One Perfect Dance

by

Tea with Regina

“It is my first ball,” Regina Paddimore explained to the ladies gathered in one of Mrs Clemens’ private meeting rooms.

“I have no doubt it will be highly successful,” said Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire. “We have seen how efficient you are Mrs Paddimore.”

Regina was a member of the overarching committee Eleanor had set up to oversee all the various charitable groups in which she had a hand. Today’s meeting having concluded, they were enjoying one another’s society over tea and cake. The young widow’s organising capabilities had made her an asset in one of the subsidiary groups from the moment she joined, and Eleanor had swiftly put her to work here, too.

She blushed at the compliment. “You are very kind, Your Grace.”

Eleanor found her modesty charming, though not the cause of it; more than a decade buried in the country caring for an ailing husband.”Nothing but the truth, but if you want advice, my dear, some of the best hostesses in the ton are right here in this room.”

“A good chef is essential,” said Eleanor’s daughter in law, Cherry, the Duchess of Haverford.

“I recommend my cousin’s husband,” Eleanor said. “The creator of these cakes. You cannot go wrong with Monsieur Fournier.”

***

Regina Paddimore is the heroine of One Perfect Dance, published this coming Thursday.

by

Spotlight on One Perfect Dance

Hurrah! My second book in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale is out on Thursday. Buy it now at only 99c.

One Perfect Dance

Elijah was the man Regina could never forget. Now he is back in England, but someone wants to kill him.

Regina Paddimore puts her dreams of love away with other girlish things when she weds her father’s friend to escape a vile suitor who tries to force a marriage. Sixteen years later, and two years a widow, she seeks a husband who might help her fulfil another dream—to have her own child.

Elijah Ashby escapes his abusive step-family as soon as he comes of age, off to see the world. Letters from his childhood friend Regina are all that connects him to England. Sixteen years later, now a famous travel writer, the news she is a widow brings him home.

Sparks fly between them when they meet again. Regina begins to hope for love as well as babies. Elijah will be happy just to have her at his side. However, Elijah’s stepbrothers are determined to do everything they can—lie, cheat, kidnap, even murder—so that one of them can marry Regina and take her wealth for themselves.

Love and friendship must conquer hatred and spite before Elijah and Regina can be together.

https://amzn.to/3RMDcmI

Excerpt from One Perfect Dance

In a moment, she was a warm fragrant bundle on Ash’s lap, her curves draped across his torso, her arms wrapped around him, her face tucked into his shoulder as she cried.

He patted her shoulder, murmuring comfort. “There now. You’re safe now, Ginny. He’s gone. He won’t bother you again. I have you, my darling. I have you.”

He had not seen Regina so discomposed since she was a child, grieving the loss of a kitten. He wished he’d hit Deffew harder. He’d thought he and Charles were in time, but if the swine’s violation had gone beyond what he’d seen, the dog would die for it, Regina’s opinion notwithstanding.

Charles poked his head around the door, his eyes widening in alarm when he saw the state of his mistress. Ash pointed to the brandy decanter he could see on a sideboard. “Two,” he mouthed, ceasing his patting to hold up two fingers then resuming again, barely breaking rhythm.

Charles nodded and tiptoed to the decanter to pour two glasses of brandy, then tiptoed back across the room to place them on a side table next to Ash’s elbow, setting them down so carefully they did not clink.

Ash briefly wondered whether the young man wanted to save Regina the embarrassment of knowing her emotional collapse had been witnessed, or whether he feared she might expect him to do something about it if she knew he was there. Whichever it was, he faded back across the room and out of the door, pulling it shut behind him.

The footman was not important. Not when the lady he loved was in his arms, her soft curves molded to his body, the aroma of roses, honeysuckle and something indefinably Regina filling his nostrils. He yearned to hold her closer still, to show her how much he desired her, though the way her lovely rear pressed into his groin, she would notice soon enough.

She was still crying, but the angry storm was gone, fading into heart-wrenching sobs that twisted Ash’s gut even more than the initial outburst. “There now, Ginny,” Ash soothed. “Let it out, dearest. You’re safe now, my love.”

She turned her face up at that, drawing back so that her tear-drenched eyes could meet his. “Am I, Elijah?”

“Yes, of course. He has gone, and I won’t let him near you again.”

She thumped his chest softly, an action so reminiscent of the child Ginny that he had to repress a smile. “Not that,” she scolded. “The other.”

He retraced his words in his mind. “My love?” At her tiny nod, he repeated, “My love.”

She raised her eyebrows in question, the imperious gesture only slightly marred by the shuddering breath of a leftover sob.

