Author: judeknight

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Spotlight on In Service to a Lyon

A book in The Lyon’s Den Connected World

By E. L. Johnson

A lowly servant who may be French nobility. A scarred English lieutenant who hates all French. Can these two find love in the Lyon’s Den?

Marie Cadough is a French servant who’s learned to hide who she is. Sent to England as a child to flee the French Revolution, she and her uncle escaped suspicion by working as servants in a London household. But when she is dismissed at the hands of an unreasonable mistress, her uncle finds them new positions in the household of Mrs. Dove-Lyon, the Black Widow of Whitehall.

Lieutenant Samuel Gage is scarred by war. Having lost his closest friend to a duel and seen hearts broken by heartless Frenchwomen, he has developed an irrational dislike of all things French. But when he suffers painful memories from loud music at the Lyon’s Den, a kind servant takes pity on him. He never expected her to be French.

Marie wants to do well at her new employer’s, so when Mrs. Dove-Lyon asks her to pose as a lady and act as a French-speaking companion to a visiting Frenchwoman, Marie agrees. She never expected to fall for an Englishman in the process.

But not all is well. The other servants are jealous of Marie’s rise to success, and Marie’s new friends are keen to discover her origins. A mutual attraction begins to simmer between Samuel and Marie, but their different backgrounds and the stiff social hierarchy of Regency London pose formidable barriers to their blossoming love.

He is the third son of a baronet—she is a maidservant in a gambling den. Their worlds could not be more different. But as their desire increases, so does the danger, for scheming servants and Marie’s old employers may ruin all their hopes and dreams for the future.

Will Marie and Samuel find love or remain worlds apart? Find out in a new historical romance from bestselling author E.L. Johnson.

Available on Amazon to buy or read in Kindle Unlimited: https://www.amazon.com/Service-Lyon-Lyons-Connected-World-ebook/dp/B0D971DK45/

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Not fitting in, in WIP Wednesday

 

The Worth of an Earl is out in Hot Duke Summer on 24th August, and I don’t think I’ve given you a lot of excerpts from the story. So here is one.

In London, Lady Eloise soon realized that Jen had been raised to be a lady. Then the stones she had brought away in the lamp proved to be uncut gems. “You are a lady and wealthy,” Lady Eloise declared. “We shall find you a chaperone, and you shall enter Society. Why not?”

Jen had grown up on her mother’s stories of Society balls, and something in her must have believed them, even as she doubted, for she was thrilled to attend her first. It looked to an observer exactly like Mammi’s stories. And an observer was what Jen was, at the first ball and each that followed.

No one asked her to dance. No one spoke to her except for Mrs. Bartley, the distant cousin of Aunt Eloise hired to be her chaperone. No one acknowledged her when she spoke, or in any way indicated they were aware she existed and was present.

One night, unable to sleep after yet another dismal and disappointing evening, she stomped downstairs. The library might have a book to distract her, and better yet, she knew there was brandy in a decanter on the sideboard.

It wasn’t fair. Jen could have bought most of the other guests a dozen times over with the money from the stones she’d bundled into the lamp—they turned out to be uncut gems of a very high quality. But because —or any discernable family at all—she was invisible, except to men who were so obviously fortune hunters that she did not need Mrs. Bartley to warn her not to encourage them.

Frome was at the ball again tonight, which was somehow worse than all the rest. Repellent, miserable, squint-nosed worm!

Except only one of those words was true. Frome was even more handsome in evening dress than he was dressed for riding, and when he smiled—as he did to everyone, except Jen—he was utterly compelling.

He had charm, too. Jen had seen him applying it with a ladle to men and women alike, and they all adored him, from the newest debutante to the oldest dowager—from the youngest cub fresh on the town to the elderly uncles. Again, everyone except Jen.

Miserable numb-brain.

The library was in darkness except for a glow from behind the fire-guard and a shielded candle almost guttering inside its protective cover. Jen used the flame from her lamp to light the candles on the mantlepiece and then on the sideboard. She turned one of the waiting glasses up the right way and poured a finger of brandy. Then, with the lamp in one hand and the brandy in the other, she turned to the bookshelves.

She jumped when a voice spoke from the corner near the guttering candle. “Be careful with that lamp near the books.”

Frome.

Her simmering anger at the man made her voice sharp. “See to your own candle, Lord Frome, and I shall see to my lamp.”

Frome moved into the candlelight to glare at her. Why did the man have to be so Dag bland gorgeous? Even when frowning? Even when she was furious with him? Even when he had removed his coat and waistcoat so the neat darns on his shirt showed how hard he was trying to fool the ton into thinking that all was well with his estates?

