Book series

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Tea with a duke

Today’s Monday for Tea post belongs between To Wed a Proper Lady and To Mend the Broken Hearted, and is referred to in A Baron for Becky. It follows on from a post I wrote just over two years ago, from the point of view of the new Duke of Winshire.

Eleanor was tempted to fan herself as she waited. From Aldridge’s expression, he regreted impatiently following the butler to be announced — undoubtedly he expected his mother to be embarrassed at breaking in on three gentlemen in dishabille. In their shirtsleeves, or at least James’s two sons were in their shirtsleeves. Their father — Eleanor’s lips curved — was naked from the waist up, and his knitted pantaloons hugged hips and thighs that made no account of his decades and owed nothing to padding.

As a woman in her fifties, Eleanor came from a bawdier time than this mealy-mouthed generation, and was well accustomed to listening as her contemporaries assessed the bodies of the young men who pranced the drawing and ballrooms of Society. She had never contributed when such conversations turned salacious. She could admire male beauty of form in flesh, stone, or paint, but it left her cold. She was not cold now, and it hadn’t been the younger men who moved her.

The entry of servants with refreshments forced her to compose herself and turn her attention to the purpose of her call. Would James sponsor the bill she intended to propose? She marshalled her arguments, and was cool and composed by the time he entered the room.

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Spotlight on Suffering, Hope, Romance and a new release

 

Eggs are a symbol of hope. Hence the saying about counting chickens before they are hatched.

In much of the Christian world, people are celebrating Easter Sunday, and its message of hope. We’re on Monday here in New Zealand, and I’ve been reflecting overnight about pandemics, lock down, the resurrection, and historical romance. Romance as a genre, in fact. The common thread, I think, is hope.

The message of Easter is that happy ever after is possible. Suffering during the days and nights of pain, but at last comes the dawn of the day of joy. Most religions, I think, have a similar message. Bad stuff happens to good people, but endure. This too shall pass. In the end, it’ll all work out.

As for pandemics, we’ve been here before. You’ve probably heard that the Black Death wiped out a third of the population of England. At the time, they thought it was the end of the world, and it was the end of the world as they knew it. But they replaced it with a one that was in many ways better — no more serfs, for a start. After the 1918 to 1919 flu epidemic, the world bounced into the buoyant and productive years of the 1920s. For each disaster, there is a recovery.

Lock down — being shut into a small space alone or with your nearest and dearest — is going to end. Hope helps us to come through better than before. I’ve decided I’m not in lock down; I’m on a retreat! (Spiritual, writers, or gardeners, it varies according the day and the weather). For children, it is the temporary normal. I strongly suspect that, decades from now people will be telling their children stories of the things they did as children in the Covid-19 lockdown. For many of them, it will sit in their minds as a golden period during which they had the attention of both parents, though I know that isn’t all the story. Some families have been forced to make hard decisions about putting their children with relatives while they continue to work in essential services. Some households are not nice places to be at the best of times. Still, there is always hope for a better tomorrow.

(See the lovely New Zealand series, Inside my bubble, for what New Zealanders are doing on lockdown. This is microbiologist Siouxie Welles, who has become a bit of a media star for her clear, calm, interesting explanations about the pandemic.)

Suffering, leavened with hope, and ending well, is a pretty good description of the romance genre. Without a bit of a challenge, sometime a lot of a challenge, we don’t have a story. But it’s a romance precisely because it promises that things will work out in the end. Personally, I prefer to read books where the stakes are high, and the dangers real. I can enjoy them, knowing that my hero and heroine will fulfill the promise of happy ever after, and their near brushes with disaster make things even better. Romances aren’t the only happy endings, though. Many people find their fulfillment in their jobs, or friendships, or craft, and that, too, can be a happy ever after. Still, romances — and specifically historical romances — are my escapism of choice.

That’s why I’m still launching the first novel in my Mountain King series on Wednesday. I thought about delaying To Wed a Proper Lady when Amazon offered to let people off their usual punishment for not keeping to release dates (usually, if you miss a release date, you can’t do preorder for a full year).  But the world is in lock down, right? Escape is a great idea! You can read more about it and find buy links by clicking on the name, and that page also has a link to the prequel novella Paradise Regained (which is free on most platforms, and will soon be free on Amazon, I hope).

