The Golden Redepennings

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Happy reunion in WIP Wednesday

Another reunion in An Unpitied Sacrifice, this time for one of Valeria’s abandoned war brides. A letter arrives from the army, giving the addresses for the missing husbands next-of-kin, and one of them is in London.

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“It is a twenty-minute drive,” Harry told them. “If the Atkinsons are still butchers in Cheapside, Señora Hernandez, you shall soon have your answers.”

“It was a family business, Colonel. I think the family will still be there. I hope so. We were separated when the army invaded France. Jorge and I were with the regiment’s baggage train, crossing a river on a bridge made of boats. The bridge broke apart, and the boat we were in was swept downriver.”

She shrugged and grimaced, a silent and somehow comprehensive commentary on the vicissitudes of war. “We survived, but we did not come ashore for many miles, and in the end, we were still on the Spanish side of the river, and far from anyone who knew us. And I was ill, and winter was coming. There was a convent offering beds to those who were displaced by the war. Jorge and I owe our lives to them.”

Valeria had heard the story before. Maria-Lucia had been pregnant when the pontoon bridge collapsed under the pressure of a storm-surging river. She and Jorge had parted company with their boat at some point in the wild ride. Somehow, the mother had kept the child above water, at least enough that when the pair of them finally made it to shore, Jorge was still with her and alive.

Maria-Lucia, though, had borne the brunt of blows from storm-rack travelling downriver with her, and had gone into labour, losing a tiny daughter who had been too little to survive. She did not remember much after that. Nuns from the convent must have found her and her son, and given them refuge.

By the time Maria-Lucia had been well enough to write to George Atkinson, and had been able to scrounge paper and enough money to send a letter, the war had been over. Whether her letter ever reached the army was questionable. It was even more unlikely that George had received it, especially given today’s revelation, that he had left the army.

Valeria had personal experience of the disinterest of British army clerks in the foreign wives of British soldiers, particularly those whose relationships had not been through the formality of a Church of England wedding.

The carriage was drawing to a halt outside of a butcher’s shop, the entire face of which, except for the opening into the interior, was covered with animal carcasses hanging on hooks. Above the display of meat, the name Atkinson Bros., in bright red against a light green background, spread the full width of the shop.

“Atkinson Brothers,” Harry commented. “Perhaps George has gone into the trade with his brother.”

Now that the time was upon her, Maria-Lucia descended reluctantly from the carriage, and immediately reached for Valeria’s hand. “What if they do not want me?” she asked.

“Then we shall find a place for you and Jorge on our estate,” Harry said firmly. “If that is what you wish. Or we shall send you back to Spain with money to set up somewhere as a widow.”

“Let us find out,” Valeria said, and she led the way under the animal carcasses and into the shop.

As her eyes adjusted to the change in light, Maria-Lucia gasped and gripped her hand more tightly, peering at the man behind the counter. “You are not George,” she declared after a moment.

The man stared back, his eyes widening, and then he stepped back from the counter and lifted a curtain behind it to disclose a doorway. “George!” he shouted into the space beyond.

Turning back toward them, his gaze fixed again on Maria-Lucia, he said, “He’s upstairs.”

Upstairs, but coming down, for Valeria could hear the thud of boots on wood, descending from the floor above and approaching.

The curtain was pulled back from the other side and another man stepped into the shop. He was very similar in appearance to the first man, and Valeria could see why Maria-Lucia had gasped. But it was obvious neither the second man nor her friend had any doubt about the identification of the other.

George—for it had to be he—vaulted over the counter even as Maria-Lucia dropped Valeria’s hand and threw herself forward, saying, “George!” Then they were in one another’s arms, Maria-Lucia repeating her man’s name, and he saying, over and over, “I thought you were dead. They told me you had drowned.”

The first man, presumably the brother William, watched the embrace with a fond smile, and Valeria’s worry for her friend eased. Maria-Lucia had found the welcome she had hoped for.

By the time the pair had calmed enough to share their stories, William had introduced himself to Harry and Valeria, put a “Back in ten minutes” sign up on the door, and called back up the stairs for his wife. Soon, Maria-Lucia was being introduced to a plump cheerful woman called Molly, and then the whole story of being saved from the river and what happened after had to be told again.

