Author: judeknight

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Second-chance love in WIP Wednesday

I’m just sending An Unpitied Sacrifice out to beta readers, and thought you might like an excerpt. My hero and heroine are together for the first time in five years. And what do you think of the cover?

The floor of the small room was as hard as Harry expected, and he’d grown used to occupying soft beds in the past couple of years. However, he was warm enough, and if he could not sleep, he had much to think about, both planning for the future and anguishing over his darling’s past.

His determination to stay under the same roof as Valeria was rewarded in the early hours of the morning when she came to see him. He was drowsing when the opening of the door jerked him upright, and the unique smell of his own woman soothed the battle instincts that had roused him. There she was, peering around the door, a candle in her hand.

“Harry, are you awake?” she whispered.

“Yes. Is there a problem, beloved? What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. That is, there is no problem. It is just that I could not sleep. So much to think about.”

“I am the same.” He shifted so he was leaning against the back of the chair and lifted the blankets. “Come and sit beside me, beloved, and share your worries and your hopes with me, and I shall do the same with you.”

The fact she did not hesitate gave him hope for the future. She put the candle on the little table beside the chair, sat on the floor beside him, and even accepted his arm around her and leaned back against his shoulder.

Harry tucked the blankets around her with his other hand.

“Lord Renshaw was nice to my friends,” Valeria said. “They like him.”

“Alex,” he corrected. “He is your brother, so you can call him Alex, as his other sisters do.”

Alex had argued about Harry staying, but not as much as Harry expected. He had left for home without Harry, promising to tell Father Valeria really was whom she claimed to be, and Harry was refusing to be parted from her again.

“Tell Father we shall call to see him tomorrow morning,” Harry had said.

“Your brother is protective of his family,” Valeria said. “When I called in the afternoon, he was suspicious of me, and not very nice. But tonight, he discovered I really am your wife.”

“Therefore,” Harry said, continuing her line of thought, “you are part of his family and he will protect you. And the children. And even your friends and their children. That is how Alex is.”

“I think I like Alex,” said Valeria. “I understand being protective.”

Harry nodded. In that way, Alex and Valeria were very much alike. Both would cheerfully give their life to protect those they regarded as their own, and both could be hostile to any perceived threats.

“My family is now your family,” Harry said. “Father will be delighted to have three new grandchildren. He was already excited when I spoke to him, before Alex and I came over last night. Shall we take them with us when we call on Father in the morning?”

“All of them?” Valeria asked. “Rian too?”

“I think it best if we make no difference between them,” said Harry. “Rian shall be my son as much as Enrique. Kiko, as you call him.”

“I named our son Enrique after you,” Valeria said softly. “It means ‘ruler of the home’. Did you know that?”

“Our eldest son rules the home?” Harry asked, smiling at the thought.

“You do, too, Harry. I saw that with your brother. Yes, he is protective of you, but he also accepts your authority and looks to you for guidance.”

Perhaps she was right. Harry had not thought about it, but then he took it for granted that his brothers and cousins would take his lead. He changed the subject. “What does Zorian mean? It is not a name I am familiar with.”

“It is used among the Basque,” she told him. “But I think elsewhere, too. It means ‘happiness’. That is what I wish for him, Harry. That the disaster of his origins does not touch his life. And in general, he is a happy child. As for Marie, her full name is Marie-Therese. Therese for her own mother, and Marie for the mother of us all.”

She was relaxed and warm at his side. He could not see her face, but she sounded as if she was smiling.

“Tell me about them,” Harry coaxed. “Kiko is the leader. Rian is happy. What else, and what of Marie?”

They sat by the light of Valeria’s candle and talked about their children until Valeria’s head grew heavy on Harry’s shoulder. Then he blew out the candle, lowered them both into the nest of blankets, and slept peacefully with her in his arms.

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Backlist Spotlight on A Baron for Becky

Currently on sale at $1.99:  https://books2read.com/ABaronforBecky

An unlikely knight errant not dressed to slay dragons

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.”

