Author: judeknight

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Backlist Spotlight on A Baron for Becky

I was reading an excerpt of this today, and thought it was a while since I last shared it.

1807, West Gloucestershire
Aldridge never did find out how he came to be naked, alone, and sleeping in the small summerhouse in the garden of a country cottage. His last memory of the night before had him twenty miles away, and—although not dressed—in a comfortable bed, and in company.
The first time he woke, he had no idea how far he’d come, but the moonlight was bright enough to show him half-trellised window openings, and an archway leading down a short flight of steps into a garden. A house loomed a few hundred feet distant, a dark shape against the star-bright sky. But getting up was too much trouble, particularly with a headache that hung inches above him, threatening to split his head if he moved. The cushioned bench on which he lay invited him to shut his eyes and go back to sleep. Time enough to find out where he was in the morning.
When he woke again, he was facing away from the archway entrance, and someone was behind him. Silence now, but in his memory, the sound of light footsteps shifting the stones on the path outside, followed by twin intakes of breath as the walkers saw him.
One of them spoke; a woman’s voice, but low—almost husky. “Sarah, go back to the first rosebush and watch the house.”
“Yes, Mama.” High and light. A child’s voice.
Aldridge waited until he heard the child dance lightly down the steps and away along the path, then shifted his weight slightly letting his body roll over till he was lying on his back.
He waited for the exclamation of shock, but none came. Carefully—he wanted to observe her before he let her know he was awake, and anyway, any sudden movement might start up the hammers above his eye sockets—he cracked open his lids, masking his eyes with his lashes.
He could see more than he expected. The woman was using a shuttered lantern to examine him, starting at his feet. She paused for a long time when she reached his morning salute and it grew even prouder. Then she swept her light up his torso so quickly he barely had time to slam his lids shut before the light reached and lingered over his face.
She was just a vague shadow behind the light. He held himself still while she completed her examination, which she did with a snort of disgust. Not the reaction to which he was accustomed.
“Now what do we do?” she muttered. “Perhaps if Sarah and I…? I will have to cover him. What on earth is he doing here? And like that? Not that it matters. Unless he has something to do with Perry? Or the men he said would come?” Incipient panic showed in the rising pitch and volume, until she rebuked herself. “Stop it.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Stay calm. You must think.”
Aldridge risked opening his eyes a mere slit, and was rewarded by a better look at the woman as she paced up and down the summerhouse, in the light of the lantern she’d placed on one of the window ledges.
Spectacular. That was the only appropriate word. Hair that looked black in the poor light, but was probably dark brown, porcelain skin currently flushed with agitation, a heart-shaped face and a perfect cupid’s bow of a mouth, the lower lip—which she was currently chewing—larger than the upper.
The redingote she wore fit closely to a shape of amazing promise, obscured, then disclosed, as the shawl over her shoulders swung with her movements. Even more blood surged to his ever-hopeful member. “Down, boy,” he told it, silently.
“Mama?” That was the little girl, returning down the path. “Mama, I can hear horses.”
The woman froze, every line of her screaming alarm.
Aldridge could hear them too, coming closer through the rustling noises of the night. The quiet clop of walking horses, the riders exchanging a word or two, then nothing. They must have stopped on the other side of the house.
“Sarah.” The woman’s voice, pitched to carry only as far as her daughter’s ears, retreated as she crossed the summerhouse. “Sarah, we must go quickly.”
“But, Mama! The escape baskets!” the girl protested.
“I dare not wake the man, my love. He might stop us.”
Aldridge responded to the fear in her voice. “I won’t stop you. I am not a danger to you.” The woman turned to a statue at his voice, her hand on the framework of the arched entrance, as if she would fall without support. He swung himself upright, wincing as the headache closed its vice around his skull. Though he slitted his eyes against the pain, he kept them open just enough.
“Mama?” The girl’s fearful voice released the woman from her freeze, and she moved to block the child’s sight of him. “Sarah. Watch the house. Do not turn around until I say.”
Eyes open, he could confirm his initial assessment as she spun to face him. Spectacular. Then she shone the lantern straight on him, and he flinched from the light. “Not in my eyes, please. I have such a head.”
She made that same disgusted sound again, then stripped the shawl from her shoulders and tossed it to him, taking care to stay out of arms’ reach.
“Please cover yourself, Sir.”
Aldridge stood warily, and made a kilt of the shawl—a long rectangle that wrapped his waist several times and covered him from waist to thigh. “I beg your pardon for my attire, Mrs…” he invited.
But she was ignoring him. While he’d been tucking in the soft wool of the shawl, so it would hold securely, she’d crossed the summerhouse again and lifted the lid of the bench, tipping the cushions onto the floor, pulling various bundles, baskets, and packages from the recess.
“Mama!” The child sounded panicked. “They are in the house.”