The upshot was that George came back to Harry and Valeria’s house in the Redepenning carriage, with his brother’s blessing to retrieve his family and bring them to the residence above the butcher’s shop.

“Bring back our nephew, brother,” William instructed, “and all of our sister’s things. What a happy day this is!”

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Tea with Valeria

In this excerpt post, Valeria goes to Haverford House for a ball, and meets the Dowager Duchess of Haverford.

Haverford House was on the riverfront out beyond Chelsea. Susan and her husband Gil called by in their carriage to pick them up, and the long drive gave Susan plenty of time to describe people who would definitely be at the ball, and others who might be there.

“Will there be a test?” Harry asked his sister.

Susan grinned. “The ball is the test, you sceptic. And Valeria will pass it with flying colours. Look, Valeria, we are turning in at the gate. Isn’t the house a magnificent sight?”

It was. They had driven into a courtyard lined on three sides by a veritable palace—four stories high, with a mansard roof above. Since the courtyard was about one hundred and fifty feet across and at least one hundred feet deep, the house was enormous.

They were in a queue of carriages, and it took quite some time before it was their driver’s turn to pull up at the foot of the steps to deliver his passengers. Soon, though, they were being conducted through a marble entrance chamber the height of the house, up a splendid staircase, and to the left down an elegant corridor, between half-panelled walls with silk wallpaper above.

All four of them could have walked arm in arm along the exquisite carpet without touching the furniture and art that lined both sides between a succession of highly polished doors.

The corridor turned to the right, and continued, so the house had at least one more wing, this one leading away from the road. Another ten paces brought them to the reception line.

“Susan, my dear.” The mature lady at the head of the line held out both hands to greet Susan. She wore a glittering gown and a parure of tiara, earrings and necklace that sparkled even more brightly than the garment.

“Aunt Eleanor, you look amazing tonight. Does she not, Charlotte, darling? Ladies, may I make known to you my sister-in-law, Mrs Harry Redepenning? Valeria, Her Grace the dowager duchess was a dear friend of my mother, and is my godmother and Harry’s, and these are the Duchess and Duke of Haverford. Haverford, my sister-in-law.”

The younger duchess was as finely dressed as her mother-in-law, but her smile was warm and open. “Mrs Redepenning, my husband is Lord Chirbury’s cousin, and his wife and I are friends. I have heard a little about your story. Your reunion—so romantic. I promise you my support as you find your feet in our Society.”

“To that end, Señora,” drawled the duke, “may I beg the pleasure of the second dance of the evening?” His half-bow to Harry had a mocking flourish. “I defer to you for the first, Harry.”

Harry managed an even more sardonic bow. “Very good of you, Haverford. Given you are renowned for always dancing the first and last of the evening with your lovely duchess. Mind you, Valeria, they’ve been married for less than a year.”

The duke lifted his wife’s hand to his lips. “I trust we shall still maintain the practice when we have been wed forty years,” he declared. “Longer, if we are spared, and I can still totter around a ballroom.”

“I shall push you in your bath chair, Anthony,” declared the duchess. “Jessica, allow me introduce Mrs Redepenning, Colonel Redepenning’s wife. Mrs Redepenning, my sister, Lady Colyton, and her husband Lord Colyton. This ball is in honour of their wedding. Lord Colyton, Mrs Redepenning has recently been reunited with her husband, Colonel Redepenning. And you already know Lord and Lady Rutledge, of course.”

Valeria expressed her best wishes to the bride and her congratulations to the groom, following the English custom that Susan had explained to her in the carriage. Lady Colyton thanked her prettily and wished her and Harry every blessing now that they were back together. She was a pretty woman, much younger than her brother, the Duke of Haverford. Her husband was perhaps a decade older than his bride, and was polite, but not warm.

“We shall move on and let you greet your other guests,” Susan decreed.

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Surprises on WIP Wednesday

A longish excerpt from An Unpitied Sacrifice, the next Golden Redepenning novel. Harry arrives back in London after a visit to make up his mind about a prospective bride. But his family has unexpected news for him.

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Harry was riding through Mayfair now. Home soon. He hoped Father was home, for Harry was keen to talk to him about Miss Bretherton. Once he had told Father, and once he proposed to that lady, the die was cast, and perhaps then, when marrying the lady became a matter of honour, he would be at peace with the decision.