I’ve also written a prequel novella about the Duchess of Haverford, who appears throughout the series. This one isn’t a romance. Eleanor gets her happy ending, but it’s the other kind (although, to be fair, this is only the end of the novella — for the end of her story, you need to read the whole series). You’ll get access to a copy of Paradise Lost if you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, but as a teaser, here is the cover.

All the very best from my household bubble to yours in this time of hope.

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Gossip and scandal on WIP Wednesday

So many of our historal romances, especially Regency romance, hinge on gossip and scandal. Is it a trope you use in your writing. If so, please put an excerpt of your current work-in-progress in the comments.

Mine is from To Mend the Broken-Hearted. My hero has just received a letter from my heroine’s brother.

He opened the letter, looking at the signature first, while Crick buttoned him into his clean shirt and put his feet into a pair of indoor shoes. Not the duke. Drew W. Lord Andrew Winderfield then, Lady Ruth’s brother. He read through quickly, surging to his feet so quickly that Crick fell backwards. “My lord,” the valet protested.

Val returned to his seat, but though he held his body still, but for presenting his wrists for the cuff buttons, and his neck for his cravat (build in discussion earlier), his mind continued in ferment. Lord Andrew wrote of the latest scandal seething through the beau monde, and Val was its object. Val lifted the letter so he could read the salient points again, while Crick fussed over his cravat.

“… your injuries have driven you mad, so that you are as much a monster within as you appear without…” No mealy-mouthed skirting around the point, there. Were all the Winderfields as direct?

“… you killed your brother and your wife, and your brother’s wife escaped by inches, having first hidden the children away for their own safety…” Which was no more than had been spoken in the village before they grew to know him again, though at least they knew that Val’s brother had been dead a fortnight before he arrived home, too sick to be a threat to anyone.

“… even the local villagers shun you, knowing of your madness…” Also true, or at least, it used to be.

The gossip wasn’t just about him, however.

“… would have warned you anyway, but this gossip also touches my sister’s honour. The common thread in the rumours about her is that you lived together for weeks. Some say you abducted her. Some say she came willingly. Either way — or so the rumours claim — you ruined her and cast her off when you had sated your lust.”

Drew seemed more amused than indignant when he wrote, “Those who believe that Ruth and her guards would allow such a thing don’t know our family very well. But they shall know us better, I warrant you.”

Winshire had ordered an investigation into the source of the gossip. Once Crick had placed his cravat pin, Val reached for the third page, which he read several times before allowing Crick to help him into his coat.

“Beyond a doubt, one person features as a common element in every story we have been able to trace back to its source. Your sister-in-law, the Countess of Ashbury, has denied all knowledge of the gossip, while making it clear that she gives it credence. However, every trail goes back to her, and everyone who admits to questioning her about the stories agrees that she supported them, with convincing detail. She told my cousin, who is part of her court, that she has sources who write to her from your household and the local village.”

Even without what they were saying about Ruth, Val would need to squash this nonsense for the sake of his girls. But the lies and half-lies about Ruth meant he needed to take action and be fast about it.

“Crick, tell Minsham that I need to see you and her in my study as soon as the girls go up to bed.” First step was to find the traitors under his own roof. Then the village. Then Society. Just a couple of months ago, he would have quailed at the thought of venturing to Brighton and even London. Now, any apprehension was swamped in the feeling that had him smile as he shrugged into the coat that Crick held ready. In a matter of days, perhaps a little over a week, he would see Ruth again.

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Spotlight on To Wed a Proper Lady

I’ve done a cautious prerelease of the first novel in the series The Children of the Mountain King. To Wed a Proper Lady is out on 15 April, and you can preorder now. But you can already buy it at Smashwords or from my SELZ bookshop. The prequel novella about the mountain king and his queen is now free in the same two digital shops, and when the price change filters out to Apple and Barnes & Noble, I hope to convince Amazon to make it free there, too.

Here are some of the early reviews.

A very well written story with wonderful characters. The pace is very good & drew me in from start to finish. I loved both James & Sophia, although they fell hard & fast for each other at first sight it then took some time for them to realise their feelings were reciprocated. The secondary characters also had depth, we met some new & some from other books, there’s one character whose story I’m impatiently waiting for! An engrossing, captivating read, which I didn’t want to end.

