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Tea with Tolly

Haverford House, London, 1787

Fitz-Grenford balanced the delicate porcelain cup carefully on his knee, not taking his eyes off his hostess. Her Grace was remarkably contained, given she had just announced her intention to defy both Society and her husband. The Duke of Haverford was not a gentle man, and did not tolerate rebellion in his household. As his base-born brother, Fitz-Grenford knew this fact at first-hand.

The duchess seemed a nice enough young woman, though he’d had little to do with her until she had contacted him with her commission. “The duke will not be pleased,” he warned.

“His Grace will not wish to upset me.” The duchess smiled serenely, and placed a hand on her midriff. Fitz-Grenford nodded. The household knew that the lady had lost several babies since the son who secured the succession. Even His Grace would hesitate to counter his duchess’s express commands when she might carry the hope of the Haverfords.

“So what, precisely, do you wish me to do?” Fitz-Grenford asked.

Her Grace had her answer ready. “Talk to the boy, then trace back his steps and talk to the people he met on the way. I have made my own judgement based on my meeting with him and with his father. Your report will confirm or disprove that he is fit company for the Marquis of Aldridge. I believe him, Fitz-Grenford, but I do not trust myself in such an important matter.” She waved an impatient hand. “I should call you ‘Thomas’, should I not? No. Oliver. You use your second name, I believe. As my husband’s half-brother, you are family.”

Fitz-Grenford smiled, despite the caution he felt impelled to offer. “Unacknowledged half-brother, and the duke will bar the door to me if I presumed on the relationship in the least.”

“We cannot have that,” Her Grace agreed. “A nickname, then, and only when we are private.” She clapped her hands, looking in her enthusiasm closer to sixteen than the twenty-seven years he knew she had to her account. “I have it. T. Oliver. Tolliver. I shall call you ‘Tolly’, unless it displeases you?”

“Your Grace, enclosed please find reports of the interviews I conducted on your behalf into the journey of the boy David. He seems a nice lad. I will look forward to hearing how he goes on. Sincerely yours, Tolly.

Gerald Ficklestone-Smythe
Manager of Cowbridge Mine, Llanfair

The boy was gone when I got back from the funeral. Little bastard. I told him I’d kick him to next Tuesday if dinner wasn’t on the table, but nothing was prepared, and he was nowhere to be found. And he’d let the fire go out. He’ll come back when he’s hungry, and I’ll have the skin off his back, see if I don’t.

Where else is he going to go? London? To the duchess? He is stupid if he thinks she’s going to want her husband’s by-blow, and so I told him when I took the money for his trip. I had a right to it, didn’t I? I took his mother back after the duke had finished with her. I gave her a home. I even let her keep the boy.

The duke owed me that money. Yes, and more. Made a harlot out of my daughter, and turned her off with a measly few hundred pounds. Then wouldn’t pay more when that ran out. Then, when my daughter lay dying and couldn’t keep house for me anymore, that pernicious swine sent his wife to steal the boy I raised, promising him I don’t know what.

The boy said he’d stay till his mother died, and the duchess returned to London without him. And now my slut of a daughter is dead, and the boy can’t be found, but where could he have gone? He has no money for the coach fare, and it’s a long walk to London, especially with winter coming on, and the Black Mountains between here and England.

He’s no fool, the boy. He’ll be back.

Jeremiah Penchsnith
Captain of the Merry Molly, Bristol

We didn’t find the lad till we was near Avonmouth. ‘E was hid in the coal, but we saw ‘im when ‘e tried to escape over the side. ‘E fair wriggled when we caught ‘im, begged us to let ‘im go. But ‘e owed us ‘is passage, and so I told him.

If we let away every lad who wanted a free trip over the Bristol Channel, we might as well set up as a ferry, and that’s what I said.

Give the lad credit, ‘e worked ‘ard. Four trips ‘e did wiv us, not counting the first. And then he left us in Bristol. I’d’ve kept ‘im on, I would. Good worker, that lad. I ‘ope ‘e gets where ‘e’s going.”

Maggie Wakefield
Farmer’s wife, Ditchford Frary, East Cotswolds

He was a mystery, young David. Turned up in a snow storm, he did. Bessie the dog found him when Matthew went out after the sheep, huddled up in the midst of the flock where they’d taken shelter in the lee of the old stone wall.