Here was the mews—the lane that ran behind his father’s townhouse. Perhaps the horse sensed the end of the journey, or perhaps his own eagerness to step into the comforting embrace of the place that had always been his London home communicated itself to the beast, for it quickened its pace, and they completed the last fifty yards in a brisk trot.

“Halloo, the stable,” he shouted, as they drew to a stop.

A stable boy came to the open door. “Major Redepenning, sir,” he greeted Harry, and ran the few steps to the horse’s head. Harry left instructions to take it to the White Swan, the London end of the circuit that had provided the mount for the last leg of his ride.

He hurried up through the garden, his saddle bags over his shoulder. It was late in the afternoon, but this side of the house faced west, and the garden doors were open from the family parlour, letting light and warmth stream into the room. Harry went up the steps to the terrace, took a moment for a deep breath, then stepped over the threshold.

Father looked up with a smile of greeting, as did Alex and Ellie.

“Welcome, Harry. Have you eaten? I shall send for something to sustain you until dinner. Alex, you are nearest, pull the bell rope, will you?”

“Just a cup of tea, Father. I had a superb repast at the Crown and Goat not three hours ago. Ellie, I am sorry to walk in on you in my dirt. I expected Father to be on his own.”

“Do sit down, Alex,” Ellie told him. “It is just family this evening.”

Harry sat in his favourite chair and smiled around at these three beloved family members.

“It is only a flying visit,” Alex said.

“We came to Town for some shopping, Harry,” his sister-in-law explained. Alex’s wife was one of Harry’s favourite people. She had been an army wife, so she understood military men. She had been an apprentice to her father who had been an army doctor, so made certain that Alex looked after his lame leg and ran a clinic for her entire neighbourhood.

Of medium height and build, with brown hair and a pleasant face, one might consider her looks only average, until one noticed her lovely eyes and splendid complexion. But it was in character that she shone. Baroness Renshaw was adored by her husband and children, loved by her husband’s family, and nigh worshipped by her servants and tenants.

“It is too far to bring the children for just a few days,” said Ellie, as a footman entered the room silently, accepted Father’s instructions for a fresh pot of tea, and took Harry’s saddle bags away to be sent to his room.

“Melly and Freddie are safe enough with Jonno and Mattie,” Alex said. The pair had a habit of alternating sentences, as if they were one person with a single message. Harry caught the note of doubt in Alex’s voice, which confirmed that—though he trusted his valet and housekeeper—he did not think anyone else could protect his children as well as he could.

“Of course, they are safe,” Father said, soothingly.

“Of course,” Alex agreed, and turned to his wife, “so we could stay, couldn’t we? Until this business of Harry’s is sorted out?”

Harry, who had been riding all day, on horses of differing quality, was thinking about how his bones were less tolerant than they used to be, and was only half aware of Alex’s words until he heard his name.

“What business of mine?” he asked, wondering if they had somehow heard about his courtship of Miss Bretherton. And, of course, he had not made a secret of it. Not precisely. It was just that he’d not trumpeted it about.

“It is your wife, Harry,” said Father.

Harry chuckled. One should never underestimate the power of gossip. He would lay odds that his sister Susan had heard something and passed it on to the rest of the family. “Wife is a bit beforehand, to be fair. I have not yet proposed to Miss Bretherton. I have made up my mind to do so, however. I look forward to introducing her to you all.”

What was up with his family? They were exchanging looks of alarm.

“Oh, Harry!” Ellie sounded distressed.

Did they know something to Miss Bretherton’s discredit? He could not believe it. If so, she must be the best actress in the world! Yes, and her parents, too. “What is wrong with Miss Bretherton?” he asked.

“I had no idea…” Father trailed off. “That is not to the point. I’ll be blunt, Harry. Your wife Valeria may be alive.”

It was as well Harry was sitting. The room swam before his eyes and for a moment, he struggled to breath. Blunt, indeed. If he had been hit over the head with a blunt object, he could not have been more disoriented.

From a great distance, he heard Father say, “Pour your brother a brandy, Alex,” and a moment later a glass was pressed into his hand.

He took more of a gulp than a sip, but the burn of the alcohol did the trick, drawing him back into himself. “Alive,” he repeated, and his heart, racing in his chest, demanded that he leap to his feet and begin tearing the world apart until he found her.

“A lady claiming to be your wife called this afternoon,” his father told him.