Which wasn’t the point, and Jen tried hard never to lie to herself. It wasn’t the darns that had her attention, but all the hard muscle shifting under the shirt. To give the devil his due, Frome had apparently been working alongside his tenants ever since his brother died and left a reeking pottle of mess for Frome to inherit. Or so Lady Eloise claimed.

He spread his arms, his own brandy glass dangling from one hand. “Like what you see, do you, Miss Ward?”

She did, but she wasn’t going to tell Frome that. “You think a lot of yourself, do you not, Lord Frome?” she asked.

“Not particularly. But I do think I belong here and you do not.”

“You have made that perfectly clear,” Jen agreed. “However, in this house, your grandmother’s is the opinion that counts.” But not outside this house. Lady Eloise Ainsworth was Frome’s mother’s mother and the daughter of an earl. But she was also the widow of Henry Ainsworth the merchant. In the wider world, she was not nearly as important as a dozen twit-brained crows who happened to have married people with titles.

Frome, who possessed a title and plenty of charm besides, had more influence than any of them. Jen’s indignation frothed up and overflowed. “Outside of this house, you have made certain I will not be accepted. Can you not be satisfied with that, instead of attacking me at every turn?”

By the look of affront on Frome’s face, he had not expected the attack. “I have never said a word against you.”

“Hah!” As if he did not know perfectly well what he had done. Jen would spell it out so he would see that she knew, too. “What conclusion did you expect people to draw when you, the darling of the ton, refuse to dance or even talk with the girl your grandmother is sponsoring? When you stay away from the few entertainments to which I am invited? When, if you cannot avoid being in the same room with me, you ignore me as if I do not exist? I never stood a chance.”

She couldn’t say anything else, for the hurt had bubbled up and was leaking from her eyes. She turned her back on him, facing the bookshelves, though she could not see them through the tears.

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Tea with the ton

Another excerpt post. It isn’t tea, precisely, though I am sure Her Grace served tea at supper after the concert, along with other fluids. The hero of Hold Me Fast is hoping to see his long-lost love at the concert.

When, at last, they were all seated, chattering away like a thousand monkeys or jackdaws rather than people, the duchess came up onto the stage. The noise diminished and then ceased when she tapped the lectern.

It was a formal welcome, and an explanation of the charity hospital that the night was intended to benefit. They, the audience, would be helping the hospital through the ticket sales, several raffles, and an auction.

In return, they would receive not just the pleasure of doing good—a comment that fetched a much bigger laugh that Jowan thought it deserved—but would also enjoy an evening of unparalleled musical excellence.

Jowan managed not to shout out an instruction to get on with it, but Bran must have guessed it was a possibility, for he put his hand back on his brother’s arm.

The duchess was outlining the program for the evening, and doing so with a lot of description and a few jokes.

First, a pianist of whom even Jowan had heard. He had been mentioned quite a few times in the newspapers that made their way to Cornwall.

Next, a couple who must have been well-known in London. The audience’s hum of appreciation indicated the couple were a popular choice, even if they weren’t famous all the way to the western corner of south England. They would both sing while one of them played the harp-lute.

Following that, a short break would allow the assembly to see the items that were being raffled and to write their names and their donations on the paper by each item.

A gentleman whose name Jowan didn’t catch would sing next, and would then sing a duet with Miss Lind before the pianist returned to accompany Miss Lind in further songs. Jowan sat up straighter.

Another short break would be followed by the last musical segment of the evening, this time all Miss Lind.

The duchess went on to talk about the auction that would end that part of the evening and the supper to follow, but Jowan now knew he was doomed to keep waiting. After seven years of waiting, another hour or so should not be a problem, but somehow it was.

He shifted in his seat, trying to make himself comfortable, and caught Bran watching him. His brother looked concerned. Jowan did his best to smile, but must have failed, for Bran’s worry deepened.

The duchess had finished speaking, for everyone began to clap, and Jowan joined in. A tall gentleman who looked remarkably like Drew offered his hand to help the duchess down the steps at one side of the stage, while another man bounced up the other side and took a seat at the piano.

Hold Me Fast can be ordered from Amazon, and will be published on the 19th of September.

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Spotlight on The Blossoming of the Wallflower”

As a gardener, Merrilyn Parkham-Smythe, was happy to be called a wallflower. Wallflowers were tenacious, long-blooming, colourful and reliable plants, easy to care for as long as they had a fair share of sun. Like them, Merrilyn had no objection to providing background to the showier and more troublesome ladies of Society. She did object to being slighted and bullied by those highly-praised blooms and their male counterparts.