Matthew brought them all home: boy and sheep, the boy limping along on a stick because his ankle was swollen to twice its size. “I’ve a lamb for you to warm by the fire, mother,” Matthew said, and then stood aside. Just a sprain, it turned out to be, but a bad one. I would not turn man or beast out in weather like that, let alone a boy, and no more would Matthew, so of course we let David stay.

Where did he come from in that awful weather? Wales, he said, but that couldn’t be, could it? Wales is a long way away, across the wolds and then the water. And mountains, too, they say.

David was a good boy, so perhaps he was telling the truth. He made himself useful until he could walk again. He was a good hand in the kitchen, and he read to me and Matthew at night, which was a great blessing, for our eyes are not what they were. Not that I’ve ever read more than enough to piece together a few verses from the Bible. Not like David. It was a treat to listen to him, and I was sorry when he left.

But he had people waiting for him, he said, so off he went, off to London. We got him a lift as far as Oxford with Jem Carter. I hope he made it to his people. A fine boy like that? They would have been missing him, I’m sure.

Sir Philip Westmacott
Gentleman, London

My tiger? He’s taken off. Ungrateful brat. Good boy with the horses, too. But there you go. That’s what I get for taking a boy off the streets. I found him in Oxford, you know. Oh yes, I told you before, didn’t I. He made sure I got back to my inn after a rather exciting evening. Didn’t rob me, either, though he could have. I was somewhat—er—elevated.

I told him to come back in the morning for his reward, and he was waiting outside in the stable yard when I woke. And all he wanted was to come to London with me. I bought him a suit of clothing, of course. Couldn’t be seen with him in the rags he had. Not livery. Not in Oxford. But I thought silver blue, to set off his dark hair. It would have looked stunning against my matched blacks.

We arrived late at night, and in the morning he was gone. Ungrateful brat.

Henry Bartlett
Gatekeeper, Haverford House, London

Of course I didn’t let him in. A boy like that? Tidily dressed enough, and nicely spoken, but what child of substance is allowed to walk around the streets? But he wasn’t a street urchin, either. He asked if he could send a note, and he wrote it right there on a piece of paper I found him. Never was a street urchin that could read and write.

Anyway, I sent it in to the duchess. Told him he’d have to wait, but it wasn’t but an hour before Her Grace’s own maid came down to fetch him, and the next thing I knew, he was part of the household.

He seems a pleasant enough lad; always polite. But it just doesn’t seem right, raising the duke’s bastard under the same roof as his legal sons. The duke agrees, or so goes the talk in the servant’s hall. But the duchess got her way, this time. And we’re all to treat the boy as if he were gentleman. Her Grace has hired him a tutor, and word is he’s off to Eton in the autumn. And the little Marquis follows him around like a puppy dog.

What will be the end of it, do you suppose?

David Wakefield, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Haverford, is hero of Revealed in Mist, and his estranged younger brother, the Marquis of Aldridge, is a secondary character. Aldridge is not quite the hero of A Baron for Becky. David and Aldridge also turn up in other stories of mine, as do Tolliver and the Duchess.

Acknowledgement: this series of interviews was written for and appeared for the first time in, The Teatime Tattler. It is published in The Collected 2016 Editions of The Teatime Tattler, which can be purchased from most eretailers.

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Kisses on WIP Wednesday

I write romances, right? So there’s kissing. At least in most of my books there’s kissing, and if there isn’t, they think of it.

This week, I’ve been doing the line edits on The Realm of Silence, so before I move on entirely to the next three stories I’m preparing to write, I want to share a kiss from that novel. Please share yours in the comments. I’d love to read them.

…when he moved her chair back to help her rise, and she stepped to one side almost into his arms, he could not resist wrapping them around her.

He had intended a brief peck on her hair. She lifted her mouth as if she had been waiting for just such a move, and he was lost. She was all that existed. The elusive scent of her saturated his nostrils, her yielding curves filled his arms, and her lips and mouth consumed all of his thoughts as he tenderly explored them.

How long the kiss lasted he had no idea, but when she stiffened and pulled away, he let her go immediately, sense rushing back into his brain and berating it for the most arrant stupidity. She didn’t comment—wouldn’t even meet his eyes—but led the way out of the garden, almost running in her hurry.