A Baron for Becky, the world’s introduction to the Marquis of Aldridge, who is not, despite appearances, the hero. Though Rose, or rather Becky, is the heroine.

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Interviewing a suitor on WIP Wednesday

The clothing is out of period, but I love the determined look on the model’s face. AI generated, and the sneakers made me giggle.

(An excerpt from The Secret Word, my current novel-in-progress)

Soon, they had covered the short distance to Leicester Square. Billy had suggested the destination and provided a key to one of the gates so they could walk in the private garden that filled the center of the square.

Apart from a sharp look when Chris pulled out the key, Clemmie did not react to him claiming resident’s privileges. As soon as Martha had lagged far enough behind them, he answered the question she hadn’t asked. “Ramping Billy gave me the key. I didn’t ask where he got it.”

The answer was not to her taste, Chris could tell, but he had no other, so he changed the subject. “Shall we talk about the choices each of us has before us?”

“Do I have a choice?” Clemmie asked. “Father has already said that the decision is his, and that if I refuse the groom he offers me, I will be—and I quote—‘out in the street in your shift, my girl.’”

Nasty old man. “Then your choice is whether you cooperate with me to convince your father I am the preferred suitor, or make common cause with another suitor, or simply sit back and let come what may.”

Clemmie bowed her head so all he could see of her was her bonnet. A pretty confection, but he’d have preferred it back in her wardrobe so her face was visible. She had not mastered the art of keeping her thoughts to herself, which was probably what her father meant by saying she needed to be more ladylike.

Personally, Chris preferred her openness.

“But if you are at risk of being thrown out, Clemmie, send for me, and I will meet you with a cloak and take you some place safe.”

She turned her head up at that and searched his face. Let her. He meant every word. Some of the women who had raised him took to their way of life because they’d been thrown penniless into the street—by a lover, a father, even a husband. For their sakes, he’d come to the rescue of anyone in such need.

Perhaps she did not believe what he saw. Certainly, her harrumph sounded dismissive. “What choices do you face, Chris?” she asked.

That was a victory! She had called him by his preferred name. He hoped his exultation did not show on his face. “Two, but each has options and both benefits and costs. Do I accept your father’s challenge or do I walk away? If I accept, can we manage your father’s expectations or will we end up paying his price? I think we can avoid being his puppets, and I know Billy will help, but what will Billy’s price be?” He paused for her comment, but she said nothing. That pestiferous bonnet was back in the way again.

“If I walk away, what will your father do to force my hand? Or can I convince him that I would be too much trouble, so that he dismisses me. And what of Billy? He is taking an interest in this match. If I refuse it, what will it cost me?”

She had a tart comment about that. “My, Mr. O’Hara is taking an interest in my affairs. I wonder that you let him push you around. I know that you owe him, but does he own you?”

“In much the same way as your father owns you, Clemmie. And I daresay Billy has been as much a father to me as my own was. More, in fact, for he…” He trailed off, not sure if he was ready to share that particular piece of dirty laundry.

He expected her to demand that he finish his sentence, but instead she asked a question that got to almost to the heart of his discomfort with her knowing his past. “Why do they call you Fingers? The people at Mr. O’Hara’s.”
They turned a corner and walked along the next side of the square. She didn’t press the question except by her silence.

Well, and why not? If she rejected him once she knew his story, so be it. If they were to decide to marry, he wanted a relationship based on honesty and trust. “When I was nine, my mother died,” he said, eventually. “My father had not been home for some time. I found out later that he was dead, too, which I suppose is why his debts were called in. The debt collectors took everything and left me homeless and alone.”

Out in the streets, in fact. In more than his undershirt, but that didn’t last. A gang of boys beat him up for his clothes, which were still sturdy though not new. Fortunately, they were impressed at how well he fought and how many of them it took to subdue him, so they took him back to the den they’d made in the cellar of a burnt out building.

“I was lucky. I found a place to live with some people who taught me a skill with which I could pay my share of food and board.” For nearly a year, he worked in a team lifting purses and watches, swiftly graduating from decoy to pick pocket as his skill grew. “They taught me to be a pickpocket, Clemmie.”