The gentleman next door, for example. What a pity such a fine looking man was such an ass. He had damaged her garden and insulted her. He richly deserved what he had coming. Didn’t he?

Sir Darius Finchwater hadn’t meant to offend the lady next door. He had acted on an assumption. He should have checked. And when he found out, too late, what he had done, he should have made a charming apology. Sometimes, when embarrassed, his tongue betrayed him. He was much better with reptiles than with people.

He could think of a better use for those perfectly shaped lips than to hurl abuse at him. Since he couldn’t be in her presence without thoughts that were inappropriate in the presence of an innocent lady, he had to ignore her. But would she ignore him?

Books2read https://books2read.com/TBotW

Extract from The Blossoming of the Wallflower

Dar was breaking his fast on bread and cheese in his uncle’s bed chamber. Uncle Jacob, still looking tired and frail, was nonetheless much improved over yesterday, when he had suffered a session of chest pains which the doctor, hastily resummoned, called angina pectoris.

By the doctor’s command, he was eating gruel, though he grumbled life was not worth living if he had to eat such pap. “I am only doing this because I wish to live long enough to see you married to that lovely girl next door.”

“She might not have me,” Dar warned.

“Ask her, lad,” Uncle Jacob advised. “Don’t leave it until someone else finds out what a treasure she is before you say anything. Perhaps she will say no, though I do not think so. I have seen the way she looks at you. But perhaps she will say yes. Perhaps, if you fail to ask, you will live with regret for the remainder of your days.”

He stared straight into thin air and Dar had the impression he had stopped thinking about Merrilyn or even about Dar. That he was looking into the past and seeing the inexorable march of the years. “Perhaps she will die before you ask, leaving you to wonder whether, if she had been married to you, you might have kept her safe.”

Had Uncle Jacob once been in love? Dar had always thought him a curmudgeon who had chosen to remain a bachelor. Yet the longing in his voice would appear to argue otherwise.

Uncle Jacob broke the silence that followed with a sharp look and the remark, “Perhaps someone else will snatch her up before you have the chance.”

Quite right. Dar had to ask her. The time was not yet—he had more courting to do first. But he was determined to ask. “Yes, Uncle.”

A knock on the door proved to be the butler, asking if Dar would step below stairs.

“I did not want to say anything in front of Lord Finchwater,” he confided as he and Dar descended to the kitchen, “but the maid from next door is here, and very distressed.”

Dar hurried his steps.

Sure enough, the girl was pacing back and forth wringing her hands, while Dar’s servants tried to comfort her. “I must talk to Sir Darius,” she kept repeating.

“I am here,” Dar told her, and she burst into tears.

“They have taken my mistress,” she sobbed. “She went out into the garden early, and she never came back inside. She is gone, sir.”

A moment of weakness was not permitted. Time enough to give into his feelings once she was safe. “Who are they? Who has taken her?”

The maid shook her head. “It must have been those men from the other day,” she insisted. “Nobody saw nothing.”

What of Dar’s footman, who had been set to watch the back gate? Dar had been maintaining an around-the-clock watch since the villains first tried to get into the house. He turned to his butler to ask for someone to be sent to the back lane to check on the footman, but one of the other men hurried into the kitchen, checked at the sight of Dar, then strode towards him.

“Sir! Fred has been hurt. I need help to carry him inside. Someone hit him over the head and tied him up.”

Dar nodded to the butler. “Get the doctor,” he commanded. “I will pay his fee. Have the man carried in on a board in case he has injuries we cannot see. I am going next door. Whoever did this has abducted Miss Parkham-Smythe.”

As he left, he heard the footman explaining how he had searched when the man he had come to relieve was not in position, and had found him shoved into a wood shed at the side of the lane. At the moment, that was not Dar’s concern. Finding Merrilyn was.

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Kissing on WIP Wednesday

I’ve just sent The Trials of Benedict back to the editor. It should be published in a couple of months, so I thought you might like a first kiss. Here you go.

Lady Stowell looked rather dazed, and well she might. Alaric had simply assumed she would comply and left her to choose between being the gracious lady he assured her she was, and showing herself to be self-centred and petty. “Well. Yes. They are such good causes, after all.”

They had arrived at the drawing room door.

Alaric bowed again, and Bea curtseyed. “Thank you again,” they chorused. Lady Stowell inclined her head, but one last thought made it all the way to her mouth before Alaric could head it off. “This means I will have to wait between contests. I shall not wait with servants and farm workers, Lady Beatrice. You cannot ask it of me.”