Aldridge, headache forgotten, moved to a better vantage. Yes. Lights moving through the darkened house. And the men were not bothering to be silent, either, calling to one another as they searched swiftly and methodically: the ground floor, then the next, then the attics.

A rustle and chink came from the other end of the garden, then an eldritch groan that cut through his head like a knife.

“The gate!” The woman’s eyes were wide and fearful. Yes, complaining hinges would make that noise, and clearly frightened her more than any unnatural denizen of the night.

“Sarah, come to me.”

At the woman’s soft command, the child brushed past Aldridge and rushed right into the woman’s arms, wrapping herself around her mother’s waist. She was a small thing, not quite short enough to fit under the curve of her mother’s breasts. The delicate features, a miniature of her mother’s, showed fear and a quite adult determination. Aldridge had little experience of children but she was much the size of his cousin’s stepdaughter, who was six or seven.

The woman was holding something against the child’s temple. In a swift movement, he was almost on her, but he held himself apart, afraid of frightening her into pulling the trigger of the small pistol.

Outside, a rough voice spoke in the kind of argot he’d learned when slumming in St Giles. “Keep by t’prads, I’ll see ’tis all bob. I’ll crash the culls if uns’ve banged that Rose.” “Wait with the horses,” he understood the man to say. “I’ll see that all is well at the house. I’ll kill the men if they’ve raped that Rose.” Heavy footsteps retreating down the path. If they were quiet, they could talk.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, keeping his voice low enough to carry no further than her ears.

Her whisper was even lower, and he had to strain to hear. “Praying they will pass us by. For the love of all you hold holy, don’t give us away!”

“You cannot mean to hurt your child.”

“Better death at my hands than what they have planned for her,” the woman hissed. Her free hand, the one around the girl’s shoulders, returned the frantic hug, patting and soothing even as the other hand held the little pistol firmly in place.

“Better we all live,” he retorted.

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Meet new Belle Elizabeth Donne

Today, I welcome new Belle Elizabeth Donne. Elizabeth’s writing is a natural outpouring of a lifelong love affair with English literature. Although she has spent most of her life in Cape Town, South Africa, she now lives in the American Midwest, where she enthusiastically introduces her visitors to the joys of drinking rooibos tea. With a biscuit, of course. See the Belle’s website for more about Elizabeth Donne, and to discover her books.

Ten things about Elizabeth (2 of which are false):

1) I am a distant cousin of the actress Charlize Theron.

2) I used to whittle, until I stabbed myself in the hand and almost lost the use of my thumb.

3) I have spent most of my life in West Africa.

4) I went to Europe as an exchange student.

5) I have swum with dolphins.

6) My ancestors were almost all school teachers, generation after generation, going back more than a hundred years.

7) I have done fencing as a sport.

8) I have visited 5 continents.

9) My grandmother was part of a group of spelunkers who discovered a new cave.

10) I love holding corn snakes.

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Meet new Belle Aileen Fish

The Bluestocking Belles are thrilled to welcome three new members this week. Today, I’m introducing Aileen Fish.

Next is, Aileen Fish. Read her bio and discover her links and her books on the Belles’ website. Today, I have a list of ten things she’d like you to know about her. Which two are false?

  1. I can speak three languages fluently
  2. I am an only child
  3. I once worked as a grease monkey at a truck stop
  4. I’ve visited four continents
  5. I was the lead singer in a rock band in the 70s
  6. My favorite color is lime green
  7. My first job was at McDonald’s
  8. I went to the same high school as Kurt Russell and Michael Richards
  9. I once managed a dog boarding kennel
  10. I’m a grandma twice over
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Meet new Belle Barbara Monajem

The Bluestocking Belles are thrilled to welcome three new members this week, and I’ll be introducing one a day for the next three days.

