Book series

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Happy families (or not) on WIP Wednesday

Another excerpt from Jackie’s Climb, which is back with the editor and perhaps even being proofread as I write.

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That shall be all for today, Allegro,” Lady Riese said.

Apollo Allegro inclined his head politely and began to gather the neat stacks of paper into a file basket. Completed correspondence awaiting the viscount’s signature. Bills the viscountess had authorized him to pay. A pile of bills and correspondence that he’d been ordered to investigate further.

In theory, he was secretary to Lord Riese, the lady’s son, but the viscount had no interest in his lands and business affairs, and no head for them either. Oscar’s mother and Pol ran everything between them, Pol doing all the preparatory work and the management, Lady Riese making decisions.

Decisions that Oscar, Lord Riese, seldom overturned, except when his own interests were affected.

“About the dressmaker’s rent—” Pol began. Oscar had given him the order last night. Madame La Blanc’s rent—already double what it should be and due in less than a week—was to be doubled again. The dressmaker had already been told.

Lady Riese interrupted him. “My son has made up his mind,” she said.

Of course, Oscar had. The rutting villain wanted Madame’s seamstress. He probably had no idea that the girl was also Madame’s daughter. Pol made it his job to know everything there was to know about the people of the estate and the nearby village, the better to protect them from Lady Riese and her son.

Pol had no intention of sharing any of their secrets with his employers. Who were also his relatives, but a man didn’t choose his family. He tried another tack with the viscountess. “It will unsettle the other tenants, my lady.”

Lady Riese fixed him with her icy glare. “They will not question the viscount’s decision. Nor shall you. Remember your place, Allegro.”

Pol picked up his basket, bowed, and left the lady’s sitting room. He knew his place in the Riese household. Far beneath the viscountess and her children. Not quite a servant and certainly not part of the family. Required to be grateful for every bite of food and every thread of clothing.

He had been made aware of where he fitted in the Riese household from the first. He had arrived from Italy as a child of not quite ten to discover that the uncle who had sent for himto whom he had been sent after his mother’s death had also died.

Finding himself in the care of strangers after his mother’s death, missing his mother and the only home he had ever known, another death—and that of a stranger—was of little moment. In the face of his grief, the loss of his surname was no more than a blip. He still remembered the moment, though, when he ceased to be Apollo Riese and became Apollo Allegro.

“Your name is not Riese,” the viscountess had told him, her voice cold and harsh. “Your father never married your mother. You have some claim on us, for your father was my husband’s brother. You may stay as long as you obey orders and make yourself useful.”

Or, at least, those were her sentiments. He had been only nine years of age, and perhaps his memory of the exact words was faulty. Certainly, though,What was certain was that he had been called Apollo Allegro from that time, and he had been sent to the housekeeper to be put to work.

From that moment, Pol cleaned pots in the kitchen, polished silver, and emptied chamber pots. He initially slept in a little nook off the kitchen, although later he was given a room upstairs, near the family. He obeyed orders and made himself useful.

It could have been worse. The estate’s steward, the housekeeper, and the butler remembered his father, and though they expected him to complete the tasks they gave him, they also made certain he had time to play, plenty to eat, and as much affection as they could provide without the viscountess noticing.

He grew up in the servants’ hallservants’ hall, progressing through roles and taking on more and more responsibility. Lessons also had to be fitted into his busy day, for his grandmother, Clara Lady Riese, as she was known, had insisted he have the education of a gentleman. Or, rather, all his other activities had to be fitted around the lessons that he shared with his cousin Oscar, who—despite being the same age as Pol—was already the Viscount Riese.

Oscar was a bully, a sneak, and not very smart. The first two were a problem. The last was an opportunity, and Pol soon found himself trading help with homework for immunity from mean tricks and nasty tattling. “Help” being another word for doing the homework for Oscar.

“I won’t need to know all of this stuff,” Oscar insisted. “You shall be my secretary, Polly, and will deal with all my correspondence and other rubbish of that nature.”

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In Regency England, what was a curate? What is a solicitor?

The lawyer writes the gentleman’s will while the curate acts as a witness.

My editor questioned a couple of terms in my book Jackie’s Climb, because she’d seen them in a different context. Here’s my answer, written into the author’s notes, in case other people have the same concerns. The question? Did the Anglican church at the time have curates? And what did they do? And should I have said attorney instead of solicitor?