“Of course not, Lady Stowell,” Bea assured her. “My cousin Beverley has a tent set up just for you and the gentry. I shall ensure suitable refreshments are waiting for you.” Alaric had opened the drawing room door, and was holding it for the viscountess.

“Hmmph,” said Lady Stowell. “That will do, then. But I shall be expecting the schedule to be better organised for next year, mind.”

With that final word, she sailed into the drawing room and, in the moment before Alaric shut the door, Bea could hear her saying, “Dear Lady Claddach. And Lady Lewiston, too. How splendid to see you.”

“Will the schedule change for next year?” Alaric asked Bea.

“I should put her on the organising committee,” Bea grumbled, “and leave her to figure it out. Except we would very likely finish up without an organising committee.”

He touched her hand. “We achieved what we needed,” he pointed out. “Time enough to worry about next year after this year is over. Thanks to you, Bea. You were brilliant.”

“And you were charming,” she pointed out. “We make a good team, do we not?” 

He leaned closer. “The best.” His eyes seemed to darken as his pupils expanded.

Had his mind gone to the same place as hers? There was a simple way to find out. “What are you thinking, Alaric?” 

“I am wishing I could kiss you,” he admitted.

“Not here, where anyone might come upon us,” she replied. “Follow me.” Was she really going to do it? She was. She had been thinking about it for days, and they might not get another time when most of the servants and all the younger house guests were out of the castle, as well as Papa, Uncle Lewiston and the other gentlemen.

Just beyond the head of the stairs was a linen closet. No one would have any reason to enter it. It was perfect for their purposes. She opened the door and led Alaric inside, then shut the door behind them.

Shelves full of household linen, sorted by type, quality, size and colour, lined both sides. Light filtered in from the direction of the back wall, which had a high round window above a table for folding linen before putting it away and a basket for anything that required mending.

Bea turned to face Alaric. Now what? She hoped he knew what he was about, for she had never before been kissed.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, his voice husky. He was certain, it seemed, for he was holding his arms out to her.

She nodded as she stepped closer to him. His hands came to rest on her waist, and he gazed into her eyes. After a moment, she asked, “Are you going to kiss me?”

“I am,” he assured her. “I am just deciding where to start.”

Bea frowned. Surely one simply pressed ones lips to the lips of the other person. Was that not the whole point? But she had no time to ask, for he used one hand to persuade her head to one side and placed a kiss on her neck, just below her ear. A shiver ran down her neck and through her body. 

He kissed her again, this time on her jaw, less than an inch from the first kiss, and followed along her jaw line. Not just kisses, either. He scraped his teeth over her skin then soothed it with his tongue. By the time his kisses reached the other ear, she was plastered against him, her knees too weak to hold her up. 

Then he came back across her cheek and at last reached her lips. Now he would settle his mouth over hers, as she had seen men do with their wives or lovers when they thought themselves unobserved. Good. His ministrations so far had set her whole body tingling, and particularly her womanly core. She could not wait to find out what his lips felt like on hers.

But no. The rain of kisses continued. She tried to object, but could manage nothing beyond a moan. An indignant moan, but hardly a clear request for more. Still, he responded, settling his mouth over hers. It felt amazing, but she still needed something else. 

He opened his mouth and ran his tongue along her lips. No. That wasn’t what she was waiting for. Not quite. Then, he nipped her lower lip with his teeth and she opened with a gasp. Alaric slipped his tongue into her mouth. 

A long interlude of learning one another followed. When she pressed her tongue against his, he hummed with pleasure, and when she chased his tongue into his mouth, he hummed even more loudly, then he followed her back, and their tongues tangled and danced while his mouth moved and his hands held her firmly against his body, one in the middle of her back and one grasping her behind.

She had no idea how long they kissed. The need for more returned, more urgent than ever. Her breasts felt heavy and sore, and so did that area in her lower torso, between her legs. 

Eventually, Alaric withdrew his mouth, sighed, and moved his hand from her buttock to her head, holding her in place while he rested his cheek against her hair. He was breathing heavily, she was pleased to note. She was panting, as if she had run from the castle to the beach.

She stood leaning against him, waiting for her breath to settle while all the thoughts that the kiss had driven from her head came crowding back into it.

“I must go,” she said at last. Her voice shook, and she was still not certain her knees would hold her up. “I do not know the time, but the girls setting out the food on the castle stall will be looking for me.”

