Bluestocking Belles

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Tea with a mother-in-law

The Duchess of Haverford cast a practiced glance around the large room. As hostess, it was her task to ensure that all of her guests enjoyed themselves during the hour they allowed for social engagement after the monthly meeting of the Ladies Foundation for the Support and Encouragement of Gentlewoman Scholars, Artists and Artisans.

She narrowed her eyes at one group of ladies. Seated in a far corner, they had their heads together. Something about the way three of them leaned forward, eyes fixed on the fourth, set Eleanor’s hackles up.

The speaker was Lady Stanton—the Dowager Lady Stanton for a second time, since her widower son had recently remarried. Undoubtedly, she was sharing gossip and, knowing Lady Stanton, Eleanor was sure it would be unkind, and probably scandalous.

With a sigh, Eleanor set off around the room to see what damage was being done to someone’s reputation, and to try to set it right.

“So you see,” Lady Stanton was saying, “He is already regretting the match. I can only hope it is not too late to have the marriage annulled, for I could not countenance a divorce, even to remove That Woman from the family.”

Ah. The lady was attacking her new daughter-in-law again. “I find the new Lady Stanton to be charming,” Eleanor said, “and my son has nothing but praise for the way she conducts her father’s business.”

Lady Stanton was not so lost to propriety as to glare at the duchess, but Eleanor was sure she wanted to. Or perhaps not, for there was a gleam of triumph in her eyes. “She is in trade, like her father,” the nasty scold pointed out. “Not what a Stanton looks for in a wife.”

“Your son is old enough to make his own choices,” Eleanor reminded her.

“One would have thought so,” Lady Stanton said, the gleam appearing again. “But since his wife left him on their wedding night, I can only suppose that he is regretting that he did not listen to his mother.”

“Left him?” Eleanor asked. Her son Aldridge had met up with Lord Stanton the night before last, when both had been changing horses at a posting inn during that dreadful storm. “Went ahead of him to their country estate, rather, when Lord Stanton was called out on government business.”

“Is that what you heard, Your Grace?” Lady Stanton was now smiling with perverse satisfaction. “I think not.”

“We shall see,” Eleanor told her, coldly. “In the meanwhile, Lady Stanton, I am certain your son would not wish to hear that you have laundering the family linen in public.”

She retired with honours in the bout, but took a moment to say a prayer for the newly-weds. Where on earth could they have gone in such dreadful weather?

Lady Stanton is wrong. Her successor has not left her husband, but is on a mission to find her missing ship, or at least her undercover agent, who has escaped France and should have been aboard.

Lord Stanton’s Shocking Seaside Honeymoon: Cerise DeLand

She is so wrong for him.

Miss Josephine Meadows is so young. In love with life. His accountant in his work for Whitehall. Her father’s heir to his trading company—and his espionage network.

Lord Stanton cannot resist marrying her. But to ensure Wellington defeats Napoleon, they must save one of Josephine’s agents.

Far from home, amid a horrific storm, Stanton discovers that his new bride loves him dearly.

Can he truly be so right for her?

And she for him?

Storm & Shelter: A Bluestocking Belles Collection With Friends

When a storm blows off the North Sea and slams into the village of Fenwick on Sea, the villagers prepare for the inevitable: shipwreck, flood, land slips, and stranded travelers. The Queen’s Barque Inn quickly fills with the injured, the devious, and the lonely—lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers all trapped together. Intrigue crackles through the village, and passion lights up the hotel.

One storm, eight authors, eight heartwarming novellas.

Find out more on the Bluestocking Belles’ project page. 

Only 99c while on preorder. Published April 13th.

 

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Tea with fears for Letty

“But you will let us know if my niece contacts you, Your Grace.” The impertinent man was not asking, but demanding.

Eleanor allowed a haughty eyebrow to express her opinion of his attempt at command, but did not flatter him with a response. “My butler shall show you and your son out, Kent.”

“I am her betrothed,” the younger fool insisted. “I have a right to know where she is.”

Eleanor ignored him, exchanging a glance with her butler that had him summoning the footman from the hall to insist that the two men leave.

“I doubt it,” her friend Grace observed, as the door closed behind them. “I have seen Miss Lovell in the company of the younger Mr Kent, and I very much doubt she is amenable to his suit.”