In the Regency era Anglican church, a curate was an ordained minister of any age who was paid by the vicar to assist him in the parish.

A post as vicar of a parish was called a living, because it guaranteed a fixed amount of property or income (which the vicar would live on). This income came from tithes paid to the holder of the living, either great tithes or small tithes. A great tithe was 10% of all cereal grown or all wool shorn in the parish, and a small tithe was 10% of all other agricultural produce.

A vicar with a big parish, or one who simply didn’t want to do the work, could employ a curate to help him out.

In England, to this day, practitioners of law are either solicitors or barristers. A solicitor is a legal practitioner who undertakes a variety of legal work, and also prepares cases for a barrister. A barrister is a legal practitioner who pleads cases in court. In New Zealand, where I live, most lawyers are both.

In England prior to the 19th century, the term solicitor was used only for those who prepared cases for Chancery. A legal practitioner who prepared other cases was an attorney at law, or public attorney. This is the term that has prevailed in the United States, but in England during the 19th century it fell into disrepute because of the behaviour of private attorneys. A private attorney was anyone with the power to act on behalf of another person–to this day, we talk about “power of attorney”.

I could have chosen the term lawyer, which simply meant (and means) one whose profession is suits in court or client advice on legal rights. Solicitor is more specific.

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A rescue in WIP Wednesday

The first pages of The Secret Word, for your reading pleasure.