“And the contestants for me,” Alaric admitted. “I ought to warn you it would have been a bad idea to remain here together, even if we could. That kiss…” He shook his head, slowly. “It was a promise of more, dearest Bea. And we cannot take more. Not without being wed. I would not dishonour you or your father. Not for the world.”

A promise of more. Bea had sensed that. And while her body was perfectly willing to explore that more immediately, her mind knew better. “It was a beautiful kiss,” she told him. “My first. I shall never forget it.” She stepped backwards and he dropped his arms and let her go.

He looked alarmed. “Your first? And I kissed you in a closet among the linens? You deserve better than that.”

“I think a kiss any better than that would kill me, Alaric,” she replied.

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Spotlight on Inviting the Wild

(A novella in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8BYJ8ST

Ruadh Douglas doesn’t want to go home. Years on the battlefields for the glory of the king have made him more beast than man and he won’t inflict his wounded mind and soul on his family. So, he wanders the streets of London, performing penance by rescuing those in need.

Rosalind Ransome is a misfit in London’s ballrooms, but in visiting the sick of all classes, she has found work she loves and the chance to make a difference. When she is attacked in the streets, she is rescued by the vigilante they call the Wolf.

Rose is drawn to Ruadh when he seeks her family’s help to free his ailing grandfather from a treacherous wife and servants. But is he the loving grandson? Or the wolf who patrols the streets at night?

Even as Rose discovers he is both, Ruadh realizes he must find a way to tame his anger if he hopes to win the maid.

But when Rose is in danger, Ruadh is glad he can still call on the wild.

Read in Kindle Unlimited!

A Twist Upon a Regency Tale
Lady Beast’s Bridegroom
One Perfect Dance
Snowy and the Seven Doves
Perchance to Dream
Weave Me a Rope
The Sincerest Flattery
Inviting the Wild
Hold Me Fast
The Trials of Alaric

Excerpt

They came from the shadows, half a dozen men in layers of dirty rags, with knives or broken planks in their hands and hunger in their eyes.

Reuben, the footman, moved in front of Rosalind Ransome and her stepsister, Pauline Turner. Harris, the groom, brushed past the sisters to join Reuben. He muttered, for their ears only, “Get back, my ladies, and if you see an opportunity, run.”

Rose would have stepped up beside him, ready to fight, but Pauline grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“We have to help them,” Rose objected.

Pauline did not agree. “The biggest help we can be is to stay out of their way, and to escape when we have the chance. They can make their own escape if they do not have to worry about us.”

She did not say it was Rose’s fault, but Rose knew. They were on London’s streets in this unsavory area after dark because of her. But how could she have left the hospital earlier? Private Brown had asked for her. He had not not expected to survive the night, and in fact he didn’t. Rose could do little but hold his hand. That helped, or so Mr. Parslow, the superintendent, believed.

When she’d agreed to sit with him, Rose had sent home the carriage her brother had sent for her, and her maid. She could not see any reason why her servants should sit up all night. That decision had brought them here, in the early hours of the morning, facing murder or worse for the sake of the clothes they stood up in and whatever price she and Pauline might fetch in the brothels. That was all the thieves would get, because neither of them was foolish enough to carry valuables on an errand into this part of town.

The footpads had still not attacked. Harris had a two-barrel pistol, which was making the footpads think twice, but Rose did not suppose it would deter them for long.

“Is it worth being shot?” Reuben was arguing, persuasively. “Harris is a good shot, so at least two of you will not survive. Just let us go our way and no one needs to be hurt.”

“I am sorry, Pauline. I never meant for this to happen.”

Pauline squeezed Rose’s hand. “You did not ask me to bring the carriage back to get you, and you did not arrange for the carriage axle to collapse.” Which it had done five streets after they drove away from the hospital and only three from the broader streets patrolled by the watch.

The footpads’ leader had a counteroffer. “How ’bout you gie us all the morts’ glimmers and you can go your way?”

Glimmers, Rose guessed, must be jewelry. “I am not wearing any jewelry,” she told Pauline. “Are you?”

“No, and I do not have money with me, either.”

I would rather die than be sold into a brothel, Rose decided. She put her hand into the pocket she wore under her gown, a slit in the side seam giving discrete access. At least Private Brown would not be disappointed when she did not return tomorrow. He had breathed his last some fifteen minutes before Pauline arrived with the carriage.

She unfolded the object she retrieved from the pocket, extracting the blade from the bone handle to give her a small but perfectly serviceable dagger. “I have this,” she announced. “If I kill my sister and myself, will the clothing you can retrieve from our bodies be enough to compensate for this area being overrun with Red Breasts for the next few weeks, until they find every last one of you? For we shall be missed, and my brother knows where we went.”