It was a second shock on top of the first. His reeling mind could not produce meaningful words, but could only repeat Father’s words. “This afternoon.” He took another sip of the brandy and managed to add, “Tell me.”

“I did not even know you had a wife,” Alex complained.

Father handed over a piece of white pasteboard of the standard size for visiting cards. “She sent this up with the butler, so we saw her straight away.”

Harry was reading the card. On one side of it was written, in blue ink, Valeria’s names—at the top, Señora Valeria Eneco Izquierdo, with Mrs. H. Redepenning underneath. He had not seen Valeria’s handwriting for a long time, but it could, indeed, be hers.

“She knew how the two of you met,” Father added, “and she explained why she was not with her band when they were ambushed. Harry, she claims that she had stayed behind in a convent because she was about to give birth.”

“She thought you were dead, Harry,” Alex interjected. “She might be someone who knew Valeria, and hopes to batten on to a rich English family by passing her own child off as yours.”

“She was genuinely happy to know you were alive, Harry,” Ellie said. “She had tears in her eyes, and she spoke in a language I did not know.”

“It was not Spanish,” Alex growled.

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Meeting the in-laws on WIP Wednesday

And so, as The Night Dancers goes to beta, I have begun An Unpitied Sacrifice.

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Chapter One

London, 1816

In the street outside of the elegant townhouse, Valeria Izquierdo checked the address. The sheet of paper had suffered since her husband gave it to her on their wedding night, five years ago. Stains marred the surface, one corner was torn away, and the folds were worn and beginning to come apart. It was still precious to her, not just for the address, which she had memorized long ago, but because it was a witness to Harry’s care for her—almost the only one to survive the intervening years.

“Take this and keep it safe,” he had said. “If anything happens to me, go to my father. He will welcome you for my sake.”

But would he? Valeria owed it to Harry to put it to the test, but she was not confident that either she or Ricci would find the promised welcome. And if she had no doubt that Ricci deserved recognition and a place, she was not so certain about herself.

That was the reason she had come on her own, leaving her children and her companions at the lodgings her English agent had found. If she was turned away at the door, at least she would be the only one to know and to suffer.

Perhaps, after all, Valeria should have written. But letters are far easier to ignore than callers, and besides, how could she explain the past five years in a letter?

Indeed, how could she explain it at all? Which was why she was dithering in the street like an idiot. What would those who had nigh worshipped El Phantome say if they could see her now? What would her current followers say, come to that?

It was the last consideration that allowed her to break the paralysis that kept her hesitating in the street. She could not ask the women with her to approach the families of their husbands or lovers when she was not prepared to make such a move herself.

Five paces brought her to the steps that led to the front door. Ten of them, bridging a kind of small dark courtyard set into the ground and surrounded by a fence. As she looked over the rail, a maid with a basket came out from the house from the basement below and set off up a flight of steps that brought her up to street level, where she opened a hitherto unseen gate in the fence and turned set off down the street.

Two more steps, and then knock on the door, she commanded herself.

The knocker was in the form of an ugly little man. Ricci and Marie-Therese would love that. She lifted the ring that the little man held in his oversized hands, and dropped it again to strike the brass plate below. Knock, knock, knock.

And wait.

But she had not taken more than a couple of breaths before the door opened. The man who opened the door stood in the entrance way, ensuring she could not enter. He had the air of an upper servant of some kind. “May I be of assistance, Madam?” he enquired.

Valeria had come prepared with a small rectangle of pasteboard, according to the English custom. She had written her name on it. Both her own name—Señora Valeria Eneco Izquierdo—and Mrs. H. Redepenning, for the English had the custom that a woman took her husband’s name upon marriage.

“Please ask Lord Redepenning if he will see me,” she said the butler, handing him the card.

She was permitted inside, to stand in the entry hall, still wearing her bonnet and coat, while the butler went up the stairs to discover the wishes of the master of the house. It was a lovely space, with furniture that was not new but that had been lovingly dusted and polished so that it gleamed with a rich patina. The carpet and the matching stair runner were likewise a little worn but clean and richly covered. On one wall, a large mirror in a gilt frame reflected light around the hall and made it seem larger.

A large vase of fresh flowers stood on a table under the mirror, adding a light floral high note to the atmosphere.