If the lady had let go of her reticule, Christopher Satterthwaite might never have met her. A sensible person would have let Dasher Baggins take off with the scrap of lace and whatever was inside it. A sensible person would not have made a fuss in a street like this, where the law-abiding denizens knew better than to stand in the way of a villain, and where the villains would swarm like sharks at the hint of a victim.
A sensible person would not be in this street to begin with, not looking like a sweet and expensive confection in laces and silks, and certainly not screeching at the top of her voice, hanging on to her reticule for dear life, and beating the thief around his ears with her parasol.
Chris, who was mostly law-abiding, knew better than to interfere, but he couldn’t help himself. He closed the distance between himself and the little tableaux—outraged maiden beats off cheeky rascal—in a fast walk, designed not to attract more attention than he could help.
“Let go, Dash,” he told the boy. “She’s with me.”
“Aw, Fingers,” Dasher whined. “Don’t know what she’s got in there, but it must be worf somefing, way she hangs on.”
“My mother’s miniature, and you shan’t have it,” said the lady, who held her parasol ready but had at least stopped using it to beat Dash with. The poor lad should stick to mud larking. He was not a good thief.
“Get lost, Dash,” Chris told him, and flipped him a farthing.
Dash let go of the reticule to catch the coin, and then demonstrated the reason for his nickname, dashing off through the crowd.
“You should have held him while I called a constable,” proclaimed the lady.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Miss, but constables don’t come down here,” Chris replied. Up until now, he had been speaking street cant, or just far enough above it that Dash was comfortable, but now he changed accent and vocabulary to talk to the lady in a way she would respond to. A cut above hers, in fact, for her vowels were not quite as nasal nor her consonants as crisp as Chris’s grandfather’s. “It is too dangerous,” he elaborated. “Too many villains.”
The lady huffed with displeasure, setting the ruffles on her bodice quivering. “One would think there would be fewer villains if the constables did come down here.”
“Or fewer constables,” Chris argued.
She blinked at him as she absorbed the point, then huffed again. “I should not be here. I must have got turned around. Can you direct me to Meadow Court?”
“You do not want to go to Meadow Court,” Chris told her. If Bleak Street did not eat her up and spit her out, Meadow Court would swallow her whole. And there’d be no spitting her out, either.
The lady’s huff was more of a snort. “I decidedly do, sir,” she insisted.
“”Shall I tell you what will happen if you make it as far as Meadow Court?” Chris asked. It was a rhetorical question. “First, you shall be robbed of everything you have, including the clothes you stand up in. Then one of two things will happen to your naked person, depending on whether you fall into the hands of an organised gang or just a mob of the hopeless.”
He fell silent and watched to see how she would react. Not as expected. Her eyes widened—they were a lovely shade of blue. Her cheeks paled. So far, quite predictable. But then she pressed her coral-pink lips together and gave a sharp nod, as if she had presented herself with a compelling argument.
“Nonetheless, sir, I have an errand in Meadow Court that will not wait.”
“An organised mob will sell you to a brothel, where they will auction your virginity then put you to work servicing their clients until you drink yourself to death or die of an unspeakable disease,” Chris told her.
She paled still further. Not such an innocent that she did not know what he meant, then. “Nonetheless,” she repeated, but her voice shook.
“A mob will not bother with the brothel,” he continued, determined to make her change her mind. “And you will die of what they do to you.” He could not bear to describe it further, did not even what to think of her intimately assaulted by one brute after another, screaming for help that never came, dying in agony of body and soul.
“Nonetheless.” It was little more than a whisper, and she was so pale he thought she might faint.
“Why?” he asked. “What is so important that you are willing to die for it—die, most likely, without accomplishing it?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, considering. “I have no reason to believe you, sir,” she said. “All I know about you is that you belong so well to this street, in which you say everyone is a villain, that thieves do your bidding. Ama— My friend would not have written asking me to come to Meadow Square if it was as dangerous as you say.”
“I said the place had too many villains,” Chris pointed out. “Not that I am one. As it happens, I am not, but you have a point. We do not know one another. Please allow me to introduce myself.” He bowed. “I am Christopher Satterthwaite. And you are…?”
She curtseyed in response to his bow, “Clementine Perkins.”
“Miss Perkins, I cannot know what your friend had in mind—you are sure it was in her hand? But have you considered she might have been threatened or tricked.”
“Why?” Miss Perkins’ asked. “Why would someone bother?”
Chris had recognised her name and he knew the answer to that. Perkins was a common enough name, but combined with Clementine? She was the coal heiress, beyond a doubt, and her father was one of the richest mine owners in the United Kingdom.
Something about the way Miss Perkins was not quite meeting his eyes hinted that she, too, knew the most likely reason criminals would attack her.
“Option three,” he replied. “You must have thought of it yourself, Miss Perkins. I would have mentioned it before, if we had been introduced earlier. Option three is ransom, though that doesn’t mean that other criminal groups will not prefer option one or option two.”
Oh-oh. He had grown up in places like this, and knew better than to allow her undoubted charms to keep him from scanning the street, looking for danger. But despite that, he’d been distracted.
He should have run as soon as the first of the three men arrived at the mouth of the alley that led to Meadow Court. He would be hard pushed to make it out of Bleak Street now that three of them were gathered.. He certainly could not manage it with Miss Perkins in tow.
There was really only one option. “Miss Perkins, there is someone I would like you to meet. Step this way, please.” He offered her his arm.
She put both of hers behind her back. “I do not think so, Mr Satterthwaite. If that is your name. You keep telling me not to trust anyone and then insisting I can trust you.”
They were coming. All three of the Brown brothers, and behind them, the rest of the gang. Cautiously, for this was Ramping Billy O’Hara’s street, and he’d not take kindly to the Brown brothers trespassing on his territory.
Chris sighed and pointed. “See those men, Miss Perkins?”
She caught sight of Basher Brown’s grin and let out a squeak of dismay. Wise girl! She moved closer to Chris.
“This way,” Chris told her. He took her hand, and led her at a run up Bleak Street. To her credit, she ran like a deer, but the Brown gang was in full pursuit behind, and everyone else was turning away, pretending that they saw nothing.

 

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Tea with an old friend

An excerpt post. I am currently going through the edits for Jackie’s Climb. My hero and heroine have come to London with his grandmother and her mother, seeking the help of an investigator. When the Duchess of Winshire discovers her old friend Clara Lady Reise is in Town, she sends her stepson to bring the party to stay at Winshire House.

We are fortunate the duchess is in town and remembers Gran fondly,” Pol commented.

“She has been very kind,” Jackie said.

The duchess had said that Gran had been kind to her, when she was a young bride and still finding her feet as a duchess. It was hard to imagine the commanding grand lady had once been unsure of her place. Now, said the duchess, she could return the favor.

“She has been very helpful,” said Pol. The four of them had agreed not to disclose the details of why they were in London to anyone but the enquiry agent, and even then, they had intended to be judicious about what they said.

Gran must have forgotten, for within ten minutes of her reunion with the duchess, she was spilling out everything. Her belief that Pol was the real heir to his grandfather and that her daughter-in-law had hidden the truth. The terrible treatment Pol had suffered in what should be his own house. How Oscar and his mother terrorized the neighborhood, with the connivance of the local magistrate. The trumped-up charges against Pol and Jackie. Even her own poisoning.