“I would hope not,” Eleanor said. “I do not know Miss Lovell well, but I have formed a good opinion of her sense, and no woman of sense would take on an overgrown schoolboy like that one. He and that father of his would strip her fortune in no time.”

Grace frowned as her friend poured tea. They had been about to partake when the Kents had been announced, their message begging help to find a missing niece and ward guaranteeing them a few minutes of the duchess’s time. Their unpleasant personalities and the holes in the story they told meant she ignored the waiting refreshments and had them removed as quickly as possible, though not before she had told them, truthfully, that she had not heard from the missing heiress, and had no idea where she was.

“Did she come to you, Grace, or to Georgie or Sophia?” The Winshire women ran a village refuge for women who needed to escape intolerable situations, but Grace was shaking her head. “Not that I have heard. I imagine she is trying to reach her uncle Robert Lovell, who is in Brussels, I believe.”

“I hope she has reached him, or found refuge elsewhere,” Eleanor told her. “The storm in the North Sea is terrible, or so my son says.”

Letty Lovell is caught up in the storm, and her ship goes down in the sea near the village of Fenwick on Sea. She is rescued by an improbable hero in the first story of the new collection, Storm & Shelter, on preorder now.

An Improbable Hero

By Mary Lancaster

A runaway heiress, a mysterious stranger.

When Letty’s ship founders in a violent storm, she forges a rare bond with her rescuer.

Simon is a troubled man on a final, deadly mission—until the spirited yet soothing Letty makes him question everything. Hiding in plain sight among the refugees at The Queen’s Barque, Simon is more than capable of protecting them both. But when the floods recede, can either of them say goodbye?

Storm & Shelter: A Bluestocking Belles Collection With Friends

When a storm blows off the North Sea and slams into the village of Fenwick on Sea, the villagers prepare for the inevitable: shipwreck, flood, land slips, and stranded travelers. The Queen’s Barque Inn quickly fills with the injured, the devious, and the lonely—lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers all trapped together. Intrigue crackles through the village, and passion lights up the hotel.

One storm, eight authors, eight heartwarming novellas.

Find out more on the Bluestocking Belles’ project page. 

Only 99c while on preorder. Published April 13th.

 

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Inspiration for lovers

Back in the Regency, before printed cards became affordable and readily available, people still sent cards on Valentine’s Day–home made cards, as fancy as the person’s imagination and purse could manage, usually enhanced with a hand-written saying or poem.

And if you couldn’t write a poem to save your soul?

Then you were in luck, for a number of enterprising people put out pamphlets and even whole books with poems for your valentine.

This one is sweet:

Was there ever an urchin like Cupid so sly?
Well armed and mounted aloft in the sky;
He wounds, and we love, and then off he does fly.

That I am wounded, alas, is too true,
And that I can only be healed by you;
Is likewise a fact. Ah! What shall I do?

I’ll rely on thy pity, dear charmer of mine.
Sure you’ll not break the heart of thy poor Valentine!

You could find a poem addressed to the trade of your beloved:

So nice you dress your Lamb and Veal,
My passion I cannot conceal;
But plainly must declare to you,
I wish that you would dress me too.

When at your shop you take your stand,
Your knife and steel within each hand;
I listen to your pleasing cry,
Which sounds so shrill, d’ye buy, d’ye buy.

Now February shows his face;
And genial Spring comes on apace;
Like birds, ah! prithee let us join,
Upon the day of Valentine.

The books also provided suitable answers, also in rhyme–either a yeah or, as in the valentine to the nursery maid, below, a resounding nay.

So fond of children you are grown,
I wish you had some of your own,
I think my dear, if you’ll consent,
That I in that could give content;

How charming it would be to see,
A little baby, just like thee;
Say if you like this plan of mine,
As you’re today my Valentine.”

The Nursery Maid’s Answer:

“Pray Mr. Smack drive on, gee-ho,
With me our courtship will not do,
Your face is ugly, but your mind
Is ten times uglier, I find;

I am a girl that’s very nice,
And won’t be bought at your price;
Your Valentine I will not be,
So prithee think no more of me.

Buy Valentines From Bath for 99c, until Valentine’s Day only

To help you celebrate this lover’s day, we’re keeping the Bluestocking Belles’ 2019 collection of Regency novellas, https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/valentines-from-bath/, at 99c until after Valentine’s Day. Follow the link for more details and buy links.