This story grabbed me on the first page when James Winderfield accompanies his father who returns home after thirty-five years in the mountains of the east, summoned by his dying father. After decades as The Mountain King, the elder Winderfield faces a step down to the title of English duke, and the challenge of shepherding his children, whose mother is a Persian princess, into the life of the ton with the respect they deserve and their innate dignity intact. The family bond, loyalty, and affection radiate from every page. James, as his father’s oldest accepts—if he doesn’t precisely embrace— a courtesy title as next in line, and can handle English society, but he detests his one large challenge. Both his vile grandfather and his loving father expect him to marry a proper English lady, a prospect distasteful for its implication his blood isn’t blue enough and a sense he’s being set out to stud for family purposes. What he wants is a loving marriage like his parents enjoyed. His journey held my heart from start to finish.

This was such a good read! I loved the characters of Jamie and Sophia. James was handsome, charming and honourable. Sophia was caring, not only for her family but also for various charities that she helped. When James first met Sophia, he felt he had met his soulmate. Although Sophia felt the same, she had her doubts, given that she was always overlooked when compared with her sister. I liked that Jamie saw Sophia for herself. They both had a strong love for their immediate families. There is also an old enmity that causes problems and the mystery as to who is trying to cause Jamie and his family harm. This was a very engaging read and I look forward to reading more in this series. Although this can be read as a standalone, I would say that the previous novella would give the background story to their life abroad. I received a copy via Booksprout and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own. However, I did preorder my own copy.

I really liked this skillfully crafted story. New to English society, James is confronted by prejudice and mistrust as he looks for a suitable bride with the hope of a love match. Suspense is added by the dealings of the Duke of Haverford, who has taken upon himself to cause trouble for the Winderfield family, not just in encouraging his sycophants to cut the family, but he also raises doubts regarding the Winderfield children’s legitimacy.
As can be expected in this genre there is a happy end. The journey there was very interesting and entertaining. Now to wait for the next installment.

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Self doubts on WIP Wednesday

Often — perhaps mostly — one of the major barriers my characters face in finding happiness is their own opinion of themselves. Is it the same for you? If so, how about sharing an excerpt where your character experiences self-doubt. Mine is from To Mend the Broken Hearted, the second novel in The Children of the Mountain King. My heroine is explaining her family to my hero.

His question, when it came, was not what she expected. “And your mother? Did she not come to England with you?”

Mami. The queen of their small kingdom and the heart of their family. Sometimes, Ruth could barely remember her face, and then a word or a sound or a smell would bring a memory and it was as if she had just stepped into another room.

“She died twelve years ago,” she told Ashbury. After a moment, she added, “I sometimes wonder if my father might have stayed in Para Daisa Vada had she lived. She always insisted she would not come to England and that Father should not, either. The old duke sent for Father when his second son died and it seemed likely my remaining uncle would have only the one heir and him sickly. He wanted Father to repudiate us all and go home alone.”

“Your father refused.” Ashbury didn’t phrase it as a question, but Ruth nodded anyway.

“After that, though, he kept telling us that we might one day have to come to England, especially Jamie, who might well inherit an English dukedom rather than Father’s kaganate — kingdom, I suppose you would say.”

Father and Mami had argued over Father’s sense of duty, though even as a child, she had understood that their bond was far too deep for any surface sound and fury to do more than ruffle the surface. Almost certainly, if Mami had lived, she would have come to England with Father. She gave a short bark of laughter at the thought of her mother in England.

“If she had come, she would have withered the likes of Haverford with a single glance. My mother was a queen to her fingertips, a warrior of great skill, and harem-raised by my great grandmother, who was an adviser to kings. Father says that Nano was the best politician he ever met, and Mami was nearly her equal.”

“She raised a strong daughter,” Ashbury observed.

At his admiring tone, Ruth’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. “You should meet Rebecca, my older sister. She led her own guard squad by the time she was eighteen. She can outshoot and outride most of the men. When a rival kagan held her hostage, she escaped and kidnapped his son, and they fell in love, wed, and now command the forces of my brother, Matthew, who remained to take over Father’s kingdom. Rebecca inherited a full measure of Mami’s warrior talents, and Rachel, my eldest sister, the queenly ones. Her husband came to learn statecraft from my father, and took Rachel home to Georgia to rule beside him as his wife.”