The footpads went into a huddle, most of them still keeping an eye on their annoyingly uncooperative prey.

“I’m not sure you should have done that,” said Pauline, and Harris, the groom, groaned. “Not a good idea, Lady Rose.”

In the next moment, Rose found out why, as the footpads’ leader shouted, “Take the skirts alive, especially the mouthy one!” Four of them hurled themselves towards poor Reuben and Harris, and two began skirting around the fight that ensued to grab Rose and Pauline.

Rose had no time to spare a glance for the servants, though she heard a shot. She was determined not to be taken. The man who attacked her jerked back, screaming imprecations, his hand spraying blood from the wound he had inflicted on himself when he grabbed her knife and not her hand. The second man took advantage of Rose’s distraction to seize Pauline, who hit him with her umbrella. He grasped the umbrella and ripped it from her hands, then stumbled backwards.

Rose took a moment to realize that a large someone in dark clothes and a cape had dragged the man away from Pauline and swung him headfirst into a wall. A meaty hand landing on her shoulder was her only warning that the assailant she had cut was back on the attack. Before she even had time to struggle, the caped man had punched him hard enough to hurl him backwards.

One of the other footpads shouted, “It’s the Wolf!” In moments, three of them were running. The two that had attacked Rose and Pauline lay where the caped man had put them. One of the servants’ attackers was also down, presumably shot, but so was Harris. Reuben was picking himself up from the ground. As far as Rose could see in the poor light, he was unharmed.

She hurried to Harris, kneeling to feel for his pulse. As she did, he groaned. Thank goodness! He was alive. “Harris, can you hear me?” she asked.

“Lady Rose.” He yelped as he rolled to get his legs under him. “Reuben, lad, a hand,” he begged.

As she got up from her knees, Rose did not voice her objection to him moving. She could not examine him in the dark, and they needed to get off these streets as quickly as possible.

Harris said out loud what she had been thinking. “We need to get the ladies out of here before they come back to get their men.”

The footpads! She had forgotten them. She took two steps toward the one who had been punched, and who was now groaning. The man they called the Wolf stopped her. “Stay back! If he can, he will use you as a shield, and your servants’ suffering will be for nothing.”

Oh dear. “But they have been hurt,” she pointed out. “I do not like to just leave them.”

“We shall leave them to their own kind,” Pauline decided. “We cannot risk Harris and Reuben for the sake of men who would have killed us or sold us without a second thought. Come along, Rose.”

“You are right,” Rose agreed, falling obediently into step with her sister. Reuben came behind, one arm around Harris to support him. The Wolf ranged around them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and sometimes walking beside them for a few paces.

In the moonlight, filtered as it was through London’s fog, she could not see more of him than she had from the beginning. A large man, broad and tall. Dark clothes covered by a thigh-length cape, perhaps a domino. Try as she might, she could not see his face, even when he turned toward her to deliver a disparaging remark. He had an arsenal of them.

“This is no place for ladies of your kind.”

“What would your family do if you were killed?”

“I cannot always be here to stop you from being hurt.”

“You put your servants at risk. Did you think of that before you planned your little jaunt?”

All said in the accents of a gentleman and in a pleasant voice that sounded as if he might sing tenor.

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Tam Lin and other such faery abduction stories, interpreted for the Regency era

My book Hold Me Fast has just gone up on preorder. It is a dark and gritty story, but the story that inspired Hold Me Fast lends itself to some sordid and heart-stopping detail. The story is Tam Lin (and all its variants), in which a faithful sweetheart is determined to rescue her beloved from the Faery.

I say “story” rather than “stories” because they are, in essence, the same tale told in different ways by different bards, poets, or story tellers. The Queen of the Faeries steals away a human to entertain her and her court. He is sometimes a musician, sometimes a poet, and sometimes both. He is always called some variant of the name Thomas. He becomes the Queen’s lover and remains with her for seven years. (In some stories, it is seven years in faery time, but much longer passes in the everyday world.)

In the tale of True Thomas, the Queen sends him home at the end of his time, with the “gift” that he cannot tell a lie.

In other versions, she plans to offer him to Hell to pay a tax owed by the faeries. Shortly before the tax falls due, he meets Janet (Margaret in some versions), who determines to rescue him. This involves pulling him from his horse during a midnight ride of the faery court and holding him while the Queen turns him into all sorts of dangerous and dire things.