 

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Tea with Mrs Fishingham’s daughters

The Duchess of Haverford usually enjoyed welcoming this year’s crop of maidens on the Marriage Mart to afternoon tea. She had begun the practice for the sake of her legion of god-daughters, offering a relaxed environment in which the young ladies could form friendships with others they would meet at fashionable entertainments. Just the girls, away from their mothers’ fussing and with no need to compete for the attentions of prospective husbands. In London, she tended to devote an afternoon a month to the practice. Here in Bath, one event sufficed.

Today’s crop of young ladies seemed unusually frivolous and silly. Or perhaps Eleanor was growing old. As they took their turns to sit with her for a few minutes, she smiled and nodded at their stories of balls they had been to, bonnets they desired, and bouquets they had garnered from suitors. Here came another Fishingham child. She had already endured Miss Eugenia’s quotations from a book of etiquette and Miss Matilda’s boasts of more callers than either of her sisters.

Ah! She remembered this one from last year. The eldest, but the quietest. Miss Fishingham had been a wallflower at last night’s assembly, until the Master of Ceremonies presented Will Chadbourn as a dance partner. A nice boy, Chadbourn, newly come to his title. She had shown plenty of animation talking to him, and had been popular for the rest of the evening. “Did you enjoy yourself yesterday evening, Miss Fishingham?” Eleanor asked.

The girl looked up from the hands she had been studying. “Yes, thank you, Your Grace.”

Nothing more. Miss Fishingham had used up her stock of conversation last night, it seemed. “What did you and Chadbourn talk about with such enthusiasm?” Eleanor asked.

“Crop rotation, Ma’am. His lordship was good enough to explain a new succession planting method that ensures better crops.”

The unexpected answer made Eleanor smile. “And are you interested in crop rotation, Miss Fishingham?”

“Lord Chadbourn certainly made it more interesting than some of my later partners made tying a cravat or collecting snuff boxes,” the girl retorted.

Eleanor laughed out loud. “You have discovered the secret of Social success, Miss Fishingham. Listen attentively.”

“At the risk of terminal boredom,” said Miss Fishingham, then clapped a shocked hand over her mouth. “I beg your pardon, Your Grace. I quite forgot myself.”

“No apology required, my dear. If I have to hear a description of one more bonnet, I am at risk of dying of boredom myself. So tell me, Charis–it is Charis, is it not? What would you rather be doing than dancing at a assembly?”

 

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Charis is the heroine in The Beast Next Door, my contribution to the box set Valentines from Bath.

If you haven’t read this one, now is a good time to grab a copy because the price is going up. (It is from two years ago)
Anything can happen in the magic of music and candlelight as couples dance, flirt, and open themselves to romantic possibilities. Problems and conflict may just fade away at a Valentine’s Day Ball.
Dukes, earls, tradesmen, and the occasional charlatan —alert to the possibilities as the event draws nigh—all appear in this collection of five terrific Valentine’s Day stories.
Reverts to $3.99 after Valentine’s Day. Buy it now for under a dollar. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MP7WV4T/ #99cents
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Spotlight on Dangerous Nativity

A Dangerous Nativity is high up the list of my all time favourite novellas. Meet the wonderful Will Chadbourn, Catherine Wheatley–the intriguing neighbour with the same surname as his ducal nephew, who lives on a small holding next door to his nephew’s estate, and three of Caroline Warfield’s signature children. You’ll chuckle at the nativity that Catherine’s brothers, aided by Will’s nephew, plan to stage with their farm animals. You’ll be as keen as Will to discover what lies behind the animosity between the two Wheatley families. You’ll love Will’s patience and his kindness. A Dangerous Nativity is a Do Not Miss This book. If you read no other Christmas stories this year, read this one.

It’s the fourth novella in Holiday Escapes, a collection of stories republished from the Bluestocking Belles 2015 box set, which has long been out of publication, and is now available again.

Read more about the box set and get it from one of the buy links here.

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Under the Mistletoe on Spotlight on Sunday

 

Margaret’s father means to ensure her safety by finding her a widower with two small children who needs a wife. Not that he’s forcing the match, but he agrees to Margaret acting as the man’s hostess so she has a chance to know him better. But Captain Morledge’s possessiveness gives her pause, and there’s something about him she just can’t like. It’s another guest, a friend from her childhood, that makes her heart pound. But, of course, Freddy is now Lord Beacham and she a lowly vicar’s daughter. A match between them would be impossible.

