the seamier streets of Paris, Justin was placing his bets against the bees.

“Did you leave something behind again, Miss Stone?” He attempted to infuse his voice with both ice and long-suffering boredom. It worked about as well as he expected. Milly was impervious to hints.

“I thought I might be able to help you, Mr Bannerville,” the girl simpered, batting her eyelids so vigorously that Justin imagined he could feel the wind.

“No, thank you. It is time for you to go home.”

Instead, she continued to advance across the classroom. “You are so diligent, Mr Bannerville,” she cooed. “So much better than our last teacher.”

Justin had replaced an elderly lady who used to set the work for her pupils each morning and spend the rest of the day asleep. She had been thrilled to accept when Lord Somerville, the school’s patron, offered her a pension and a little cottage of her own. And Justin had been delighted to take her place—still was, Miss Stone notwithstanding.

“Mrs Caldecott was an excellent teacher in her day, so I am told,” he said. “Do run along, Miss Stone. It is not appropriate for you to be here with me when the other pupils are not absent.”

“I don’t mind.” There went the eyelashes again, stirring up a hurricane. “Da won’t mind, either. He likes you better than my other suitors.”

Good Lord. “Miss Stone, I am not your suitor.”

Milly leaned forward to give Justin a better view of her mammary assets. “You could be, though, Mr Bannerville. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter if you are poor. Da is rich, and he likes the idea of having a gentleman as a son.”

Time for that set down, Justin. Pity you haven’t composed one. He’d just have to improvise. “Miss Stone, even if I was in the market for a wife, I would not consider a child of half my age.” Or a chit with feathers for brains and no more thought of what marriage entailed beyond a pretty gown for her wedding and the chance to lord it over the other girls in the village.

Another simper warned Justin that the palatable excuse had not been enough. “Da says a man is better to marry a young wife, so he can teach her how to go on.”

Mrs Stone was a timid woman completely in the shadow of her formidable husband and demanding daughter. Justin could not imagine Milly ever becoming a counterpart of her mother, no matter whom she married.

“You have my answer, Miss Stone. I will not change my mind, and if you continue to attempt to flirt with me, I shall tell your father that you are learning nothing at school, which is no more than the truth, and that you should stay at home and help your mother.”

For a moment, Milly looked her age, as she pouted and stamped one foot. “You are so mean,” she declared.

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Tea with the emissary of a reformed villain

Her Grace served the Earl of Chirbury a cup of tea, made just the way he liked it, and passed him the plate containing several of the little cakes that Fourniers of London had sent over just that morning.

“Well, Rede,” she said, as she began pouring her own tea, “You are an emissary, you said in your note asking to visit. Not that you need to ask, dear boy. You are my nephew, and I am always at home to you. If I am at home, so it was as well you asked, for I am particularly busy these days. I have taken over from Cherry on several of her charities while she and Haverford are in Europe visiting Jonathan.”

She took a sip of her tea, and returned to the point. “An emissary for whom?”

“Do you remember Ruth Henwood, Aunt Eleanor?” Rede asked, and answered himself. “Of course you do. You remember everyone.”

“Miss Henwood was governess to your wife and her sisters at the time of their father’s death, and stayed with them when they fled the wicked uncle,” Eleanor replied. “She is somewhere in Spain, is she not? Did I not hear that she was governess to a princess somewhere in that region? What does Ruth Henwood need from me, my dear? I am, of course, willing to help her. Such a dear girl, and so much help to your darling wife.”

“Yes, Anne loves her as dearly as a sister, and indeed, I also think of her that way, though she insisted on seeking a position rather than staying with us at Longford. Her pupil is the Crown Princess of a small principality in the Pyrenees. And she is Miss Henwood no longer. Indeed, it is her husband who needs the favour, and not from you so much as from Haverford. They want to come home to live in England, you see, and he needs to know that your son will tolerate his return.”

“I do not understand, Rede,” said Aunt Eleanor. “Who has Ruth married, and how has that man offended my son?”

“You will understand the second when you know the first,” Rede said. “Ruth is now the Duchess of Richport.”

Readers of my books will, I hope, recognise Richport’s name. He is first mentioned in Revealed in Mist, as the holder of wild parties. And his name comes up again whenever I need a dissolute and amoral aristocrat. In To Tame a Wild Rake, he goes too far. He has offended too many powerful people, and is in disfavour with the Prince Regent as a result. He is about to go into exile to avoid consequences and decides to take Haverford’s beloved along as his wife. Without her consent. The kidnap is foiled, of course. But Richport is concerned that Haverford still bears a grudge.

The story of how the Duke of Richport came to marry a governess was one of the 43 plots I had worked out in a notebook before I wrote my first novel. It is The Duke’s Price, and will be published early in April.

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Spotlight on Lord Appleby’s Gorgeous Imposter (Scarlet Affairs Book 3)

By Cerise DeLand

He’s the last man Viv wants to see.
Vivienne de Massé goes to Paris impersonating her oldest sister, the infamous Drury Lane actress, Charmaine Massey. Viv has a reason…and a plan to avenge the capture and death of their other sister during the Terror. Only one man can stop her.

Tate Cantrell is the only man who sees right through her.
Tate Cantrell bursts into her dressing room one night in Paris and calls Viv’s bluff. He reminds Viv she plays a role—and a dangerous game she cannot win alone.

He declares she needs him. She always has. Indeed, he’s spent the last decade helping the émigré Massé family—and falling in love with charming Viv. Now the Earl of Appleby, Tate works as a spy for Scarlett Hawthorne’s network on the Continent. He alone has the means and the connections to help her….if she’ll let him.

Haunted by their past, they’re desperate to save their future together… If they can survive those who would destroy them.

Read in Kindle Unlimited! Or buy from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1G3LRP

Scarlett Affairs
Book 1 – Lord Ashley’s Beautiful Alibi
Book 2 – Lord Ramsey’s Red-headed Ruin
Book 3 – Lord Appleby’s Gorgeous Imposter