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The first meeting on WIP Wednesday

I’m doing the final changes and a line edit on The Realm of Silence before sending it to the copy editor, and I’ve just been working on the first meeting — or, at least, the first meeting in this book. Gil and Susan have known one another since they were children.

So this week, I wanted to share the first meeting in this book, and invite you to share the first meeting of your main characters. Here mine is from Gil’s point-of-view. He has just arrived at an inn in Cambridge to find Susan asking the stable master and an interested crowd whether they have seen her daughter.

Four years since he had last crossed verbal swords with Susan Cunningham, and she looked no older. Did the infernal woman have the secret of an elixir of youth? She had been widowed long enough to be out of her blacks, and back into the blues she favoured: some concoction that was probably the height of fashion and that both hid and enhanced her not insubstantial charms.

As always, she was perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly behaved. And he undoubtedly looked every bit as if he had been travelling for four days; two weeks apart from the brief stopover in Derby with Mina.

He opened his mouth to reply, and changed his mind when the watching crowd leaned forward to catch his words. “Is there somewhere we can discuss your business in private, Mrs Cunningham?”

That fetched a considering nod. “Miss Foster, may I present Colonel—no, Lord Rutledge? He and I grew up on neighbouring estates. Lord Rutledge, Miss Foster’s niece Patrice is, we presume, with my daughter.” She indicated the child standing nearby, with Miss Foster firmly gripping her shoulder. “Patrice’s sister Clementine. But shall we seek privacy for our discussion?”

Until this moment, Gil had wondered if he was setting up a false trail. After all, he was not certain he’d seen Amy in Stamford. Why would the goddess be hunting for her in Cambridge if she was a day’s hard ride away? But the girl had been dressed like the child Clementine, and was of the right age and appearance. Besides, if he were wrong he’d make it up by devoting himself to helping with the search. He was in no hurry to arrive at the interview in Essex with his reluctant sister-in-law.

He gave Moffat the nod to deal with their mounts and the packhorse, and followed Mrs Cunningham into the inn. Susan, his mind said, though underneath were earlier names. Joan. Athene. Boadicea. Her father had named his sons for kings and emperors who led successful armies. His daughter, too, was named for warriors: a saint, a goddess, and a queen. The ten-year-old girl who followed the boys at their games demanded and won a more common name, but to his mind it had never suited her the way her baptismal names did.

He expected her to demand answers as soon as they were private, but she had never behaved like the other women he knew. She stood, seemingly at ease, one golden brow arched, and waited for him to speak. She took his breath away. She always had.

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Tea with Lady Sutton

“I hope you mean to explain, Grace,” the Duchess of Haverford said, as she passed her guest a cup of tea. “All sorts of rumours are racing around town. Is it true that Melville’s widow was drugged at your soirée by an enemy of our newest peer? Or is she a madwomen and a laudanum addict, as her relatives claim?”

Grace, the Countess of Sutton, leaned forward and lowered her voice, though only she and her friend were present. “As to that, Eleanor, I must trust our friend the Brigadier General. He claims the lady as his daughter-in-law, secretly married to his son, the new Lord Renshaw, two months ago when she escaped her relatives. The attack was orchestrated by those relatives and carried out by a man Lord Renshaw had fired. With the assistance of that brazen woman Lady Fullerton. I was never more shocked in my life.”

Eleanor raised her brows. Given the activities of Lady Sutton’s father-in-law, husband, and son, this was strong language indeed. She nodded decisively. If Lord Henry Redepenning spoke for the lady, Eleanor’s path was clear.

“We must do what we can to establish Lady Renshaw in Society, then, Grace, and to remove those who would harm her. But first, tell me everything that happened.

Excerpt from A Raging Madness

Once Alex had succeeded in deflecting his admirers, he managed to locate Susan, talking to their father near the exit to the hall. Where was Ella? She had been watching him a short while ago, but he could not now see her anywhere. Had she gone out into the hall or to the terrace at the other end of the room?

He started towards the terrace, but a stir behind him set him turning. People surged through double doors into the next room, his father and Susan among them, and moments later Susan reappeared and gestured him to hurry.