Four sisters, and three of them exceptional. Rosemary, was a paragon of the womanly arts. She was an exquisite dancer, her paintings and poems were beautiful, and she navigated the fickle politics of the women’s side of the house with ease and tact, so that even the most difficult of females liked her. In the more mixed society of England, she applied the same skills to the gentlemen they met. In fact, even the old duke, their grandfather, made a pet of her, and he hated everyone.

And then there was Ruth. Awkward in company, impatient with polite nothings, always wearing a mask behind which she felt uncertain and out of place. Mami called her ‘my little scholar’,  and certainly as a child she was happiest with her books, though she dutifully took the same training in warrior craft and household management skills as the other girls.

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Tea with the children

Eleanor smiled at the family gathered in her favourite sitting room. Matilda was pouring the tea, and Frances was carefully carrying each cup to the person for whom it had been prepared. Jessica was sitting on the arm of Aldridge’s chair, regaling him with stories about the New Year’s Charity Ball he had missed when he left the house party early. Cedrica sat quietly, as usual, but the distracted smile and the glow of happiness were new, and her thoughts were clearly on her French chef, whom she was to marry in a private ceremony in the Haverford House chapel in just a couple of weeks.

Only Jon was missing. A month ago, he had sailed from Margate in Aldridge’s private yacht, and just this morning, a package had been delivered by a weary sailor, with a report from Aldridge’s captain for the marquis, and a brief note from Jon for his mother. “Married. Safe. More news later.” Which raised more questions than it answered, not least of which was why he’d not had time to write more. Brief though it was, it set her heart at ease as much as it could be, when he was deep in war-torn Northern Europe. Not as war torn as it was when he set out, while Napoleon’s army was retreating in the face of the severe northern winter. Thank goodness that somehow, through the battle-scarred and frozen country, the messenger had managed to get this note back to Aldridge’s captain, anchored of the coast of Latvia to wait for word.

Aldridge looked up from his conversation with Jessica and gifted her with the warm smile he saved only for the women of his family. “Jon has landed on his feet again, Mama,” he told her. He shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t know how he always manages to do that!”

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Jon’s hasty trip from Margate is mentioned in To Wed a Proper Lady, which also introduces Cedrica and features the house party. His story is all planned out, but has to wait till I have finished The Children of the Mountain King series, of which To Wed a Proper Lady is the first novel. It’s on preorder and will be published 15 April. Aldridge’s story is novel 3 in the series. All going well, you’ll have it in July or August. Cedrica’s part in the house party, and her romance with her French chef, is in the novella A Suitable Husband.

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Work in progress on Wednesday?

I haven’t forgotten you, I promise. I have To Wed a Proper Lady nearly ready to put out to as an advance reader copy, and I expect it to publish on time on 15 April. I’m working on getting the back matter of Paradise Regained up to date, and then I’m going to make it permafree as an introduction to the Children of the Mountain King series, and I’m writing a Paradise Lost companion piece to give away in my April newsletter.

But, in other news, I’ve just got back from a family holiday in Bali, and I have two and half weeks to pack up my house for moving, and less time than that to find a place to move to.

So, apart from what I’ve just listed above, the writing is going on the back burner, and I’m not going to be much around on the blog or online. Wish me luck, folks! See you mid-April.

 

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First Kiss on WIP Wednesday

 

How about a first kiss post for this WIP Wednesday? I have one. It’s from To Wed a Proper Lady. Full disclosure. This seen hasn’t much changed since the novel was the novella The Bluestocking and the Barbarian.

Please share your own work-in-progress first kisses in the comments.

Sure enough, Sophia was alone in the room to which the doddery old butler directed James when he asked after the second parlour. He gave the room a quick and cursory scan before focusing his attention on the woman standing on a ladder and hanging garlands across the huge painting on the window wall. She leaned to her right to reach up to the carved pediment above the window, clutching at the draped maroon curtains to keep her balance.

James was across the room in seconds. “Careful,” he said, steadying the ladder.

Sophia looked down. “Lord Elfingham. What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for something useful to do, Lady Sophia. May I be of service?”

She examined his face and then nodded. “You are between Scylla and Charybdis, are you not?”