When Pol, Jackie, and Madame de Haricot du Charmont had joined the two older ladies, Her Grace knew everything. She asked how she could help. “I will, if you have no objection, ask Wakefield and Wakefield to send an enquiry agent to discuss your case. I am familiar with the firm, and agree they are a good choice.”

The agency had responded to the duchess’s note to say that someone would call as soon as possible. “Do you want to be part of the meeting with the enquiry agent?” Pol asked Jackie. “This affects you as much as it affects me.”

“I would like that,” Jackie agreed.

Her gaze moved to a point behind Pol’s shoulder. He glanced back. A footman was standing a few paces away, waiting to be noticed. “Lord Riese, sir. Mr. Wakefield has called to see you. He is in the Chinese parlor.”

“Thank you,” said Pol. “Can you show us to the Chinese parlor? Jackie? Are you coming?”

Having a guide was essential. The whole of the first floor of the town house was given over to reception rooms of one kind or another. The Chinese parlor must have taken its name from the style of the interior. Everything from the wallpaper and light fittings to the furniture and ornaments was in the chinoiserie style that had been highly fashionable in the middle of the previous century.

The person who was waiting for them did not fit Pol’s picture of an enquiry agent. He was expecting some bluff burly character of indeterminate middle age, with a working man’s coat and flat cap, and perhaps a flashy waistcoat.

This man was dressed quietly but neatly in a gentleman’s morning attire—the kinds of garment worn by a solicitor or a physician—or, for that matter, any gentleman with no particular desire to scale the heights of fashion.

In appearance, nothing about him stood out. Dark hair, hazel eyes, medium height and build. He was notable only for the smile he was addressing to the other occupant of the room.

The other occupant was a surprise. The Duchess of Winshire sat with the enquiry agent, engaged in warm conversation. She stood when she saw Pol and Jackie, and the man rose, too.

“There you are. Miss de Haricot du Charmont, Lord Riese, allow me to make known to you Mr. Wakefield.” She put an arm on Mr. Wakefield’s arm. “David, dear, do give my love to Prue. And let Antonia know that I was very proud of her last night.”

Mr. Wakefield bent for the peck of a kiss she placed on his check. “I will leave you to business,” she said, and sailed out of the room.

“Her Grace is godmother to my eldest daughter, who is currently enjoying her first Season,” Mr. Wakefield explained. He shuddered. “Unlike her poor Papa.”

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Spotlight on A Twist Upon a Regency Tale

Tomorrow, I begin to go through the editor’s comments on Jackie’s Climb and sometime this week I will reach the midpoint of The Secret Word. These are the next two novels in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, so I thought it might be timely to remember what has come before!

The concept was to take inspiration from traditional fairy tales but reinterpret the elements into a Regency romance, with no magic, the fairy tale elements reinterpreted into natural happenstance, and the roles of hero and heroine reversed. As the series name says, A Twist Upon a Regency Tale.

So far, the following are published (story title then the folk tale that inspired the story):

  • Lady Beast’s Bridegroom – Beauty and the Beast
  • One Perfect Dance – Cinderella
  • Snowy and the Seven Doves – Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
  • Perchance to Dream – Sleeping Beauty
  • Weave Me a Rope – Rapunzel
  • The Sincerest Flattery – The Goose Girl
  • Inviting the Wild – Little Red Riding Hood
  • The Worth of an Earl (in Hot Duke Summer) – Aladdin
  • Hold Me Fast – The Ballad of Tam Lin
  • The Trials of Alaric – The Princess and the Pea

Also, in the Lyon’s Den Collected World, I’ve got:

  • The Talons of a Lyon – The Frog Prince
  • Crossing the Lyon (in Night of Lyons) – Rose Red and Snow White
  • Hook, Lyon and Sinker – The Little Mermaid
  • Thrown to the Lyon – The Tinder Box

Here’s what I can tell you so far about 2025. (And it is early days for all except Jackie’s Climb, The Secret Word, and The Lyon’s Dilemma. Everything is else up for grabs.)