When the Queen realizes she has lost her pet, she loses her temper still further, but her threats and ranting cannot now keep the two lovers apart. Tam (Tom) is saved from his fate and is back in the human world.

This is one of my favorite folk tales, and I wanted to do it justice. As soon as I began to think about the mechanics of Regency-era people with the underlying viciousness and cold-hearted hedonism of the faeries in the oldest tales, I knew I had a group of selfish entitled aristocratic men with too much money and too little conscience. And what is more likely than that a person in withdrawal from drug addiction is going to be changeable, near mindless, and dangerous?

By the way, I use the spelling faery, for the Fae of the old tales do not at all resemble the sweet creatures of more modern stories, with their butterfly wings, and their human-like lives and morals.

Hold Me Fast will be published on 19th September, and can be preordered from Amazon.

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Trapped in time on WIP Wednesday

This is a passage from the start of my new series. My hero is interrupted and alarmed. My heroine’s plans go awry.

Cornelius Tullius Laeca lay relaxed in the hot bath, his shoulders against the side wall, his buttocks on the shelf below the water, and his long legs stretched out before him. He was currently the only patron of the inn’s private bath house, which was probably just as well, because he was a large man, and the three baths—cold, warm, and hot, each in a separate room—were all small.

According to the innkeeper, he was within a day’s ride of Londinium. He should be there tomorrow. Perhaps he should consider buying a slave. The innkeeper, like others on this trip down from Britannica’s north, had been taken aback to find that Cornelius was travelling without any. There were no slaves in an army fort, and what Prefect of an auxiliary cohort would want soldiers at his elbow every minute?

Not Cornelius. A couple of orderlies had cared for his kit and his rooms, and if he had needed anything else, one of his centurions would produce a legionnaire with the appropriate skills.

He could have done with one of his orderlies on this trip, even if just to manage his luggage. But of course, he no longer had orderlies. A new prefect led the 10th Lycians, and Cornelius had a civilian position waiting for him in Rome. A temporary position. Just until he was assigned to a legion as one of its tribunes. Mama had written that Uncle Rufus was working on it.

His toes touched the shelf on the other side of the bath when he stretched out his good leg. He could do with someone to wrangle his luggage, fetch his dinner, do all the little things he had never needed to think about.

Now for the other leg. It stretched with only a minor pull on the scar tissue. And when he bent the knee to bring it as far up towards his torso as he could manage, it went nearly all the way. Better. His thigh still had a ragged line of red, nearly a span long, with both sides marked by red blobs where the stitches had pulled it back together. Evidence that the northern tribes were not as peaceful as Rome liked to claim. The medicus who had sewed him up had assured him that he’d get full use of the leg back if he exercised it, and apparently the man knew what he was talking about.

It was probably time to call for one of the bath slaves to assist him again with the strigil. Cornelius could hear them chattering in the exercise room on the other side of the wall. He had already, between leaving the warm pool and getting into the hot pool, had a good basting with oil and a scrape all over with the strigil. Now he’d stewed for a while in the heat, he’d get the slaves to repeat the strigiling and then dip back into the cold.

In a minute. His bones, weary from the long day of trouble, had relaxed in the hot water and moving seemed like more trouble than it was worth. He stretched his arms along the sides of the bath and let both legs float upwards.

Then a noise had him lifting his head and looking towards one of the walls. He’d never heard anything like it—a long chord played on some instrument he could not identify. A whole array of instruments, he corrected himself, as his hair stood on end and his skin seemed to vibrate to the sound.

It was swelling, building to a crescendo, and suddenly a tunnel appeared in the middle of the wall. Before he had time to do more than narrow his eyes to sharpen his vision, something was rushing along the tunnel toward him. A speck. No, a figure. A woman. And then the tunnel blinked out of existence and the woman remained, standing on the tiles against an unblemished wall.

A lady, he amended, wrapped in a palla of fine golden wool with a broad border of a blue a few shades darker than the tunic she wore beneath. A goddess, given the way she had arrived, but then would a goddess be staring at him as if she’d never before seen a man in his bath?

Perhaps he had fallen asleep and this was a dream.

“What manner of being are you?” he demanded, “and how did you come here?”

She blinked a couple of times, and the hand that was not holding her palla crept underneath it. “Allow me to introduce myself, honoured sir. I am Flavia Elizabeth MacDonald, daughter of William MacDonald, of the Aotearoa tribe.”

He had never heard of a goddess called Flavia whatever it was. Her Latin was execrable. It had never occured to Cornelius that a foreign god might speak Latin with an accent.