The more Freddy finds out about Captain Morledge, the more he worries for Margaret’s future. And it isn’t just that he wants her for his own.

Under the Mistletoe is the second novel in Holiday Escapes, a collection of stories republished from the Bluestocking Belles 2015 box set, which has long been out of publication.

Read more about the box set and preorder from one of the buy links here.

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Tea with Theo

Her Grace of Haverford paused in her journey at a property just outside of Oxford. Rambling and comfortable, and small by the standards of the houses where she was lady and chatelaine, it was a place she stopped at as often as possible. Dr and Mrs Wren always made her welcome. Dr Wren had been Jonathan’s tutor during that boy’s naughty career at Oxford, and Eleanor had taken to him and his wife from the moment she met them.

As always, Theodora Wren made her welcome, ushering her into the informal drawing room and sending a little maid for tea, refreshments, and her husband. “Theo, I must apologise for arriving unannounced,” Eleanor said. “I must be back on the road in half an hour, but I could not pass by your door without calling in.”

“I should think not indeed!” Theo replied. “You are looking well, Eleanor, if a little tired. How are your sons? And the dear little girls?”

They exchanged family news, and Eleanor was mightily entertained to hear of the romance of Theo’s niece Mary, who had come to escape one suitor, and finished marrying another. “Rick Redepenning,” Eleanor exclaimed. “I had not heard, Theo, and he is the son of my dear friend Lord Henry Redepenning, and cousin to my sister’s son, the Earl of Chirbury!”

Both women chuckled as Theo elaborated on the romance, including a rescue from a bird loft and the interesting incident involving a bride shape cut from gingerbread and a hungry horse.

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You can meet Dr and Mrs Wren in Gingerbread Bride, a story in the collection Holiday Escapes, coming soon and currently on pre-order.

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The Ultimate Escape in Holiday Escapes

On the eve of her wedding, Julia overhears a conversation that gives her doubts about why Oliver wants to marry her. Needing time to think things through, she uses a family secret to flee to the future. Oliver thinks her mother mad when Lady P. explains what Julia has done, but he follows her anyway. It’s his fault Julia is distraught. Besides, he cannot imagine life without her.

Two people from Regency England find adventure in modern London, but the greatest adventure will be learning one another’s hearts.

This delightful novella is the first story in Holiday Escapes, a collection of stories republished from the Bluestocking Belles 2015 box set, which has long been out of publication.

Read more about the box set and preorder from one of the buy links here.

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Will you be my Valentine?

The St Valentine we remember on this day was probably a Roman martyred for being a Christian sometime in the 3rd century. (There are at least two other candidates: one a bishop in Terni, and one who lived in Africa.) Legend has it that St Valentine performed secret marriage ceremonies for soldiers during a time they were not permitted to marry, and that he sent a letter to his jailer’s daughter signed ‘From your Valentine’.

February 14th has been associated with St Valentine since at least the 5th century. February 14th was also considered the start of Spring in Europe, and one tradition holds that it is the day the birds choose a mate. This tradition may go back to a Roman Spring Festival, celebrated from February 13th to 15th. Whichever came first, by the Middle Ages, when the French and English became devoted to the concept of courtly love, St Valentines became a day for people to declare their love.

In parts of Sussex Valentines Day was called ‘the Birds’ Wedding Day’ until quite recently. In Hamlet, Shakespeare mentions the tradition that the first man an unmarried woman sees on Valentine’s day will be her husband, when Ophelia sings:

Good morrow! ‘Tis St. Valentine’s Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine!

Other traditions and superstitions associated with  Valentine’s day include:

  • if the names of all a girl’s suitors were written on paper and wrapped in clay and the clay put into water, the piece that rose to the surface first would contain the name of her husband-to-be
  • if unmarried women pinned four bay leaves to the corners of their pillow and ate eggs with salt replacing the removed yokes on Valentine’s day eve, they would dream of their future husband
  • if a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a rich person.
  • in Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on February 14th. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favourite decorations on the spoons. The decoration meant, “You unlock my heart!”

Valentine cards have been made since at least the 17th century, though the explosion in the number waited till the invention of a steam powered printing press and the penny post in the mid 19th century.

Happy Valentine’s day.

Do enjoy it with five tales of a love to warm your heart in the Bluestocking Belles’ latest collection, Fire & Frost.