The Flavour of Our Deeds

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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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Spotlight on The Flavour of Our Deeds

When Luke finally admits to loving Kitty, she thinks their troubles are over. They are just beginning.

“It is a bitter thought to an avaricious spirit that by and by all these accumulations must be left behind. We can only carry away from this world the flavour of our good or evil deeds.”
Henry Ward Beecher

Kitty Stocke has loved her brother-in-law’s gamekeeper for six years, ever since he saved her and her sisters from murderous villains. Luke keeps her at arms length. Social class, wealth, an age gap, and the secrets he hides stand between them.

But when those secrets come to light and set him running with Paul, the boy everyone believes to be his son, Kitty follows. Luke is arrested on a false charge of murder, but Kitty marshals powerful allies who help him to prove his innocence. With the real villain behind bars, Luke at last declares his love, and he and Kitty marry.

However, far to the north in Northumberland, at Paul’s estate, the new family are in more danger than ever before, and can only trust one another.

Published 29 March: Order now

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Tea with the Duchess of Haverford

In this excerpt post from The Flavour of Our Deeds, Kitty has been invited not just to tea, but to stay for a few nights until her sister returns to town.

Halfway through the afternoon, the butler announced that the Marquis of Aldridge wondered if Lady Catherine was at home. The gentleman in question was standing at the butler’s shoulder, one sardonic eyebrow raised.

Kitty leapt to her feet, but remembered her manners and greeted him politely. So did Pierrot, with a sniff to his boots and a sharp yap as he sat and offered his paw. Aldridge bent and gravely shook it.

“May I offer you refreshments, my lord?”

“If it pleases you,” he said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes, “you may fetch your pelisse and bonnet, and have your maid pack what you might need for several nights’ stay and bring it over to Haverford House. My mother has sent me to invite you for a short stay, for the sake of appearances. She also has another young guest whom I believe you shall be pleased to see.”

Young. So not Luke, who had been at pains on several occasions to point out the decade and a bit that separated their ages. “Paul has been released?” she asked.

“Into my custody,” he confirmed. “And before you ask, Ogilvy has been moved to a private room, where he shall have every comfort and a private guard to see to his safety.”

Kitty felt as if she could breathe freely for the first time since she woke to Thomson’s invasion. “I shall be five minutes,” she said, and hurried up to her room, giving the footman in the hall a message for Millie to meet her there.

Soon, she and Aldridge were on their way in the marquis’s exquisite high-perch phaeton, behind one of the sweetest-going teams she’d ever seen. Millie would follow with her bags.

With her anxiety lifted just a little, Kitty was able to enjoy her journey, especially when the crowds of London dropped behind them, leaving farmland and estates on either side of the road. Haverford House was on the Thames, several miles upriver from the capital.

The great house was in the shape of an H, with an ornate fence barring those without business from the huge front courtyard. Not them, though. The gatekeeper heard the toot of Aldridge’s groom’s horn, and had the gates open before the team swept through without breaking pace.

Whenever Kitty came here to visit her godmother, she felt like a princess called to attend a queen.

They swung in a large arc and pulled to a stop before the flight of steps that led up to a pair of doors that Kitty, as a child, had believed to be created for and by giants. The butler was already opening one of them, and standing before it to await the entry of the marquis and his guest.

Another servant stood ready to conduct Kitty to the duchess, but Aldridge waved him off.

He picked up Pierrot, who made no objection. “I shall escort Lady Kitty myself,” he said, and, with the dog in his arms, took her up four flights of stairs to the third level of the building, through the main wing of the house to the family wing, and then along a passage to the rooms that housed the nursery and schoolroom.

“We’ve made young Paul comfortable up here, with my sisters,” he told Kitty. Sure enough, they entered a large comfortable sitting room, where Paul sat on the hearth rug with the duchess’s youngest ward, Frances Grenford. Her Grace of Haverford and her other two wards, Jessica and Matilda, watched as Paul and Frances toasted bread and cheese over the fire.

“Again?” Aldridge asked him. “Good afternoon, Mama, ladies.”

Paul returned Aldridge’s grin. “You hauled me away from the bagwig’s office before I could eat the last lot,” he complained.

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Whisky stills, smugglers, and caves

My March release, Flavour of Our Deeds, is partially set in Northumbria.

I wanted my hero and heroine far away from their natural allies, faced on all sides by enemies and uncertain who to trust. Learning a bit about Northumbria introduced all sorts of new plot elements.

For example, did you know that the Coquetdale area of Northumbria was a whisky distilling area (whisky is the Irish, Scots and, as it happens, English borderlands spelling of what the US call whiskey). Coquetdale, in what as now the Northumberland National Park, was full of illegal stills that exported their product not just south into the rest of Northumbria, west into Cumbria, and further afield in the United Kingdom, but also by ship to the Lowlands. The distillers were supported and protected by the locals.