First up, Barbara Monajem. Read her bio and discover her links and her books on the Belles’ website. Today, I have a list of ten things she’d like you to know about her. Be warned! Two are false!

Ten things about Barbara

  1. I want to learn how to read Anglo-Saxon
  2. I have a stammer, which is sometimes embarrassing
  3. My favorite color is red
  4. I love walking in the rain
  5. My greatest culinary masterpiece is asparagus pudding
  6. I am in the ‘crone’ stage of life
  7. I participated in an archaeological dig when I was 12 years old
  8. My favorite food is baked beans
  9. My sunhat was stolen by monkeys in Swaziland
  10. I won first place in rope climbing when I was 13 years old

If you think you know which two are false, go to The Belles Brigade group on Facebook, and comment in the Ten Things post. All correct answers from all three introductions will go into a draw, and there’ll be a prize.

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Marriage laws in Regency England

Most readers of Regency romance have a fair handle on what it was like to be a resident of Regency England, but some of what we think we know is the exception rather than the rule, and some is just plain wrong.

Here’s a brief outline of what I found when I checked into the rules around marriage.

When a man and woman married, the two became one.

We know about the economics of marriage. According to the law of the time, when a woman and a man married, the two were considered to be one person, and that person was the man.

By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law:  that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert . . . and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture.  (Blackstone, 1765)

What had belonged to the wife now belonged to the husband instead. Only in exceptional circumstances could a married woman own property in her own right. Even then, her husband had the power to control it, if he chose to exercise it.

On the other hand, the husband was legally responsible for the support of the wife. For a gentlewoman without an income or anyone to support her, marriage was the only respectable avenue to gain such support.

Marrying cousins, yes; marrying sisters-in-law, maybe

The list of relations who cannot marry was in the Book of Common Prayer that I carried to my Anglican church every Sunday when I was a child. It was in the Marriage Act of 1540, and remained in place right into the twentieth century.

Cousins, even first cousins, could marry. Brothers and sisters could not, of course. If they did so, the marriage was void. That is, it was considered to have never existed.

Technically, marriage to a brother-in-law or sister-in-law was also forbidden. However, if the marriage took place, it was not void, but voidable. That is, if someone complained about it, the church courts might annul the marriage. This led to some interesting court cases, and in 1835, a new Marriage Act validated such marriages that had already taken place, but made all future ones void.

Stopping clandestine marriages

The Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753 established rules about parental consent, and guidelines for banns, licenses, and church celebration. Its proper name was An Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage. The goal was to stop private marriages, where no one knew what was going on but the couple, the celebrant, and at least one witness.

The problems the Act was intended to solve included marriage of minors, bigamous marriages, and incestuous marriages.

Lord Hardwicke’s Act made it illegal for a minor (someone under the age of 21) to marry without his or her guardian’s permission.

It also gave three ways that any couple could be married in England:

  1. They could marry in church after the publication of banns. Banns were read in the church where the couple plan to marry for three successive Sundays, and gave people who knew the couple a chance to state objections.
  2. They could marry in church after the couple secured a common license. Archbishops, bishops, and some archdeacons could issue common licenses, which removed the requirement for banns. Someone had to apply, making an allegation under oath that there were no impediments to the marriage, and giving information about the bride and groom to be recorded on the license. The couple had to marry in the church named on the license. Either the bride or the groom was meant to be a resident of the parish for at least four weeks.
  3. They could marry by special license. You wouldn’t know it from our books, but these were very rare. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury could sign them, and they allowed the named couple to marry anywhere, not just in a church.

If none of those suited, the couple could flee England to a place where the Hardwicke law did not apply. Hence, the Gretna Green elopements, though anywhere in Scotland was just as good, or on the Channel Islands, come to that.

Or, as my couple did in To Claim the Broken-Hearted, they can take up residence in a village where they are unknown, and wait for the banns to be read with no objecting guardians to say no. If their guardians don’t catch up with them before the wedding, and if no one else objects, then their marriage is regarded as valid.