  • Jackie’s Climb — Jack and the Beanstalk
    When Jackie overreaches herself while trying to make enough money for the rent, is it a disaster? Or the start of a new and better life?
  • The Secret Word — Rumplestiltskin
    He has fallen in love with an heiress, but mortgages his future to a gambling den owner in order to win her. And now the debts has come due.
  •  A Gift to the Heart — Tatterhood
    This is a Swedish folk tale about twins, one ugly, one beautiful. I’m not far into plotting yet, but my twins will be brothers.
  • The Night Dancers — Twelve Dancing Princesses (with a nod to Ten Lords S-leaping)
    This involves Christmas and the Twelve Nights of Christmas song, a secret tunnel, a fairly tame hell-fire club, and an unexpected love match or two or seven or eight.

The novelette in a Dragonblade Collection has the title No Time for a Scoundrel. It might be my riff on The Nightingale, and might involve the gambling den owner that appears as the villain in The Secret Word. Or not. We’ll see.

And as for the fourth Lyon’s Den book, it is called The Lyon’s Dilemma, and involves half sisters who look alike but are opposites in morality and temperament. It is based on the Arabian tale The False Prince, but there are many dark twin stories in the history of all cultures (so another couple of siblings, but this time one good and one bad). The hero of The Lyon’s Dilemma is Dorcas’s brother in law, Kempbury.

And here, dear readers, is an early preview of the covers for the novels.

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Tea with the emissary of a reformed villain

Her Grace served the Earl of Chirbury a cup of tea, made just the way he liked it, and passed him the plate containing several of the little cakes that Fourniers of London had sent over just that morning.

“Well, Rede,” she said, as she began pouring her own tea, “You are an emissary, you said in your note asking to visit. Not that you need to ask, dear boy. You are my nephew, and I am always at home to you. If I am at home, so it was as well you asked, for I am particularly busy these days. I have taken over from Cherry on several of her charities while she and Haverford are in Europe visiting Jonathan.”

She took a sip of her tea, and returned to the point. “An emissary for whom?”

“Do you remember Ruth Henwood, Aunt Eleanor?” Rede asked, and answered himself. “Of course you do. You remember everyone.”

“Miss Henwood was governess to your wife and her sisters at the time of their father’s death, and stayed with them when they fled the wicked uncle,” Eleanor replied. “She is somewhere in Spain, is she not? Did I not hear that she was governess to a princess somewhere in that region? What does Ruth Henwood need from me, my dear? I am, of course, willing to help her. Such a dear girl, and so much help to your darling wife.”

“Yes, Anne loves her as dearly as a sister, and indeed, I also think of her that way, though she insisted on seeking a position rather than staying with us at Longford. Her pupil is the Crown Princess of a small principality in the Pyrenees. And she is Miss Henwood no longer. Indeed, it is her husband who needs the favour, and not from you so much as from Haverford. They want to come home to live in England, you see, and he needs to know that your son will tolerate his return.”

“I do not understand, Rede,” said Aunt Eleanor. “Who has Ruth married, and how has that man offended my son?”

“You will understand the second when you know the first,” Rede said. “Ruth is now the Duchess of Richport.”

Readers of my books will, I hope, recognise Richport’s name. He is first mentioned in Revealed in Mist, as the holder of wild parties. And his name comes up again whenever I need a dissolute and amoral aristocrat. In To Tame a Wild Rake, he goes too far. He has offended too many powerful people, and is in disfavour with the Prince Regent as a result. He is about to go into exile to avoid consequences and decides to take Haverford’s beloved along as his wife. Without her consent. The kidnap is foiled, of course. But Richport is concerned that Haverford still bears a grudge.

The story of how the Duke of Richport came to marry a governess was one of the 43 plots I had worked out in a notebook before I wrote my first novel. It is The Duke’s Price, and will be published early in April.

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Family matters on WIP Wednesday

This is a segment from Jackie’s Climb, which is with the publisher for editing.

Pol remembered when his grandmother had been a lively and compelling force in the manor. Back then, when he first arrived, she and the dower house where she lived had been his sanctuary from his cousin’s bullying and his aunt’s nagging.

It was thanks to her that he had been taken from the kitchen and given a room of his own—a small one, but on the family floor. She had insisted on him being allowed to take lessons with Oscar. He had even—back in those days—taken his meals with the family on the occasions that the older Lady Riese joined them, rather than in his room or with the servants.

