Book series

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Sowing Chaos on WIP Wednesday

Here’s an excerpt from Chaos Come Again, my retelling of Othello, now on preorder.

Lion walked out of his bedchamber at peace with the world. Dorothea was still asleep—the sleep of the well-pleasured, Lion thought as he closed the bedchamber door as quietly as he could. Amelia was already up, and was frying bacon and eggs on a skillet over embers in the hearth. Blythe must have given her the provinder he had brought from headquarters.

“Coffee, Colonel?” she asked. “I am making breakfast for Major Foxton. Can I fetch you a plate?”

Lion was suddenly remarkably hungry, which was unsurprising given how physically active he had been in the night. “Yes, thank you. Breakfast would be very welcome. I can pour my own coffee, Mrs Foxton.”

He carried his mug out into the morning sun, where Fox was already sitting on the bench under the front window.

“I didn’t expect to see you up so early,” Fox commented. “Busy night, wasn’t it?”

Lion bristled. Admittedly, he and Dorothea had not been quiet, but the comment was in poor taste.

Fox didn’t seem to notice. “I am glad you have some compensations for your hasty marriage,” he commented.

That was an odd thing to say. “I have Dorothea,” Lion pointed out.

Fox chuckled. “Yes, I heard.”

Lion glared at him. “Enough of that, Fox. Show my wife some respect.”

“Sorry, Lion. It’s just, it seems so unfair that you didn’t know you were earl-in-waiting until after you’d taken a merchant’s daughter to wife. There are better-born women—ladies—with dowries her equal or better, and you could have had your pick. I blame our grandfather.”

“Don’t say that Fox. Don’t even think it. I count myself the luckiest man alive that I was there to rescue her from Westinghouse. I love her, Fox, and she loves me.” He smiled out over the camp, recovering some of the peace with which he’d started the day.

He wanted his cousin to understand. “You can’t know what it is like. My life has been turmoil and chaos since my mother died, but she makes sense of everything. She is my order and my peace. Be glad for me, cousin.”

Fox looked blank for a moment, as if he could not understand Lion’s words. Then he lifted his cup to sip his coffee and looked away, across the sea of tents where earlier risers than they were already busy. “That’s good then,” he said.

She loves me, Lion reminded himself again. And then, unbidden, And I do love her. If ever I do not, chaos is come again.

“What was that, Lion?” Fox asked.

Did I say that out loud? He must have. “Nothing,” he told his cousin. “Look, here is Amelia with our breakfast.”

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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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Don’t miss this chance to buy all five novels in the Golden Redepenning series at sale price.

I’ve held the standard price for my novels at $3.99 USD, because times are tough for so many people. But even then, with five novels in the series, that’s close to $20.

But not for the next twelve days. You can buy the box set for $4.99, which is half the box set price, and the newest novel, which is the 5th, for 99c. More than 1500 pages of adventure, suspense, romance, humour, and history for under $6.

This bargain price ends mid-April.

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Jealousy on WIP Wednesday

I think I’ve finished the first draft of Chaos Come Again, my retelling of Othello. The following is the scene illustrated on the cover.

Dorothea lay sprawled on their bed, still fully dressed but sound asleep, though it was only early evening. Lion bent over her, and his heart turned over in his chest. Her eyes had the red puffy look of someone who had cried herself to sleep and the tracks of tears stained her cheeks.

In the course of the day, he had imagined wiping out the insult of her betrayal by killing her. Yes, and Michael Cassiday, too.

He had not expected to reach the farmhouse and find it empty. Empty, that is, except for his sleeping wife.

Lyon had visualised a bullet for Michael, or killing him with his own officer’s sword. Not a duel. The kind of scum who took advantage of his colonel’s wife did not deserve the honour of a duel.

He could not use a gun on Dorothea. He could not bear to think of the damage that a bullet would do to the body he had loved with such passion and tenderness. The same applied to a knife.

He had considered strangling her with his own hands, but he couldn’t do that, either. To touch her with violence—no, it was inconceivable. He could not see her suffer or mar the perfection of her skin in any way.

As he gazed at her asleep, he realised that a pillow would be a solution to the conundrum. He could place it over her face and hold it down. He wouldn’t have to look at her. She might wake. Probably would. But not for long, and death would be as kind as death ever could be in one so young.

He shuddered, and his tears were as much revulsion as grief and shame.

This is a romance, I promise. There will be a happy ending.

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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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Spotlight on The Husband Gamble

This week, The standalone novella The Husband Gamble is published as part of the multi-author series The Wedding Wager. It stars my Earl of Hythe from To Wed a Proper Lady and A Dream Come True, and the runaway bride from The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill.