An indrawn gasp was her only comment. After a pause, he picked up the story. “Then I was caught. Ramping Billy had me, and not only that, he recognised me, because he was one of the men who had collected money from my father in the past, though not one of those who stripped my mother’s rooms. He took me back to Fortune’s Fool—at that time, it was his only establishment. He handed me over to the ladies who worked there.”

Chris could remember exactly what he said to them. “Wash him, delouse him, dress him in something that isn’t rags, and put him to work. We’re keeping him.”

“He told them to watch me, because I was light fingered. So they called me Fingers, and they still do. I never stole again, though.”

He shuddered at the memory of the hungry, terrifying year from which Billy had saved him. He’d been well aware of his fate if he were caught, and scared every time he lifted something.

And it had been made clear that if he was caught stealing from Billy or any of his employees or customers, he’d be out on his ear again. By that time, he’d been a street rat for long enough to know how lucky he had been the first time. Being beaten and stripped was far from the worst fate to befall a handsome boy alone in the stews of London.

“So that is why they call me Fingers, and that is why, between your father and Billy, I’ll take Billy every time. He is a villain, Clemmie, I’ll grant you that. But he’s an honest villain.”

“Whereas my father is a dishonest upright citizen. I accept your point, Chris.”

She was not yelling for her maid and stalking off in outraged disgust. That was a bonus. Instead, she seemed to have decided on an interrogation. “Do you gamble?”

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Tea with Ellie

Her grace is expecting a visitor from the future today. 1889! Oh my. All Eleanor knows about the girl is her name, Miss Eloise de Voss, that she has recently been in France, and that her story involves some misdirected letters.

And here is Miss de Voss, stepping through the parlour door.

“Miss De Voss,” the Duchess says, “welcome. I’m glad you were able to make time in your day for me. Would you like tea, my dear? Although I hear you have just returned from France. Perhaps, like the French, you prefer coffee?”

“Tea will be lovely, Your Grace. Thank you so much for your invitation.”

“What took you to France, dear? I loved Paris back when it was still safe for people like me to travel there–back before the revolution. I don’t know if you know what’s going on in our time, but we’re not currently on friendly terms with the French.”

Eloise nodded. Of course, as a well educated young woman, she must be aware of the long war with the French. Please God it would be over soon! “What took me to France? There was an event there in our time called the Exposition Universelle. I read about it months ago–it’s a kind of World Fair. And I was just so curious, I had to go. Though I admit, I hadn’t seen anything there to compare with that mechanism of yours that made your invitation arrive in my hands in 1889. We’ve heard so much about you, Your Grace, Mother and I simply couldn’t believe it.”

The Duchess of Haverford raises an eyebrow. “How kind of you, Miss De Voss. I have no idea how it works, I must say, but a young man of my acquaintance assured me it would work. Mind you, I suspect him of being a time traveller myself. My son and I have a great interest in supporting new ideas.”

The duchess pours tea into a delicate teacup with pink roses. “I must say, the style you’re wearing is interesting. Is that the style in your time? Why, there is enough fabric at your derriere for my seamstress to make three dresses!” She chuckles to show that she is joking.

Eloise laughed with her. “Why, bustles are all the rage back….I mean, in my day.” She smiles, “Your dress is fetching, Your Grace, but you’d look fabulous in a gown like mine. May I give you my seamstress’ –Oh.” Eloise looks around the parlor. “Perhaps her ancestress is in business now. I’m sure she’d be happy to accommodate you.”

And wouldn’t that set the gossips talking! Eleanor could just imagine the astonishment on the faces of people like Sally Jersey. “I’d be happy to meet her,” she said, a noncommital answer if ever there was one. “Miss De Voss, let us turn to a more important matter. Do you have a beau? Or, even more intriguing, did you find anyone in Paris worth bringing to the altar?”

Eloise chokes on her sip. “Your Grace!” Eloise picked up her napkin, wiped her mouth and wondered if she could fan herself discretely.

The duchess smiles over her teacup. “You didn’t answer the question, Miss De Voss.”

Eloise is blushing. “As a matter of fact, I do have someone of whom I’m fond, however, I met him before I left for Paris.”

Up goes the duchess’s eyebrow again. “And he didn’t convince you to stay home?”

“He had to visit Paris, as it happened.”

“Ah!” Eleanor’s smile broadened. “I was going to ask if anything exciting happened on your journey, but you’ve already answered my question.” Would the time device work both ways, she mused. “I will expect a wedding invitation, my girl.”

Eloise wonders what that look on the duchess’ face meant. “Er? You were saying?”

The Duchess of Haverford, though, was more interested in hearing about this someone of whom Eloise was fond. “Tell us about your beau. Is he handsome?”