Ending a marriage

Divorce was difficult to obtain, expensive, and seldom allowed remarriage. The first step was to apply to the Ecclesiastical Court. Marriages could not be annulled unless they were void at the time of the marriage. But the Court could rule that the couple be permitted to separate (a divorce a menso et thoro, a separation from bed and board). They no longer lived together, and the husband was no longer responsible for providing a home for the wife (although he was still responsible for her debts.

A man could be granted such a ruling when adultery was proven against a wife. A woman had to also prove that the adultery was aggravated by life-threatening cruelty, bigamy, or incest.

If she obtained such a ruling, the woman had no right to access to her children.

A husband could also sue his wife’s lover under civil law for ‘wounding another man’s property’ and for depriving him of her services as household manager. Women had no such right.

The next step, if one of the parties wanted to remarry, was to take a private bill to Parliament for ‘relief’. The proceeding were expensive, long, messy, and public.

“Between 1670 and 1857, 379 Parliamentary divorces were requested and 324 were granted. Of those 379 requests, eight were by wives, and only four of those were granted.” (Wright, 2004)

 

https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol36no1/bailey/

https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2017/01/divorce-regency-style.html

https://www.kristenkoster.com/a-regency-divorce-primer/

https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2021/08/a-decent-proposal-marriage-in-regency-england/

https://sharonlathanauthor.com/regency-marriage-the-legalities/

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Decent men in WIP Wednesday

I like my heroes to be decent men who treat women and children with kindness and respect. And Harry Redepenning in An Unpitied Sacrifice is one of the best. Here he is comforting the wife with whom he has only just been reunited.

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Harry had become aware that Valeria was steeling herself against the anger she expected from him. The first clue had been her voice when she said, “I need to tell you about Zorian.” Then there was her expression as she poured the wine in the big room where the others were and conducted him through to this little private parlour. She had had that little furrow between her eyebrows that she wore when she was worried about something.

And, as she compressed six months of unimaginable suffering into four bald sentences, it was in the glances she shot at him, and the way she shut her mouth at the end, pressing her lips together and blinking back tears.

He could rage against the devils who had so misused her at another time. Right now, his Valeria needed him to reassure her. “I am here, darling. I have you safe. You are back with me now, and you and the children are safe with me.”

The same words, or variants on the same theme, over and over until she pulled herself together and said, with the passionate anger he remembered, “I hate and loath crying. It does no good. I am sorry, Harry, I have drenched your shoulder twice this evening. Truly, I have not turned into a watering pot while we have been apart, though you have every reason to think so.”

“I am overcome myself, dearest heart,” he replied, lifting her hand to his cheek so she could verify that they were wet. “I was not there to protect you. I am here now, and if I have my way, we shall never be parted again.”

Her eyes, still watery, gazed up at him. Her jaw had dropped—at his words, or at his tears. Was it wonder in her expression? Astonishment? Disbelief? “Valeria, I thought you were dead, and I did not want to live in a world without you. Yet I was wrong. Here you are before me. We are together again. How could I possibly bear to be parted from you now! Not just that. I find I am the father of three children! Can we please be a family, as we planned so long ago?”

“Truly? You still want me? You want Marie and even Rian, as well as Kiko?” It was all of those things, then. Wonder, astonishment, and disbelief.

“You love them as your own, and so they are mine, too, for you and I are one. The priest told us that at our wedding. Do you remember? And the chaplain, too, at our second wedding. Your sorrows are mine and your joys. Your burdens are mine and your triumphs. As, I hope, mine are yours.”

Was he saying the right things? Apparently he was, for she was smiling, now. “Harry Redepenning, you are the best man I have ever known,” she said.

“Then you agree? We shall not be parted again?” He waited anxiously for her reply.

From any other lady, he would have called her voice shy, as she said, “But Harry. I have promised my friends that I shall help them find their children’s fathers. Or at least their families. I cannot abandon them. I want to be with you if that is what you want, but I cannot leave them.”