The butler came back down the stairs almost immediately. “His lordship shall see you, Madam.” He gave a shallow bow. “May I take Madam’s bonnet and coat?” Once he had placed the items on a polished brass coat stand near the door, he led her up the stairs.

On the landing for the next floor, he turned right and opened the nearest door. “Your visitor, my lord,” he said.

Perhaps he does not want to mangle my Basque surname nor give me the family’s surname when I have not yet been accepted.

The man stepped out of Valeria’s way, and she walked into the room where her husband’s father waited.

She knew him immediately. Both of the men who stood up when she entered were relatives of Harry’s—that was clear at a glance. Both had the striking blue eyes. The older gentleman must be Baron Redepenning, her father-in-law. He was still vigorous and handsome, and his eyes were as striking a blue as her husband’s. However, his hair had faded with age to a sandy-brown rather than her husband’s guinea-gold, and also receded from his forehead.

His well-lined face had the heavier look around the jaw of a man approaching old age, and his figure was also somewhat stouter than his son’s. He still had the carriage of the soldier she knew him to be. He held a general’s rank, though when she asked for him at the Horse Guard yesterday, she had been told he was retired.

He inclined slightly toward her in a bow and smiled in welcome.

The other man’s hair was still bright gold. No smile here. His blue eyes were hard with suspicion, and his brows were drawn together in a frown.

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Memories on Monday – 10 years since Farewell to Kindness was published

Ten years ago, my first historical romance novel was published. Ten years! It hardly seems like any time at all, and yet I feel as if I have been writing and publishing forever.

As the first is series, Farewell to Kindness is permanently 99c in US dollars.  If you haven’t read it, buy it today. I hope you’ll be glad that you did.

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Surplus print books for sale

I have around eight boxes of books that I purchased for a book launch several years ago. It was stymied by rain and illness, and I need the shelf space. I’m willing to sell them at cost, but the tricky bit is that I’m in New Zealand, so you’d have to also pay the cost of postage and packaging. Which, depending on where you are, could be significant, but given how cheap the books are, probably worthwhile.

I’m busy trying to add print books to my shop, but I need technical help to sort out the tax and freight modules of WooCommerce, so I’ll get onto that when my favourite tech whizzes are back in action after the holiday. Meanwhile, if you’re interested, we can do it the old fashioned way, with an email through the contact form on this website, and a follow up in which I work out the freight and send you an invoice via Paypal, you pay, and I send.

(Isn’t it hilarious to call that the old fashioned way? Times change!)

UPDATE: It’s more than I expected to send to the US, Europe and the UK! Ouch. Still worth talking about buying from me direct. If I order from a US based print-on-demand service and send, you’ll get a good rate, but no signature. Over to you.

Only while stocks last!

 

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Hero to the rescue in WIP Wednesday

I’m getting A Most Excellent Adventure prepared for publication. Here’s a sample:

Paul Baldwin had not spent as long as expected in the collieries of the Nettlebridge Valley. The enterprises were well enough, but the price they put on their shares was beyond what Paul was prepared to pay. The tramways and canals that had made a difference in getting the East Somerset coal to market had not reached the valley, and coal was still transported by horse and cart. Or, sometimes, in hard economic times, carts pulled by teams of men, women and children.

In fact, even if the investment had made economic sense, Paul would have turned away from it. He might now be a wealthy baron, but he had been raised as a gamekeeper’s son and had seen plenty of rural poverty and the human misery that it caused. He wanted no part in profiting from the desperate need of others.

His next meetings were tomorrow, in Wells. At this rate, he’d be there in time for a noontide snack and a relaxed look around the town. Meanwhile, he and the horse he’d hired at Shepton Mallet were in no hurry.

The weather was pleasant and the countryside pretty. The traffic was fairly light, too, though a cluster of horses around a gig in front of him drew his attention. Odd. Four riders had approached the vehicle from behind and stopped it. It was now turning towards Paul.

He narrowed his eyes to sharpen his vision. They were the same horses that had passed him ten minutes ago, on the other side of Cranston, and one of the riders was waving what looked suspiciously like a gun.

Paul urged his horse onto the grass, where its hooves would make less noise, and nudged it into a fast walk as he unlatched the leather cover of his saddle holster. His pistol was handier, but the rifle would be more accurate at a distance. He would get only two shots, but by then he’d be close enough to use the smaller weapon.