She had begun to fade, though, losing focus, regularly stumbling, falling asleep throughout the day. Perhaps she had had some kind of fit or perhaps it was grief over the loss of her last surviving son.
By the time Pol escaped into an apprenticeship with the steward, she was barely in the land of the living, spending most of the day asleep and frequently failing to recognize the members of the household, including her own grandsons and granddaughter.

Nonetheless, Pol visited her most days. Unless she was asleep, she was always welcoming, even if he had to reintroduce himself every time. Today, her sour nursemaid—more keeper than maid or nurse—reluctantly admitted the dowager was awake and would see him.

She was sitting by her window, looking out at the garden, but when he spoke, she turned to face him. “I know you, young man, do I not?”

He said what he said almost every day. “I am Apollo, Gran. The son of your son, Richmond.”

“Richie. He hasn’t been to visit me. You look like him, a little. His eyes were blue, though.”

Pol had heard that before. He had his Italian mother’s dark brown hair and brown eyes. “How are you today, Gran?”

She waved a frail hand—her skin was crinkled and age spotted, the blue tracery of veins clear under the translucent skin. “Well enough, young man. Well enough.” She frowned at him and then her face cleared. “Richie went to Italy,” she declared. “He met a girl there.” She grabbed his hands and gazed into his eyes, her own distressed. “Aaah. Poor Richie. He died. The poor girl had a baby. I told Frederick to write to her and invite her to bring her little boy home to England. He belonged with his family, young man, even if he was half Italian.”

She frowned. “Did he come? I think he came. Who did you say you were, dear?”

Frederick was the name of her husband, Pol’s grandfather. Had grandfather written to Pol’s mother? Then Mamma had ignored the invitation. But perhaps that was the reason he had been sent to England after Mamma died. If so, the welcome he received had been far less than Gran remembered. He had come believing his parents were married. His mother had been addressed as Signora Riese, and he had been called Apollo Riese. Discovering he had no right to the name had been only the start of the shocks in store.

“My lady has had enough, Mr. Allegro,” said the maid. “She is becoming confused. It is time for you to leave.”

Pol was prepared to argue, but Gran’s brief burst of energy had gone. Her hands slipped from his and her eyes drifted shut. “I will come back tomorrow,” he said. She was getting worse, and the tonics that crowded her dressing table didn’t seem to be making any difference. It was time to take her away.

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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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Sightseeing on WIP Wednesday

In a book full of lies, deceit, assault, attempting kidnapping, theft, and other offences, I was happy to send my hero and heroine on a day of sightseeing.

The following morning, the duchess provided not just the guidebook and a maid, but also a carriage and a driver, waving off protests and thanks. “There is no need for thanks, Apollo, Jacqueline. My dear Clara was a Godsend in the early days of my marriage. I have no idea how I would have survived without her. I am only too happy to be able to repay her many kindnesses.”
Nor would she hear of them seeking work just yet. “I know I am being selfish, dear children, but I am not willing to give Clara up, yet. However—it is foolish, I know, but people will have these ideas—you cannot run a dressmaking business from my husband’s house, Jacqueline, and Apollo, you must not abandon your grandmother and your betrothed for a new position. Not yet. Surely it cannot hurt to just take a holiday for a week or two. While David Wakefield looks into your problems.”
How could they argue when she presented it as a favor to her? Not to mention that a week or maybe two of holiday was enormously appealing, especially when they expected to spend it together.
It was a gloriously day. Just the day to be out and about in London in a sociable, or two-bodied phaeton, with the maid and driver up before and Jackie and Pol in the seat behind, the whole of London at their feet.
Their first goal on the first morning of their London adventure was Westminster Abbey. “It was built by the order of Henry the Third,” said Jackie, reading from the guide book. “Or rebuilt, rather. There has been a church and abbey here for more than a thousand years.”
“Henry the Third is… what? Six hundred years past?” Pol commented. “It is certainly a magnificent building!”
“Breathtaking,” Jackie agreed, and insisted on seeing the choir where kings of England were crowned, each of the chapels, and dozens of tombs, including those in Poet’s Corner. Pol, who was taking a turn with the guide book, read, “It says, ‘never could a place be named with more propriety.” They spent perhaps fifteen minutes reading the epitaphs of luminaries such as Chaucer, Spencer, Shakespeare and Milton.
For sixpence each, they were allowed to climb nearly three hundred steps to the top of one of the western towers, to look out over London. The maid was offered the chance to accompany them, but looked so alarmed at the prospect that Pol suggested she make her way back to the carriage and gave her a couple of pennies to purchase tea or ale from a street vendor.
They were not alone on the tower, however. A kindly verger explained the vista spread before them: the Banqueting House at Whitehall, St. James’s Park, with the Parade and Horse Guards, Carleton House where the Prince of Wales had his principal residence, the gardens of the Queen’s Palace, the Green Park, the western end of Piccadilly, and Hyde Park, with the Serpentine curling amongst the green trees and lawns. Looking towards the Thames, they could see both Westminster and Blackfriars bridges, with the river spread between them. Beyond, St Paul’s Cathedral, with the sun falling on, was exquisitely beautiful.
“We shall go there, shall we not, Pol?” Jackie said.
And they did. They visited St Paul’s Cathedral, drove past Queen’s Palace and Carleton House, and through Green Park and Hyde Park, all before the fashionable hour.
They returned to Winshire House to describe the sights they’d seen to Gran and Maman, and to read out what the guide book has to say about the Tower of London, which was to be their first stop the following day.
And Pol managed to find an unused parlor after dinner, as they made their way upstairs to bed, so Jackie finished the day thoroughly kissed, and went to sleep dreaming of more. It was a perfect day.