James laughed. “You have it exactly. On the one side, the ladies who think it worth the gamble to pull a possible future duke down into their watery vortex, and on the other, the multi-headed monster of innuendo and insult in the company of the gentlemen.”

“Neither ladies nor gentlemen by their behaviour,” his own lady said tartly. “Very well, Lord Elfingham, I will put you to work.” She put one hand on his shoulder to help herself from the ladder. “Bring the ladder, please. I have more garlands to hang.”

James lifted the ladder and followed obediently in her wake. “What are we doing, pray tell?”

“We are having a costume party tonight. You heard?”

James nodded. His wardrobe was limited to what he could carry in his saddlebags, but the duchess had ordered chests of costumes and fabric brought down from the attics, and he had found the means to replicate his festival clothes as a mountain prince, or at least close enough for the audience.

If they wanted a barbarian, he would give them a barbarian.

“We did not decorate in here on Christmas Eve, since we had so much else to do, so I am putting up Christmas decorations. See? The evergreen is a symbol of life in this most holy season. And the holly, have you heard the song about the holly?”

Sophia sang for him, in a light alto, all the verses his father had taught them when he was a tiny child. This European holly was not precisely the same as the holly he had grown up with, but it was similar. For the pleasure of hearing her voice, he kept his counsel.

She went on to explain the other Christmas customs, not just the foliage and ribbons and other materials used in the decorations, but the pudding that had been served at Christmas dinner, the Yule logs burning in various fireplaces around the house, and the boxes that the duchess had delivered the previous day to poor families around the district.

“Cedrica and I, and several of the other ladies, were her deputies,” Sophia explained. “It was wonderful to see the happy little faces of the children, James.”

James had stayed back from the hunt organised for the men in the hopes of spending time with Sophia, and had found out about the charity expedition too late to offer his services. “I am sorry that I missed it,” he said sincerely.

He noted one glaring omission in her descriptions. “Just a decoration,” she had told him, mendaciously, when he asked about the kissing boughs.

And now pretending to be ignorant of these English Christmas customs was about to pay off. One day, when she was safely his wife, he might admit to Sophia that he and the whole citadel had hung on his father’s tales of an English Christmas, that his mother and her maids had decorated high and low, and his father had led the troops out to find a fitting Yule log to carry home in triumph on Christmas Eve. A harder job in his dry mountains than in this green land.

But this was not the time for that story. Not when Sophia was relaxed and about to pass under a kissing bough that retained its full complement of mistletoe berries.

James suppressed a grin. “Look,” he said, at the opportune time, pointing up. “My kaka—my Papa—told me about these.”

She stopped, as he had intended, and with a single stride, he had reached her, wrapped her in his arms, and captured the lips that had been haunting his dreams this past three months.

And she kissed him back. For a moment… for one long glorious moment, while time stood still and the world ceased to exist, Sophia Belvoir kissed him back.

 

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Dastardly villains on WIP Wednesday

 

I do love a dastardly villain, and I quite like what I’ve done with Weasel Winderfield, one of the villains in my To Wed a Proper Lady. How about you. Do you have an excerpt about a villain that you’d like to share? Pop it in the comments.

Mine is at the tail end of a duel, brought about because my villain called my hero’s mother an oriental whore. He’s back in the next book, too, still causing trouble. In fact, I’ve just realised that he had a part to play in the backstory of book four, when he seduced the woman who was quickly married off to my hero’s father as his second wife.

“Good shooting, brother,” James said, clapping Drew on the shoulder.

“Idiot would have been fine if he hadn’t moved,” Drew grumbled. Weasel had shot before the final count and missed. When Drew had taken his turn, he had announced his intention of removing Weasel’s watch fob from the chain that drooped across his waist, and ordered the man to stand still.

At the other end of the field, Weasel was carrying on as if death were imminent. His second, the Marquis of Aldridge, after a brief examination, sent the Winderfield men a thumbs up before leaving Weasel to the ministrations of the doctor. Aldridge was now giving orders to the servants by the carriage that had brought him and Weasel to the duelling grounds.

“Breakfast?” James suggested.

“Good idea,” Drew said. “Let’s collect Yousef and…”

As if his name had conjured him up, their father’s lieutenant appeared from the trees and stalked towards them. Something about his posture brought James to full alert, and Drew sensed it too, stiffening beside him.