Her manners were good, though, and he would not want to insult her. Who knew what she was capable of doing? Even in a dream, an patrician of Rome should be mannerly. He straightened. “Greetings, revered lady. I am Cornelius Tullius Laeca, son of Cornelius Tullius Laeca, of the Esquilina tribe. By what manner of sorcery am I honoured by your presence?”

She waved to the door. “Is that the way out?” she asked. “I am not here for long, and I would like to see Rome before I am called back. I shall leave you to your bath.”

Rome? “Rome is many weeks away, your worship,” he told the apparition. “We are in Verulamium, in Britannica.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Verulamium? Britannica?” Her voice rose on the second word.

One of the bath slaves appeared at the door. “Sir? Is there…” He trailed off as he realised that another person was in the room—one who had not entered the bath house by the door into the exercise room—the only outside door.

“Go away,” Cornelius told him. “I will call you if I want you.”

The slave bowed and backed away out of the room, not removing his eyes from the lady.

“You expected Rome, Lady Flavia?” Cornelius commented. This must be a dream. A goddess whose transport had been misdirected? Ridiculous. “Then your tunnel has brought you to the wrong place.”

“My tunnel?” Her eyes lit up with interest. “You saw me arrive in a tunnel?”

Was she going to try to convince him otherwise? Cornelius knew what he had seen.

“A tunnel,” he insisted.

“I saw nothing,” she said. “Saw nothing, heard nothing, could do nothing. I stepped into the portal and then nothing. Until suddenly I was here.”

“A long tunnel,” he insisted, though it sounded as if she was merely commenting on a different experience rather than disagreeing with him. “You came towards me very fast, but without moving your feet. And there was a sound. Music.”

“Fascinating,” Flavia commented. “None of Janet’s instruments recorded a tunnel. Or, for that matter, the darkness.” She sighed. “I suppose I should have a look at Verulamium, then. But I did so want to see Rome.”

“It is after sundown, lady,” Cornelius pointed out. “The city is not safe after dark.” That probably sounded foolish to Lady Flavia. What did a goddess have to fear from the kind of scum who preyed on the weak?

But the lady grimaced. “Bother. This is not turning out the way I expected.”

“I can show you the inn if you wish,” Cornelius offered, responding to the disappointment in her face and voice. She was a very pretty goddess, and this was the most peculiar dream he had ever had.

Her face brightened. “If it would not be too much trouble,” she said.

Cornelius got his legs under him. “If you’ll give me a minute, lady,” he said, as he stood up, the water now only waist deep.

She was standing at the steps end of the baths, and for a moment he was tempted to exit by the shelf so he could keep his distance. He squelched the cowardly thought. If she had god-like powers, she could smite him from any distance. He headed towards the steps and began his ascent, keeping an eye on the lady.

She had taken a fold of her palla and put it over her head, turning away to show him her back, but not before he saw the colour flood her face. If it wasn’t ridiculous, he would think her embarrassed to be alone with a nude man.

“Lady?” he said. “Are you well?” Perhaps she was just hot, all wrapped up like that. “You will be cooler if you take the palla off, my lady.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, and let the palla drop so it draped from her elbows.

Before Cornelius could continue past her, he felt a sudden tug at his neck. His amulet—the spiral he and his friends had chosen to symbolise their friendship and commitment—was doing its best to fly away from him to Flavia, pulling the plaited leather cord hard against the back of his neck.

The lady made a choking noise and stumbled towards him. He had only enough time to notice that an amulet she was wearing was reaching for him when the two amulets touched. The lady fell against him as both cords fell back against their wearers, and the pressure on the back of his neck released.

Flavia was a lovely armful, no higher than his chest but beautifully curved. He looked down onto her dark curls and reminded himself that she controlled a vast magic he did not understand. “Lady? Are you well?” He had said that before, he remembered.

She turned to face him and then set herself back from him while retaining her hold on his forearms, as if she needed the help to balance. She rubbed at her neck, where a red mark showed how strongly the leather had pulled. A pat on the cord was followed a search along it with both of her hands. Had it not held an amulet? If so, it held one no longer.

“It’s gone,” Flavia said, her voice shrill with panic. “My spiral. It is gone.”

“I’ll help you look,” he offered. “What did it look like?”

She met his gaze. Perhaps it was the lamp light that shot gold flecks through her dark brown eyes. “Like yours, except older,” she said. “Much older. A bronze coil with a tiger stone.” She dropped her eyes to his chest. “Just like yours. Cornelius Tullius, I think your amulet swallowed mine. Now what am I going to do?”