The universal link to purchase is: https://books2read.com/HusbandGamble

And here’s an excerpt:

Four days into the interminable week, Hythe had made no progress in his bride hunt. It had taken him the space of an afternoon to discover that Miss Thompson was an unkind shrew, and if he doubted his own experience, the men who knew her from London confirmed it. One by one, he spent a little time with each lady at the house party. This girl was too frivolous. That one was waspish.

In any case, he did not find himself in the least attracted to any of them. Surely it was not too much to ask that the woman to whom he would vow to be faithful for the remainder of their days was one he actually wanted to bed? He could not imagine physical intimacies with any of the ladies currently on offer.

Except Miss Fernhill. She had grown prettier day by day—not the flashy kind of beauty some of the others had, but a quiet loveliness that comprised her character as well as her features. Her attractions were manifold, and not least of them was her mind. She commanded his attention whenever she was in the vicinity. Even when she wasn’t, he could not stop thinking about her.

Perhaps he was making things worse by spending so much time with her. But nobody else here challenged him to think the way she did. When he succeeded in winning a discussion point with her, he felt as if he had persuaded the entire House of Lords— yes, and the Austrian and Prussian negotiators.

What an ambassador for Britain, she would have been, if she’d been a man. She knew several languages, understood the current political situation better most people of his acquaintance, male or female, and was invariably charming and composed.

The company that had been inclined at first to treat her with disdain was now, with few exceptions, thoroughly enjoying her company, and at least two of the gentlemen were seriously considering a courtship. Hythe felt she could do better than a penniless second son or a half-pay naval captain, but at least the lady would have choices.

 

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Tattoos in Regency England

I’ve just received Snowy and the Seven Doves back from the developmental editors. One of the questions she asks is about my hero’s tattoo. Wasn’t it only sailors and criminals who had them back in the Regency era? And weren’t they very crude before modern equipment.

It’s true that this is a common perception. Indeed, when I researched body art, I found little specifically about the Regency era, and it is, of course, too early for photos.

However, artistic and complex tattoos have been part of the European story for thousands of years. The Romans, who thought used tattoos to mark criminals and who therefore saw them as a sign of shame, were amazed by the men and women of England, who had themselves covered in images. As with many cultures, a tattoo was a sign of honour, showing that a person had courage and fortitude. People marked significant events by marking them permanently on their bodies.

Vikings, too, had a tattoo tradition, and some researchers think the Germanic tribes did, also.

In the Middle Ages, those going to the Holy Land would have crosses and other symbols tattooed to show their piety. And probably for the practical reason of body identification if something happened to them along the way.

Essentially designs were carved into wooded blocks, and then printed onto the skin by dipping the block into ink. Then tattooists would use a single needle and puncture by hand with blank ink into the skin.

Certainly, in the Georgian and Regency era, soldiers and sailors—both rank and file—marked their bodies to help their comrades recover them if they were killed in a way that rendered them unrecognisable.

Since the technology existed to make those tattoos both meaningful and beautiful, it is not too much of a jump to suggest that wealthy young men would hire an artist at his or her craft to create a personal mark that was a work of art. In my imagined back story, my hero and his friends very likely submitted to the needle of such an artist as a bit of teenage bravado—and my hero chose the phoenix because of his scorched earth beginnings.

Certainly, tattooing was very sophisticated in the 1860s, when several members of the British Royal family are known to have been tattooed, starting a fashion trend that lasted for a hundred years.

Here’s the passage with my hero’s tattoo for your reading delight.

“We can stop at any time,” he said. “If I do anything you do not like, or if you decide you have had enough, just tell me.”

She nodded, and then her mouth went dry as he removed the banyan he was wearing, for he wore nothing underneath. He was naked. And magnificent. He knelt on the side of the bed, looking down at her splayed on her pillows.

“You have a tattoo!” she exclaimed. It was a bird. A magnificent fantasy of a bird in red, orange, and yellow, its wings outspread across his chest, its talons outstretched toward his left nipple, its long tail sweeping down the center of his torso and across to the right, reaching almost to his waist.  

“A phoenix,” she decided, touching the crown. He shuddered but stood still. She traced it, feeling him quiver as her finger glided over his skin. “It is beautiful, Hal.” She smiled into his eyes. “You are beautiful.”

“May I…” his voice was hoarse. He coughed, and started again, in a low growl that she felt to her bones. “May I remove your night rail?”

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Congratulations to the Grand Prize winner in my Lady Beast’s Bridegroom giveaway

 

I’ve just added together all the entries in the four weeks of giveaway (160 in total), put that number into a random number generator, and gone to find entry number 124, which was made in week 4 and belonged to Amy M.

I’ve sent Amy an email. I’m excited to know what story elements she comes up with!

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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.