The smugglers carried whisky and wool overseas and brought back genever (Dutch gin) and luxury goods from the continent. They had havens in fishing villages like Boulmer, on which I have based my own fictional village, close to the shore. I’ve removed a few aristocratic families–in my story, the Earls of Grey and their home, Howick Hall, is not mentioned, and nor is Alnwick, Alnwick Castle, or the Duke of Northumberland whose residence the castle was. The sea caves are real, and were used by the smugglers. The excise men did, indeed, have a base at Berwick Upon Tweed, and another at Newcastle, and were too few in number to make much of a dent in the trade.

I would have loved to set the story closer to the Roman wall, but I needed limestone for a good caving system that could be improved by enthusiastic tunnelers. A vast maze of caves was once discovered under Alnwick Moor, and has now been lost again, but caving experts believe there may be many more tunnels and caves than those shallow hollows known to our modern cavers. I’ve invented some, putting it in limestone country to make it plausible.

I’d also have loved to include the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Maybe another time.

 

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Danger and adventure on WIP Wednesday

In The Flavour of Our Deeds, I decided I was tired of the hero rescuing the heroine. Here’s Kitty, hunting for her husband, who has been kidnapped.

“You two stay here with the prisoner,” she told Dixon and Henry. “Millie and I will scout the area.” She adjusted her quiver so she could reach it quickly, took half a dozen arrows, and set one into her small hunting bow.

“I should do that, my lady,” Dixon protested. “You are a lady! I can be trusted. I promise.”

Kitty thought she probably could trust the man not to betray them, but she wasn’t going to risk it. “Stay here,” she repeated. “My husband trained me and Millie in woodcraft. We will not be in danger, and will return when we know whether there are guards.”

There were. Two men, sitting on a ledge part way up the rock outside of a cave that was awash with each wave. They were passing a bottle between them as they took it in turns to toss a pair of dice. 

With all their focus on their game, they didn’t see Millie and Kitty creep towards them. Not until Kitty stood, her arrow nocked and her bow drawn. “Hands up,” she said.

Both men reached for the guns that lay beside them. Two arrows flew, and both flinched back, dropping the guns into the wave. One gun had an arrow in the stock. The other arrow had glanced off the other gun and struck its holder in the face.

“Millie, collect their guns,” Kitty commanded.

Her maid put her own gun down and crept forward, taking care not to get between Kitty and the two smugglers. 

“You won’t shoot,” one of the smugglers ventured. “You’re a girl.”

“She did shoot, you fool,” hissed the other.

“And hit exactly what I aimed at,” Kitty told them. “The next two arrows will go into your black hearts. That will leave me two spare and another six that I can reach and fire in seconds. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t think. Millie, fetch the others.”

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Making her an offer in WIP Wednesday

The Proposal. John Pettie, R.A. (1839-1893). Oil On Canvas, 1869.

Proposal scenes can be fun to read and to write. Especially when the hero gets it wrong! I’ve written three in the past month. Here’s the one from The Flavour of Our Deeds (out in March). My heroine demands an accounting:

“What can I do for you, Kitty,” he asked.

She took a sip of her brandy without taking her eyes off him. There was that chin again, lifted in the air as a signal that her calm tone of voice hid a wealth of feeling: trepidation and irritation mixed, if he knew Kitty. And he did. “You said you loved me, and that you couldn’t live without me. You said we would make it work. What did you mean?”

A fair question. The first part was easy. “I love you. I want you to be my wife, Kitty, to have and to hold for the rest of our lives.” His voice had dropped to a low rumble as his love for Kitty and, yes, his desire threatened to overwhelm him. “I thought to wait to propose until I could make a home for you, but if you wish, I will ask this very minute.” He set the brandy aside and fell to his knees at her feet to take her own glass from her unresisting fingers and possess himself of her hands.

She leaned towards him, moistening her lips so that a spear of lust shot straight to his groin, her eyes glowing in the candle-light.

“Will you promise to marry me, Kitty,” he begged. “If I could, I would be a younger man for you, one with greater wealth and a noble heritage. But no one could love you more than I. No one will cherish you more than I. Will you be my future, Catherine Mary Stocke? My wife, my life partner, my reason for my work and my comfort in my leisure, the mother of my children, should God bless us?” He leaned to meet her, and if he was confident of her answer, it was not arrogance. She had given him good reason.

She did not disappoint. “My answer, of course, is yes.” Then, being Kitty, she had more to say, leaning away from his kiss to say. “However, I have some questions.” Her tone hinted that she had better like the answers. He should have expected her to challenge him. He suppressed a smile. How he loved this woman!

He sat back on his heels. “Ask,” he invited.

This one is from The Talons of  Lyon, which will be published in April by Dragonblade Publishing. This is the first proposal, made in front of a courtroom full of people. He has two more go’s to get it right:

The third magistrate took a turn. “One matter remains to be discussed. The guardian appointed in the will is dead. The guardian appointed as a replacement by the court in Norwich has proven unsuitable. The children will be in the custody of their mother, but they need a male guardian. If Lady Frogmore were to marry, the choice would be simple.”