“It’s Ella,” she whispered as he passed her, and he began to push his way through the doors and then the crowd gathered within. His father’s head showed over the crowd, and the buzz of muttering had muted enough for Braxton’s unctuous tones to reach him. “… not the first time, I fear. She was a camp follower, you know. And travelled with Lord Renshaw for weeks under an assumed name, as this gentleman can witness. We shall just take her…”

“You will not.” Lord Henry’s battlefield roar, which had cowed subalterns and offspring alike. “You will keep your filthy hands from my daughter-in-law. And you. Whoever you are. Seize this man and hold him for attempted ravishment of a peeress.”

The buzz had started again. Daughter-in-law? Ravishment? Peeress? Alex pushed harder, and the crowd parted to let him through just as Braxton said, “Daughter-in-law? This is Lady Melville. My sister.”

“Lady Renshaw,” Lord Henry insisted, but Alex barely heard him, his entire world narrowing to Ella, lying supine on a sofa with a shawl thrown over her, and Lord Henry standing protectively between her and Edwin Braxton, with that evil scum-sucker Farnham at his shoulder. Torn between throwing himself on his knees to check on Ella and hurling himself on Farnham to rip his throat out, Alex hovered for a moment, long enough for Lord Henry to say, “Alex, lad. See to your wife. We were in time, thank God, but she appears to have fainted.”

“She has taken laudanum.” Mrs Braxton’s shrill voice battered at Alex’s ears as he knelt beside Ella and took her in his arms. “Again.”

He ignored the bitch. Father would deal with her. “Ella, my love,” he murmured. She opened her eyes, and her pin-point pupils confirmed her sister-in-law’s charge. “The punch.” Her voice was slurred, her face intent. “Mrs Fullerton.”

Above them, Lord Sutton was saying, “What is going on, General? You introduced the female as Lady Melville.”

Ella, trembling, had hidden her face in the hollow of his shoulder. “The punch? Someone check the punch,” he ordered.

“I served no punch. There is foul play, here.” That was Lady Sutton. She nodded at Alex and rearranged the shawl that covered Ella’s torn dress. Torn! Alex wanted to howl. To break something or preferably someone. He forced himself to focus on his poor love, gentling his hand on the hair that tumbled to her shoulders. Susan patted Ella’s shoulder, as Lord Henry continued.

“I had not intended to air the disgraceful behaviour of my daughter’s family by marriage… But if you will have it, Lord Sutton. My son married his lady two months ago, in Cheshire, after rescuing her from her dead husband’s half-brother, who held her against her will, forcibly drugging her to prevent her escape. She could not, of course, travel with Lord Renshaw without the protection of his name, and their attachment was of long standing, their marriage delayed only because she nursed the Dowager Lady Melville until her death.”

Braxton began to speak, but Lord Henry spoke more loudly. “Or until this miscreant prevented her in that kind office. Who knows what this dear child suffered at his hands?”

“I saw the bruises myself, where three of them had held her to force the drug on her,” Alex said. The mood of the room was changing. Heaven knew what Ella would think, or what they could do tomorrow to fix this mess, but they had saved her from Braxton. No one would take a wife from her husband.

“But you presented her to Society as Lady Melville, General,” Sutton insisted.

“She wished to honour her mother-in-law with three months of mourning, as decency demands, but that time was stolen from her by the actions of Braxton here. My son gave it back. That is all.”

“Was it this man?” Lady Sutton’s voice. Alex looked over his shoulder trying not to disturb Ella who had fallen unconscious in his arms. Lady Sutton had a maid with her, who was nodding vigorously and pointing to Farnham. “And that lady there, ma’am,” she declared, pointing to Mrs Fullerton.

“I found two glasses in the hall part filled with spiced punch, Sutton,” Lady Sutton told her husband. “And the maid saw two people force it on Lady Renshaw then drag her ladyship into this room.”

“The four of them arrived together. I saw them.” That was the Suttons’ son.

“Lies!” Mrs Braxton squeaked.

“You are the liars.” Mrs Fullerton turned on her co-conspirators. “You told me she was insane and a whore. I would never have agreed to help you…” She turned pleadingly to Alex. “Alex, I swear I did not know she was your wife.”

This time the excited buzz rose to shouting, and Mrs Fullerton shrank to silence under the condemnation.