The woman at the reins of the gig was saying something that drew the attention of all the riders. The girl beside her had her head buried in the woman’s shoulder, so no one was watching Paul’s approach.

Yes. It is a gun. Paul halted the horse, sent up a quick prayer that the beast was not gun shy, raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted on the gunman’s hand, and fired. His horse, thank all the powers of heaven, had stayed rock steady under him, which was more than could be said for the gig’s mule, broke free from the man holding it and took off at a gallop, shying away from the road to bounce the gig across the pasture beside the road.

Which at least removed the two in the gig from the firing line. His shot had hit its mark, too. Either the gun or the hand. The man who had been threatening the pair was bent over his hand and more or less out of the game.

However, Paul had also lost the advantage of stealth, for the other three had turned to see him.  Two more guns had appeared. The man who had been holding the mule fired at Paul. Paul shot at his hand, too, but the man shifted at the last minute and the bullet must have hit him somewhere, for he gave a cry and slumped over in his saddle. Paul shoved his rifle back into its holster, drew his pistol, and nudged his horse into action.

He felt the impact just after the third gun fired. His left arm, and in the fleshy part of the muscle. It could be ignored for the moment. He shot again, this time taking the hat off the woman who had shot at him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to cause bodily harm to a female.

She had no such compunction, and was reloading her weapon, but the third man spoke sharply to her and their wounded companions. He collected the reins of the second man, and the woman and the first man followed him across the fields, the first man stopping to shake his uninjured fist in Paul’s direction before they disappeared out of sight behind a small cluster of trees.

Paul turned to look for their victims. The gig had come to a halt on the other side of the pasture. Halfway between him and the vehicle, the girl was bent over a huddled form on the ground. Paul sent his horse into a walk, and the girl looked up as he approached. The woman lay still and pale, and tears streamed down the girl’s face.

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Tea with an interviewer

(I wrote this for Caroline Warfield’s blog back in 2015. I thought it was time to dig it out again. Enjoy!)

Eleanor Grenford, Duchess of Haverford, seldom consents to an interview. Though she lives, perforce, in the public eye—as wife to one of the most powerful men in England and mother to two of England’s most notable rakes—she carefully guards her private life.

She agreed to answer our questions only after being assured that this interviewer is from the future and from real life, not the fictional world she inhabits.

Born Eleanor Creydon, eldest daughter of the Earl of Farnmouth, she is related by birth or marriage to most of the noble houses of England and many in the wider United Kingdom and Europe. She married the Duke of Haverford before she attained the 18th anniversary of her nativity, and has since become one of the ton’s leading hostesses.

She has a supporting (but important) role in many of Jude’s books.

  1. What are you most proud of about your life?

“My two sons,” says the duchess, without hesitation. “Aldridge—the Marquis of Aldridge, my elder son and Haverford’s heir—is responsible and caring. And Jonathan, too. They are, I cannot deny, a little careless. But they are not heartless, dear. I’ve always thought that being heartless is the defining feature of a true rake.

“They take responsibility for their by-blows, which is so important in a gentleman, do you not agree? And neither of them has ever turned a mistress off without providing for her, or at least not since they were very young.

“Sadly, the example set by His Grace their father was not positive in this respect. I flatter myself that I have been of some influence in helping them to understand that they have a duty to be kind to those less fortunate and less powerful than themselves.”

  1. What are you most ashamed of in your life?

The duchess does not answer immediately. She seems to be turning over several possibilities. “I neglected him, you know. I neglected Aldridge. When he was born, I left him to his servants. I thought that was normal, and Haverford… he was very angry when I suggested I should stay at the castle instead of going to London for the season.

“Why; even his name… Haverford insisted everyone call him by his title. But I could have called him ‘Anthony’ in private, could I not?

“Dear Aldridge had no-one but his staff. I was seldom at Margate, and when I was… His Grace thought it my duty to spend my time with him. I saw Aldridge once a day, brought to me clean and quiet of an evening before his bedtime.

“I had no idea what I had done until Jonathan was born. He timed his birth for the end of the season, and His Grace left for his usual round of house parties, so I could do as I wished. I wished to be in the nursery with my sons.

“After that, I found ways to bring them to London with me, and to spend time with them at play as often as several times a week! Even so, I did not dare go against the duke’s orders, and I call my son by his title to this day. Everyone does. Poor dear boy.”