Eloise sighs. “He is–though the first time I saw him, I didn’t think so.” Her cheeks heat and she dips her head, hoping some loose hair would hide her embarrassment.

The Duchess laughs “So the fellow is a beast to your beauty?”

“He’s just not what I think most people would think of as being as devastatingly handsome as a lord ought to be. But I lo–” she caught herself. “ Like him.”

A knowing smile graces the Duchess’ face. “What was that I heard, Miss De Voss?”

Eloise puts down her cup. “My mother’s calling me. I’m sure that’s what you heard, Your Grace.”

“Oh, then we shouldn’t keep your loved ones waiting. Especially the young man you mentioned?”

Miss Eloise De Voss is the heroine of Letters to Ellie (The Lost Slipper Society, book 2) by Juli D. Revezzo.

Letters to Ellie

London debutant Eloise fell in love with a foreign baron who returned to Luxembourg far too soon. Unfortunately, her heart is broken when their correspondence suddenly breaks off.

After a lowly maid, Ellie, begins receiving love letters from the Luxembourg baron, she doesn’t know what to think. She is so distracted by the possibilities, she cannot see a dear neighbor’s heartfelt devotion.

When the misdirected letters are discovered at long last, will either Ellie or Eloise find happiness–or has fate dealt them both a cruel blow?

Buy links: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DV532S1D

Letters to Ellie comes out February 5.


An excerpt from Letters to Ellie:

Winifred frowned. “Lord De Voss?”

Her father paused and peered down the table at her friend. “Yes, Miss Clankton?”

“Eloise is wondering something.”

All eyes turned on her. Somehow, thanks to their scrutiny, now didn’t seem the time. Not that what she wanted was particularly personal, but a sense of exposure crept over her. She couldn’t do it. So she only smiled. “Don’t forget, you promised me a dance.”

He reached for her hand. “I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear.”

“She wonders about her gift,” said her brother, round-faced and chestnut-haired Jack. “I’ll bet that’s what troubles her.”

“As I said, dear, we’ll discuss it during our dance.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s a tradition we have, you see.”

“To teach our children the value of patience.” Her mother shot her a look.

Eloise cringed. “I failed at that today.”

Yes, asking right now was the wrong thing to do. Maybe your plan is a bit too ambitious. They surely won’t agree to it. Not when they had the bill for this party to consider. And your dress, and all the food.

Soon, they returned to the ballroom.

The first quadrille played and Eloise danced with a handsome gentleman. He had a fine fashion sense, if no color-sense–his coat was a dark brown with green stripes. They paused for a moment in their dance, and she found herself facing her father. He touched her cheek and stepped aside to continue his dance with the young man’s mother.

At the end of the set, Winifred approached her again. “Did I see you cross paths with your father? Did you ask him about Paris?”

Eloise drooped against a nearby oak pillar. “No. He’s far too distracted by the party and our guests. Besides, I’m not sure I should ask. He’ll say no, I’m sure of it.”

Winifred flinched backward. “My word!”

Something landed between them. “Are you all right?” Eloise peered at the floor. “What is that?”

Winifred picked it up. “It’s a pit of some sort.”

Eloise took it from her, sniffed. “It smells like plum.”

Meet Juli D. Revezzo

Social media links:

Website: https://julidrevezzo.com/

Author page: https://books2read.com/ap/njZjwn/Juli-D-Revezzo

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Juli-D.-Revezzo/author/B008AHVTLO

Blog/newsletter: https://julidrevezzo.com/subscribe/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/julidrevezzo.bsky.social

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/juli-d-revezzo?list=author_books

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5782712.Juli_D_Revezzo

Tiktok (For however long it lasts!): https://www.tiktok.com/@julidrevezzo

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDP0TPb32YCWAEG6Q_Hiw7g

 

 

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Spotlight on my bookshop

Folks, I have a bookshop, and the buy links on my Titchfield Press published books will take you to that shop to buy the books. My plan is to use the shop a bit more, for both ebooks and print, as soon as the WooCommerce Whizz I’m contracting to help me does his magic.

What would convince you to buy directly from me? Kindness? (Because selling direct lets me keep more of the sale price.) Coupon discounts? (Because I can share that benefit with you.) Cheaper prices? (I’m limited by the contract with Amazon, but I could do regular sales and specials.) Some sort of record of sales that allowed me to give regular buyers a free book after ten, or after five? Print books? Merchandise, such as bags or earrings or phone covers with my book covers or my hero and heroine memes on? Anything else you can thing of?

Please. Enquiring minds want to know.

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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.