“Father, I am taking my wife home.” Alex stood, holding Ella and ignoring the strain on his leg. “I will leave you to deal with her assailant and his accomplices. His name is Farnham, and I dismissed him two months ago for fraud and theft. This, I take it, is his revenge.”

Farnham’s face twisted with rage, and he lunged at Alex, but two men either side held him back.

Susan was at his shoulder then, and Gil Rutledge appeared on the other side to support his elbow and take part of Ella’s weight. “I have ordered the carriage,” Susan said, and the crowd drew back to let them through.

In the carriage, Alex insisted on continuing to hold her. She was lost in the laudanum dreams, stirring restlessly but stilling when he murmured to her. “I have you safe, Ella. I have you safe.”

Even semi-conscious, she trusted him. How would she react when she knew he had broken his word, taken her choices from her, claimed her as wife in front of half the ton?

A Raging Madness is the second novel in The Golden Redepennings series

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Tea with Rick

Lieutenant Rick Redepenning shifted to ease the ache in his leg. The butler had invited him to take a seat, but that would mean the whole rigmarole of rising again when the duchess arrived. He’d stand and avoid at least one embarrassing and painful display.

Not that Her Grace would offer anything but sympathy, but Rick was up to his eye-teeth in sympathy. His sister and her friends had been smothering him with it since this cursed injury beached him ashore, cast up without a ship and with other officers jumping ahead of him in preferment.

“Rick, my dear.” The duchess glided through the doorway, both hands out to greet him. “I am so pleased to see you up on your feet.” Without a glance at the walking stick he propped against the sofa behind him, she grasped his hands and stretched up to kiss the cheek he bent towards her.

“Thank you for the invitation, Your Grace.”

“Not ‘Your Grace’,” the duchess scolded. “Not from my godson, who has called me Aunt Eleanor since he was in skirts. Sit down, dear boy, and tell me what you have been doing since we last met. Let me see. You were still a midshipman, and came with your Admiral and his daughter to one of my balls.” She settled herself on the sofa at right angles to his own, and her eyes did not leave his as he made his awkward descent, finally propping the deuced leg before him like the burden it was.

“Mary Pritchard,” he agreed, the picture of the admiral’s daughter suddenly leaping into his mind. She wouldn’t be grumbling about an injury that would, in time, heal. Not Mary. No, she’d be off after every adventure London could offer, heedless of pain, danger, or propriety.

“Miss Pritchard is in London,” Aunt Eleanor informed him, “living with an aunt, a Lady Bosville. Word is that she will marry her cousin, Viscount Bosville.”

Mary? Marry? Sweet, dauntless little Mary? But she must be in her twenties, now, no longer the little girl with whom he had roamed ports in far flung parts of the Empire. He hoped the viscount was worthy of her. Perhaps he had better make a call on her and see. After all, when he was a midshipman with her father’s fleet, rescuing Miss Mary from had been almost one of his duties!

Rick is turned away from the Bosville residence, but when he flees to the country to escape the smothering of his sister and her friends, who does he find but Mary, running from the unwanted suitor being pressed on her by her aunt. The resulting story is my novella Gingerbread Bride which is the first story in The Golden Redepennings.

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Tea with the Duke of Winshire

After a particularly vigorous practice bout with his son Andrew, the Duke of Winshire was mopping the sweat from his torso. He had held his own, Persian art of the samsir against the French sword play that Andrew and his older brother James, Lord Sutton, had been learning here in London.

The three of them were arguing the finer points of the match when the butler entered, his usually bland face unusually anxious, a calling card held high on a silver tray.

“You have a visitor, Your Grace. Two visitors, I should say.”

Winshire lifted one brow. “Am I at home to callers? It is but eleven of the clock.”

Bartlett’s frown deepened. “If you would look at the card, sir.”

Winshire picked it up, and the second brow flew up to join the first. “Her Grace of Haverford? Here?”

“Escorted by the Marquis of Aldridge, Your Grace. Should I tell them you are not receiving?”

“Are you not receiving, Your Grace?” The voice from the doorway had him spinning around and reaching for his shirt, all in one movement.  Eleanor Haverford’s hazel eyes twinkled, not in the least abashed at his lack of attire. “Are we to go away and try again by appointment?” she asked.

Winshire barely spared a look at the tall fair man at her shoulder, though he noted that the slight amused curve of Aldridge’s lips belied the watchful caution of the hazel eyes inherited from his mother.