She had that furrow between her brows again. On anyone else, he’d call it anxiety. Come to think about it, perhaps he would have to revise his view of Valeria as an indomitable war maiden whom nothing could intimidate nor defeat. Experiences such as hers would change anyone.

Well then, he would have to adapt. “You must help your friends, of course. And yes, I want to be with you.” And immediately. He was suddenly conscious of the abiding fear that, if he went off home to his father’s townhouse, she would disappear as quickly and as mysteriously as she had arrived, melting away like dew in the sun.

Just as well he had packed a satchel with the few things he would need to stay the night. He had almost left it behind, out of a superstitious fear that being prepared to stay would somehow curse the meeting.

Now, he was glad he had ignored that dark belief. He had better stake his claim to living with her. And he’d better do it in a way that did not threaten her. Quite apart from her commitment to her friends, she had been to hell and back.

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Repricing and Sale books in January

For those that missed the news in my newsletter, I’m taking some time this January for the long overdue repricing of all of the books published under the Titchfield Press imprint. It’s as slow a process as I expected, but by the end of January, I intend that novels will be between $4.49 and $4.99 in US dollars, novellas between $1.49 and $1.99, and shortstory collections between $1.99 and 2.99.

I’ll be putting three books a month on sale, and the first three have already had their prices changed at both distributors. So get them while the price is reduced! It’ll be over a year before it is their turn again

 

A Baron for Becky

A fallen woman, she dreams of landing on her feet, until unexpected news threatens disaster

Becky is the envy of the courtesans of the demi-monde — the indulged mistress of the wealthy and charismatic Marquis of Aldridge. But she dreams of a normal life; one in which her daughter can have a future that does not depend on beauty, sex, and the whims of a man.

Finding herself with child, she hesitates to tell Aldridge. Will he cast her off, send her away, or keep her and condemn another child to this uncertain shadow world?

The devil-may-care face Hugh shows to the world hides a desperate sorrow; a sorrow he tries to drown with drink and riotous living. His years at war haunt him, but even more, he doesn’t want to think about the illness that robbed him of the ability to father a son. When he dies, his barony will die with him. His title will fall into abeyance, and his estate will be scooped up by the Crown.

When Aldridge surprises them both with a daring proposition, they do not expect love to be part of the bargain.

Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/ABaronforBecky

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.

Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/ARagingMadness

A Suitable Husband

The cousin of a duke, however distant, can’t marry a chef from the slums, however talented. But dreams are free.

As the Duchess of Haverford’s companion, Cedrica Grenford is not treated as a poor relation and is encouraged to mingle with Her Grace’s guests. Perhaps among the gentlemen gathered for the duchess’s house party, she will find a suitable husband?

Marcel Fournier has only one ambition: to save enough from his fees serving as chef in the houses of the ton to become the proprietor of his own fine restaurant. An affair with the duchess’s dependent would be dangerous. Anything else is impossible. Isn’t it?

Universal buy link: https://books2read.com/ASuitableHusband

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Spotlight on Irene’s Fall

By Elizabeth Donne

Pride comes before her fall. Love helps her stand again.

Irene Sangford has willingly cast herself as the villain of her own story. After all, her family has taught her that arrogance and manipulation are suitable qualities in a lady if she’s seeking a husband with a title. Especially when there are so few such men to be had, and she is competing with her own sister to snap one of them up.

Nathaniel Macrae not only has no title, he has immersed himself in low society in his role as a secret investigator. Miss Sangford would never have given him a second glance, but when an attempted murder leads his inquiries right to her door, and a shocking secret from her past threatens to unravel her entire life, Irene discovers that Mr. Macrae is more compelling than any man she has ever met.

As Irene’s world falls apart, and she questions everything she has ever known, Nathaniel becomes her anchor in life’s greatest storm. Except this storm threatens to destroy them both. They will have to challenge everything they know and trust each other if they are to survive and find the love that has eluded them.