“I love you, Ginny. Did you not know?”

She thumped him again, another gentle reprimand. “You never said,” she grumbled. “You never even tried to kiss me.” The last two words were disrupted by a hiccup, but he understood them well enough.

“I am abjectly sorry, Ginny,” Ash told her, managing to keep his voice suitably solemn while his heart was attempting to break out of his chest and into hers. She has been waiting for my kisses! Missing them, even. “I have never courted anyone before. I am clearly not very good at it.”

She hiccupped again as she put up a hand to cradle Ash’s cheek. “I am sorry to be so cross, Elijah. I hate hiccups. I hate crying, and it always give me the hiccups.” She proved it with another shuddering hiccup.

“Have a sip of brandy, beloved,” he suggested, and he picked up one of the glasses and held it to her lips. “It might help. And if it doesn’t, perhaps a kiss will cure them.”

Ash was very aware that she had not returned his declaration of love. However, she wanted his kisses. He would start there and hope for the best.

Ginny took the glass from his hand and had another sip, followed by another hiccup.

“It will have to be the kiss, then,” he suggested. He lowered his head to hers, slowly, giving her plenty of time to turn him away. Instead, she lifted her face to bridge the gap, her mouth reaching inexpertly for his.

He pressed kisses to each corner of her mouth, then settled his mouth over hers, stroking her lips with his. She clutched him, some of the brandy spilling from the glass so she drew back, apologizing with another hiccup.

Ash put the glass out of harm’s way and drew Ginny to him again. This time, he ran his tongue across the seam of his lips, seeking entrance. She hummed but didn’t open. If he hadn’t known she’d been a wife for more than three years before her husband’s accident, he would have thought she’d never participated in a kiss.

“Open for me, sweetheart,” he suggested, his lips still touching hers as he spoke.

“Open what?” she asked, and he took the moment to slip his tongue inside, into the soft warm cave of her mouth, gently teasing the sensitive skin inside her lips and at the roof of her mouth. She tasted as wonderful as she felt: a deeper richer version of the Ginny element of her perfume.

by

Tea with Elijah

Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire looked around her parlour with great satisfaction. The school for indigent gentlewomen that she supported would benefit from today to the tune of several hundred points. Even better, though many of the crowd had come to listen to the famous speakers, she had taken the opportunity to give them more that they expected for their ticket price. Her daughter-in-law Cherry had been the first speaker, and eloquent on the topic of the plight of gentlewomen who could not support themselves, and the value of providing education so that they could find appropriate jobs.

Of course, both Cherry and Eleanor supported education for women at every level of Society, but the idea of education a costermonger’s daughter, or even a costermonger’s son, was so far from the orbit of this audience that they would just look at her bluntly if she suggested it.

Not, perhaps, all of them. Mrs Paddimore, for example, who was here with her dear friend Cordelia, Marchioness of Deerhaven. Both Mrs Paddimore and Lady Deerhaven donated to the ragged school at which Cherry taught mathematics. Mrs Paddimore had caught her eye because the lady’s own attention was quite firmly fixed on the speakers. Or, rather, one of the speakers.

World travellers and travel writers Elijah Ashby and Lord Arthur Versey had talked about their journeys for over an hour, answered questions for another half hour, and were now refreshing their surely dry throats with sips of port, poured by Eleanor’s husband, who had winked and insisted that tea would be insufficient after the gentlemen’s ordeal in front of Eleanor’s crowd.

What was between Mrs Paddimore and Elijah Ashby? Not only did she turn towards him every few moments as if to check that he was still in the room, when she wasn’t watching him he gazed at her with reverence and longing. Eleanor approved. Mrs Paddimore was a lovely woman and deserved a husband who adored her, and Ashby was as intelligent and charming as he was handsome.

If there was anything she could do to promote the romance, she would. Eleanor did love a happy love story.

by

Reunions in WIP Wednesday

Many historical novels have the hero and the heroine reunited after years. In One Perfect Dance, my hero arrives back in London after sixteen years and goes to visit the woman who was his childhood sweetheard.

Lady Barker—Elaine—had been able to discover that Mrs. Paddimore was in residence, and that today was her afternoon for receiving calls. Ash had seen enough of English Society in far-flung corners of the world to know the process. The butler took Ash’s card, and beckoned Ash to follow him up the stairs and into a drawing room that managed to be both elegant and comfortable.

Catching her at home and receiving was a mixed blessing. It had insured his immediate entry, but meant he was now afloat in a sea of unknown faces.