“Trouble?” James asked, as soon as Yousef was close enough.

“An assassin in the woods, armed with a pistol like these.” He gestured to the gun that Drew had replaced in its case until he had time to clean it. “You were not meant to walk from this field, Andraos Bey.”

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Fish out of water on WIP Wednesday

Part of the fun of writing is to put your characters into situations they don’t much like, and no one is more fun to torture than a hero who is usually in charge. Do you have an excerpt where your character feels like a fish out of water or the fox in a hunt? Please share in the comments. Here’s mine, from the beginning of To Tame a Wild Rake. It follows on from the piece I used a couple of weeks ago.

“Do not leave my side,” he whispered to Jessica, sternly.

She grinned up at him. “You already threatened the loss of half my dress allowance if I do.”

“Make it the whole dress allowance,” he growled, but she treated the threat with the contempt it deserved, and giggled. He’d never been able to resist any of his half-sisters, and had been putty in Jessica’s hands since she arrived in the nursery, a little infant, too thin for her age and too weak to do more than grizzle. He had put his finger into her little fist, and she had gripped it firmly, smiled at him, and made him her besotted slave from that moment.

“I mean it, Jessie. For your own reputation, even if you don’t care about feeding me to the harpies.”

Her smile slipped and became brittle. “My reputation was ruined before I was born. We cannot all be as fortunate as Matilda, Aldridge.”

He couldn’t help his wince, though the guilt was not his. Though no one risked the wrath of the Duchess of Haverford by shunning the sisters or gossiping in public, everyone knew her three wards were the base-born and unacknowledged daughters of the Duke of Haverford. As soon as Aldridge was duke, he intended to repair what he could, and acknowledge them. It wouldn’t satisfy the high sticklers, but it should help Jessica, and later Frances, to find a match.

At least his eldest sister, Matilda, was now happily married, her husband willing to ignore the scandal for love’s sake.

Jessica ignored his reaction, her mind on her own thoughts. “I will protect you, though, if only because I don’t want to live with a harpy.”

I should choose a wife and be done with it. Without his volition, his eyes scanned the room until he saw her. He had known she must be here; the hostess was, after all, her cousin. The musicale was a benefit to provide medical services in one of the poorest parts of London, or at least to provide the rental for rooms and a salary for a doctor. Lady Ashbury was rumoured to be a healer, and was certainly patroness of the proposed doctor’s clinic.

Lady Charlotte Winderfield sat with her sister, the pair of them somehow an island of serenity in the sea of ferment that was Society at its endless posturing.

“Lady Charlotte won’t have you,” Jessica observed. He glanced down into hazel eyes very similar to his own. She touched his hand. “She swears she will never marry, Aldridge. She has refused every offer, and resisted even when her father and grandfather tried to bully her.” A fact Aldridge well knew, since he had made one of the earliest of those offers, and reluctantly withdrawn it when he discovered the pressure she was under to accept.

He pulled back over himself the cover of the insouciant ducal heir. “There are others who may suit. But I am in no rush to put on shackles, Jessie. “ Not that he could fool Jessica with the part any more than he had deceived Lady Charlotte. She had been able to see through his mask since they first met. She had still been a child in the schoolroom, only fifteen. He had been twenty-seven and sozzled to the gills, nearing the end of three months of drinking and wenching that had failed to dull the edges of a loss he still shied away from considering.

He had known from the first time she scolded him for allowing his pain to make him stupid that he wanted her for his duchess. But by the time she was old enough to court, she’d grown past the friendship they’d forged that long-ago summer, and learned enough about him to reject him out of hand.

He needed to accept his dismissal like a gentleman. But that didn’t stop his yearning.

“They are about to start,” he pointed out to his sister. “Shall we find a seat?”

Lady Ashbury had hired professional musicians to entertain her guests, which was both good and bad. Good, because he didn’t have to suffer through the mediocre performances of debutantes hawking their accomplishments. Their proud mothers must all have cloth ears, or perhaps they hoped that some patron of the musical arts might marry one of them just for the right to forbid them from every playing or singing in public again.

Bad, because the dullards in the audience saw no need to pay the performers the courtesy of their attention, and insisted on chattering the whole way through.