  1. What impression do you make on people when they first meet you?

“People don’t see me, my dear. They see the Duchess of Haverford. I cannot blame them, of course. I am at pains to project the image of ‘duchess’. I have cultivated it my entire adult life. Why! If people truly saw me, they would be very surprised, I think.”

  1. Do you think you have turned out the way your parents expected?

“My parents expected me to marry well and to present my husband with heirs. Had I married beneath their expectations, I daresay I would never have seen them again. I cannot say, dear, that such an outcome would have been entirely a bad thing.”

  1. What is the worst thing that has happened in your life? What did you learn from it?

“I could say losing James, or I could say marrying Haverford, but it is all of a piece. I cannot tell you where the one ends and the other starts. I gave my heart to James, but he was a second son. My father gave my hand to Haverford.

“And by ‘hand’ I mean the rest of me, dear. Imagine a sheltered seventeen-year-old, innocent but for a stolen kiss with the man she hoped to wed. And instead of that man, I spent my wedding night in the hands of a hardened roué with no patience… He is two decades my senior, dear. Thirteen years older than James.

“I believe my sons are known for their skills. (I speak of bed sports, dear, and do not blush for it, for at our age we should scorn to be coy, and this article will be published, you have assured me, some two hundred years in my future.) If Haverford has such skills, and the rumour is not just flattery aimed at money to be made from his patronage, he did not feel inclined to waste it on a mere wife.”

  1. How do you feel about your life right now? What, if anything, would you like to change?

“I am fortunate. I live in luxury. I have my sons (or, at least, I have Aldridge close by and regular letters from Jonathan, who is on the Tour, dear). I have the little girls, too—Haverford’s by-blows, but I love them dearly. I can give them an education, respectability, a little dowry… I do these things, too, for my poorer godchildren, and I love nothing better than to present one of my goddaughters for her Season.

“I enjoy entertaining—balls, musical evenings, garden parties and picnics in London, and house parties at our other estates. My entertainments are famous. I have promised to be honest with you, so I will say ‘not without reason’.” The duchess laughs, her eyes for a moment showing glints of the self-deprecating humour that is part of her elder son’s attraction.

“And, dear, I have come to an accommodation with Haverford. He leaves me to live my own life, while he carries on with his. Between you and me, my dear, my life is pleasanter without him in it.”

  1. What have you always wanted to do but have not done? Why?

“I have always wondered what my life might have been like had I defied my father and eloped with James. He came to me, you know, after the duel; after his own father exiled him. I turned him away. And then, six months later we heard he was dead. I didn’t care what happened to me after that, so I gave in to my father’s demands and married Haverford.

“It wasn’t true, as it turned out. He arrived back in London not long ago, with a great band of wild children. I could have been their mother, had I been brave enough to go with him.

“But there. Had I married James, I would not have Aldridge and Jonathan. Perhaps all is as it should be.

“You asked what I have always wanted to do? I want to see James again; to talk to him, just the two of us. Haverford… he and James do not speak. We Grenfords do not acknowledge the Winderfields and they do not acknowledge us. If people are inviting James or his offspring to their social gathering, they do not invite us. If us, then not him. We do not meet.

“But Society is surprisingly small. One day… one day…”

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Tea with a nephew

“Dear Lord, Rede,” said the Duchess of Haverford. “The whole village?”

“Not the entire village, nor all of the household. The thing was, Aunt Eleanor, they had no idea who they could trust–who was working for that scoundrel and who was secretly their friend,” said the Earl of Chirbury, known to family and friends as Rede.

Eleanor fanned herself with her hand. “As a principle, dear boy, I do not like to hear the end of a story before the middle, but please tell me that our darling Kitty and her little family are safe.”

“Thanks in no small part to Kitty herself,” Rede said, proudly. “When the smugglers attacked en masse after her husband was captured and imprisoned, she helped to organise the defence and…”

Eleanor halted him with an exclamation. “Rede! Stop right there!”

His eyes twinkled, as he raised a single eyebrow at her, which was an annoying affectation that her son had copied from his favourite cousin. “Something wrong, Aunt Eleanor?”

“I did not mean for you to skip the middle entirely. Now answer my question, you wicked man, and then go back and tell the story properly.”

See The Flavour of Our Deeds for Kitty’s story.

 

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