Not that he gave any of the others more than a cursory look. He had eyes only for Regina. He had not seen her in sixteen years, and she was now very much an adult rather than a girl on the verge of conquering Society, but she was even lovelier as a mature woman than she had been when he was last in England.

There were perhaps a dozen men and four other ladies in attendance, but he could not have described anything about them. Odd. He had long since developed the habit of cataloguing the people present, the contents of a room and every possible exit. His travels had taken him to places where his life depended on such awareness.

At this moment, however, everything and everyone else was just a background for Regina. Her flawless skin, her dark hair in an artful coil on the top of her head. Her blue eyes, sparkling as she conversed with the lady next to her. Her plush lips, curved in a gentle smile. One of the shoe brooches he had sent her was clipped in her hair.

The butler announced him. “Mr. Elijah Ashby.” The room silenced as if by magic, and everyone turned towards the door, their mouths hanging open. Regina leapt to her feet and hurried towards him with both hands held out.

“Elijah!” she proclaimed. “How wonderful! I read in the newspaper that you had returned to England but did not expect to see you so quickly! I am so glad you called. Please, come and allow me to introduce you.”

She was smaller than he expected. Over the years, he had forgotten how diminutive she was, not just short but also slender, though in a thoroughly womanly fashion. She is still a sylph. The force of her personality, coming through in every letter, had somehow led him to expect a larger presence. The scent was the same as he remembered, though. An English garden, with a touch of something that was pure Ginny.

“Ladies, allow me to present my friend, Mr. Ashby. Mr. Ashby, my cousin, Mrs. Austin, and the Ladies Deerhaven, Charmain, and Stancroft, all very dear friends.”

Ash made his bow.

Lady Deerhaven was a regal lady with the slight padding of a matron and a kindly smile. “Regina and I have been reading your books since the very first,” she claimed. “How lovely to meet you in person.”

Lady Charmain was a statuesque blonde with eyes of a vivid blue. “Mr. Ashby, it is a delight to meet you.”

Ash did his best to look Lady Stancroft in the one eye that showed. The other was hidden by a pretty half mask that covered one side of her face. A fine tracery of purplish scars hinted at the story the mask had to tell.

He was next introduced to Lord Deerhaven and Lord Stancroft, presumably the husbands of the two ladies. They welcomed him back to England. Lord Charmain, if there was one, was not present. Regina continued to introduce him around the room, and he continued to be polite about remarks that praised the books and to deflect questions about his and Rex’s plans for the future.

Then they reached a short balding man who was vaguely familiar and whose face came into full focus when Regina said, “And, of course, you know David Deffew.”

Daffy Down Dilly, as Ash lived and breathed, there with an oily smile on his face and his hand out ready to claim his part in the fêted return of the famous author.

“My dear stepbrother,” Dilly announced to the room, as he clasped Ash’s hand and held it too long. Ash inclined his head slightly and gave a tug on the hand to free it. He would not make a scene in Regina’s drawing room.

by

Masks and Masked Balls in Regency England


Masked balls and masquerades were a popular part of Georgian culture that continued on throughout the Regency.

People attended wearing a mask, and possibly a costume, and the event often included a time for a general unmasking. First, there were the public balls, such as those at some theatres or at Ranalagh and later Vauxhall Gardens. Those could be attended by anyone with the price of a ticket. All the rules we’ve learned about in reading novels set in the Regency were ignored or turned on their head during the masked part of the evening–and were expected to be. Indeed, only the most careless of guardians would allow a lady under their care to attend.

As for private balls, they could be just as bad, though it depended on the host and the guest list. In the Bluestocking Belles collection Holly and Hopeful Hearts, the high sticklers are shocked that the Duchess of Haverford would include a masked ball at her house party, but she is confident that, with the guest list controlled and her and her committee of ladies on the watch, all propriety will be observed. Even so, a naughty maiden in one story is only saved by the good sense of the rakes who outrage her, and in another story, a lowly-born chef borrows a costume to steal a dance–and a kiss in the garden–with a lady.

In less controlled environments, the behaviour was–and was expected to be–much more lively. Propriety, sobriety, and even chastity were ignored once people put their masks and costumes on. In fact, possibly a private affair, where a person might expect to meet only people from their own class, the guests might be encouraged to be even less careful!

In Lady Beast’s Bridegroom, my heroine Arial wears a half-face mask for a different reason… Because one side of her face is horribly scared. She is delighted in the next novel in the series, One Perfect Dance, when her friend Regina holds a masquerade ball, so that Arial will not stand out from the crowd.