The chief magistrate looked across the room directly at Lance. “Lord Lancelot Versey, you have been dedicated in your support for the lady and assiduous in your attentions. May we expect an announcement?”

Lance threw caution to the wind. “I wish for nothing more, Your Honours, but I thought it wrong to court the lady while she was in such trouble. We have not discussed the matter. My affections are fixed, but I have no notion whether the lady returns my esteem.”

Serafina, who was half fainting on Mrs Worthington’s shoulder looked up at that., her eyes widening. A tentative smile trembled on her lips.

“Well, Lady Frogmore?” asked the second magistrate.

Lance opened his mouth to object to the question, but the chief magistrate did it for him.

“Now, now, Wallace, we must not put pressure on the lady. The question of guardian can wait for another day, though until it is settled, the children and their mother will need to live in the household of a responsible and reliable gentleman approved by the court. Lady Frogmore, you are living with the Barkers, are you not? If Lord Barker is willing, you may have the children with you there.”

There wasn’t a lot more to be said. The magistrates discussed another hearing on the guardianship issue, and agreed with Mr Forsythe that they could make a decision on timing over the next days…

[The scene goes on to talk about closing of the case, but ends with this paragraph.]

Lance had to admit he was disappointed as the lady who held his heart walked off on Barker’s arm. Seraphina had not commented on his proposal? Was it a proposal? He had made his intentions clear, and she didn’t react at all. What did you expect, you idiot? She is desperate to see her children.

And in Perchance to Dream, the last novel in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, also being published by Dragonblade, the hero asks for the heroine’s hand in his daughter’s sickroom. They’ve been nursing her through diptheria. It’s scheduled for publication nearly a whole year away.

“I think you are right,” John replied. “But I didn’t want to talk about Tenby and Augusta, Pauline. I wanted to talk about us.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean,” she asked.

The words John had been rehearsing all afternoon had gone completely out of his head. “Pauline.” That was as good a place as any to start. “I wondered… that is to say, would you consider…” She was looking at him attentively, her brow slightly furrowed in question.

“I mean,” he explained, “you and I get on very well together, and I would count myself the happiest of men if you would consent to be my wife.” There. It was done. He waited anxiously for her reply.”

If he had to categorise her expression, he’d call it more bewildered than delighted.

“Because we have been alone together,” she said.

“No,” he replied adamantly. “That’s not it at all. I know we have been alone together and Tenby tells me there is talk…” From the way her eyes widened, he should have kept that to himself. “I already intended to ask you, Pauline. I have been unable to stop thinking about you since our kiss.”

“Marrying me?” Pauline’s eyes expressed doubt, but also, if John was not mistaken, longing.

“Yes, you and I,” he said. The silence stretched, until he added, “We deal very well together, you and I.”

***

Pauline’s heart yearned to say yes, but she did not want him looking back and regretting this day. How dreadful to be tied for life to yet another woman whom he did not set out to marry.

“John,” Pauline pointed out, “you were forced into marriage once, because a girl was compromised. I am not a girl, and my life will change very little if my reputation is damaged in some quarters. My family will still love me. You don’t have to do this.”

“This is what I want,” he insisted.

Pauline saw almost everything she had dreamt of within her reach. She could stay with John and Pauline and have the right to call them family. She could enjoy John’s kisses and more, perhaps have babies of her own. But would he come to resent her in time?

“If you are ready to marry, John, wouldn’t it be better to choose someone younger, who could give you half a dozen children? I am thirty, John.”

John rejected the suggestion with a fierce frown and a wave of his hand, as if throwing it away. “I want you. I want my friend, the lady I trust, the lady I can see as a partner for the remainder of my life.” His voice turned coaxing and he possessed himself of her hands.

“I know Cumberland has long winters but we grow good roses. I can build you as many succession houses as you want, and the garden will be yours to do with as you please. As for children, if I have Jane and you, I have enough, but you are still young enough to give me more, if we are so blessed. I will certainly try to fill you with my babies, and enjoy doing so, if you are willing.”

Was the room suddenly warm? Or was it John’s words, and the heat in his eyes, melting Pauline’s core. She would do it, she decided. Perhaps he did not love her, but he wanted her, and she loved him. It would be enough. And perhaps they would be happy after all, for had not Arial once said that it was marrying a friend that led to love between her and Peter?

John was still trying to persuade her. “We can move from Cumberland closer to your brother, if you prefer. Or I could take a house in London so we could spend part of each year there, with Jane and any other children we have, so they can grow up knowing their cousins.”

“Cumberland will do just fine, but I like the idea of visiting London from time to time,” Pauline told him. “Wherever we live, I would be proud to be your wife.”

John whooped, and grabbed her off her feet to swing her around in a circle, so that she laughed out loud. As he bent his head to kiss her, a voice from the bed asked, “What are you doing?” They had awoken Jane.