Tropes You’ll Love:

  • Fake Rake
  • Mystery
  • Secret Life
  • Secrets Galore
  • Forbidden Love
  • Hero Investigates Crime
  • Female Redemption Arc
  • Meet “by Accident”

Ladies of Munro (complete series)

Sophia’s Letter
Ellena’s Secret
Verity’s Choice
Jillian’s Wild Heart
Irene’s Fall

Below is an extract from Irene’s Fall for you to enjoy.

Go to https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G1VMJKS9  to access a much longer sample.

***

The two men had barely removed themselves from earshot when Olivia leaned forward and said with great glee, “You like him! You should have seen your face when he carried you out to this bench. You can’t be in love with him, Irene. He’s a scoundrel!”

“I am not in love with him,” Irene replied hotly. “Your imagination has run wild.”

“I saw it too,” Mary chimed in. “You were definitely all doe-eyed.”

Irene glared at her friends.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” continued Mary. “The gentleman is as dreamy as they come. But you have never allowed that to lead where your future cannot follow. You wouldn’t want Mr. Macrae to think you can be toyed with. You are much too good for him.”

Am I? Irene was not convinced. Nothing in her character gave her the right to claim superiority over him. More importantly, would she want to? What if she wished for a man who was good for her, someone her parents would never approve of? With her prospects looking slim indeed, could she… dared she choose someone who might love her, just a little?

Meet Elizabeth Donne

Elizabeth Donne’s writing is a natural outpouring of a lifelong love affair with English literature. Although she has spent most of her life in Cape Town, South Africa, she now lives in the American Midwest, where she enthusiastically introduces her visitors to the joys of drinking rooibos tea. With a biscuit, of course.

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Spotlight on “His Merry Housekeeper” in Merry Belles

HIS MERRY HOUSEKEEPER By Cerise DeLand

Lord Bettington in Number 42 Dudley Crescent needs a new housekeeper. Because his three raucous motherless sons constantly create chaos, he requires someone bold to tamp down his boys’ hijinks.

But the earl wants so much more. He has ordered his young chatelaine, Miss Winifred Mathers, up from his country estate to take charge. Lovely Winn has won his heart.

But can he win her mind if Winn knows the ton will oppose her wedding the only man she’s ever loved?

Excerpt from His Merry Housekeeper

He ran both hands through his hair. He was done arguing with her! “Very well. Stay until Advent is over. Go back to him then. And take your salary.  Give what you will to your father. I am sure Detwiler will be thrilled with a subtantial bridal dowry.”

She blinked, angry with insulted. “He asks for nothing.”

“I bet.”

“You know, sir, you are not nice when you are angry.”

He fumed. But he had her. “Remember that unlike Detwiler, I am slow to anger, my dear.”

She stomped her foot. “I won’t accept your overblown salary.”

“Detwiler won’t like extra money?” he chided her. That man was as bad as her father looking for money in every cubbyhole.

“That’s outrageous, Wal… Sir.”

“I’ll pay it, Winn. Stay.”

He watched her as wheels turned in her head. Her father happy. Her husband to be, thrilled.

She scowled at him. “When it ends I go then.”

“Ah, really? On Christmas Day? It is so sad for anyone to travel on Christmas Day. I cannot let you go then.” If ever. But I see I must try to make my case in ten days.

“I must go home. My father loves Christmas and I must be with him. Plus, I have to manage Christmas at The Grange.”

“With your efficiency, I am certain they all know what to do without you, Miss Mathers.” He took both her hands again in gentle warmth. His hold had her knees melting. “Stay with us. Celebrate Christmas.”

She locked her dark gaze on his and he knew she looked for reassurance he would keep his hands—and his lips—to himself.“The day afterward, I return to Bettington Grange.”

“Of course,” he said.

But she narrowed her eyes at his tone.

She did not trust him.

And she shouldn’t.

 

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