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Not quite a proposal on WIP Wednesday

The two older women were so absorbed with one another that Pol and Jackie might have been alone in the house. Pol constantly fought the temptation to touch her, to kiss her. More than that, he would not do until they were wed, or at least until she accepted the proposal he had not yet made. With his future so uncertain, it would be unfair, possibly even dangerous. He shuddered to think what Oscar might do to Pol’s wife. That is, if he had been told that Pol was the rightful heir to their grandfather.

Should he kiss her, though? She was attracted to him, he was certain. He was not the rake his cousin was, but nor was he a complete innocent. She wanted him, unless he was imagining the signs of her desire—the way her body tilted towards his, the husky tone when they were alone and she spoke to him, her habit of touching her tongue to suddenly dry lips, her enlarged pupils.

As for him, he yearned to hold her, to kiss her, and everything that followed. In his dreams, they enjoyed the greatest of intimacies. He slept restlessly and woke hard and aching. Would kisses make it all worse?
Surely not. He had learned self-control in a hard school. He could kiss her, and do no more. Day by day, he became more certain that a private kiss or two would do no harm. More than that, it felt inevitable.
In the end, though, there was no question. He stepped out of his little bedchamber off the kitchen just as she hurried past, and suddenly she was in his arms. He made no conscious decision to lower his head and press a kiss to her lips. One tender but gentle kiss became another, the heat building in him as she responded.

“Jackie,” he murmured.

“Pol,” she replied, or tried to, for as soon as she opened her mouth, he slipped his tongue past her lips to explore her mouth. It was clear she’d never been kissed before, but she was a fast learner, as he might have guessed she would be. Everything he did to her, she did in return to him, stroking his tongue with her own, brushing her tongue along the inside of his cheeks and pressing it far into his mouth and then retreating so that his tongue followed hers into the warm cavern of her mouth.

They were pressed together as tightly as two people could be with clothes on, he with one hand on her buttock and one in the middle of her back, and she exploring his chest and his back with hands that stroked and caressed.

His own hands stayed where they were, though it took every ounce of self-control he still possessed not to use them to shape her breasts, to reach for her feminine core. Not here. Not yet. Not in the kitchen where her mother might appear at any moment.

The thought was enough to slightly temper his ardor, but rather than step away, he backed into his bedchamber, bringing her with him. He wouldn’t close the door, because even in his current state—especially in his current state—he didn’t think it wise to be kissing Jackie in a room with a bed in it.

“Beloved,” he said to his dear delight. “Jackie, my heart, my love. You cannot know how much I want you.”

“Perhaps nearly as much as I want you,” she replied, which made him chuckle. Trust Jackie to challenge him.

“I’ve no right to ask you to marry me when my future is so uncertain,” he admitted, taking the leap towards his heart’s desire—if only part way.

But half a leap was never going to satisfy his intrepid darling. “The future is never certain, Pol. I’ve learned that. Anything can happen. We should snatch what happiness we can.”

“Then you will promise to marry me?”

“Ask and you will find out,” she retorted.