On either side of him, his sons were also on full alert. The feud between the Haverfords and Winshires  had so far confined itself to insults and legal wrangles between the heads of each house. Winshire would prefer to keep it that way.

And whatever Eleanor wanted, it would not be war between them. She had welcomed his heir into one of her houses (albiet in the absence of her husband). Yes, and supported Sutton’s courtship of her goddaughter, Sophia.

He bowed, conscious that her gaze was not unapproving, and resisting the urge to preen. “If you will forgive my state of undress, Your Grace, and give me a moment to amend it, I will be at your service. Bartlett, show Her Grace and his lordship to the Red Parlour. Order tea and refreshments, please.”

“If I might strain the bounds of my welcome still further, perhaps Lord Sutton and Lord Andrew would be willing to show Lord Aldridge their weapons. I am sure he will find that far more interesting than the conversation of two old friends.”

Aldridge’s startled look lasted a fraction of a second, replaced by the bland expression the English aristocracy practice from the cradle.

Winshire bowed again, and Eleanor followed the butler from the room, leaving the three younger men to cluster around the swords, and Winshire went off to wash and change, wondering what had brought her to him.

He’d been back in England a year, the second son returned to inherit all after the death of the first. He’d spent the previous thirty-four years in exile for daring to love, and be loved, by the lady the Duke of Haverford had chosen for his bride.

Haverford still held a grudge. He had claimed that Winshire’s marriage was invalid, and his sons illegitimate. He had lost the case, and now refused to occupy the same room or even street as Winshire. Haverford’s wife and son clearly had a different view.

And, equally clearly, Eleanor wanted to speak with him alone.

Time to go and find out why.

In Part 3 of A Baron for Becky, Eleanor and Aldridge go to the Duke of Winshire to seek his support to have Hugh Overton’s peerage descend to his daughter. The scene above shows what happened when they arrived. The courtship between James, Lord Sutton, and Sophia Belvoir, mentioned above, is described in The Bluestocking and the Barbarian.

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Tea with Susan

“Yes, that should work well.” Her Grace, the Duchess of Haverford set the last of the pages she had been reading onto the pile before her, and smiled at her goddaughter. “I like the way you have involved the parents in the running of the school, Susan. I shall have to adopt that idea for my own establishments.”

Susan Cunningham returned the smile as she explained, “Our Scots villagers are theoretically in favour of education, at least for their sons. But they will not support anything that interferes with work on the farm. So it makes sense to organise the school sessions around the demands of the harvest.”

“Yes, and if the leading farmers are the ones who set the timetable, the others will follow their example. Good. Well done, and of course I am happy to be named as a patroness of the school, although you have done all the work, my dear.”

Susan sipped her tea before answering. “A duchess on our letterhead will be much more impressive than a mere Missus, even if I am the widow of a prominent local landlord.”

The duchess laughed. “Yes, by all means use my title to collect donations from your local gentry. But Susan, I wanted to ask about your daughter. How is Amyafter all her adventures?”

“Unscathed,” Susan replied, dryly, then corrected herself. “To be fair, the experience has left her more thoughtful and less impetuous. But she is safe, thanks mostly to Gi- to Lord Rutledge. I do not know what might have happened without him.”

“Your father mentioned that he escorted you on your trip north, but he said little else, except that Amy was found safe and well.”

Susan shuddered. “She is safe and well because she was found, and only just in time.”

The duchess reached for a cucumber sandwich. “And how is Lord Rutledge? I have always thought the pair of you liked one another rather more than you made out.”

Susan sighed. “It is complicated,” she said.

Susan and Gil Rutledge, childhood friends who have been estranged for twenty years, are forced to work together when Susan’s daughter runs away from school. Their story is told in book 3 of The Golden Redepennings, The Realm of Silence (coming in May). Here’s an excerpt.

Dear Lord. All these years she’d held a small bubble of resentment that he’d left London and then England without a note or a message. She should have thrown caution to the wind and written to him before she agreed to marry James.

She snorted at the thought. A fine letter that would have been. “Dear Lieutenant Rutledge, a fine young naval officer has asked me to marry him, and before I give him my answer, I just wish to enquire whether you have any interest in having me instead.”

Regrets and might-have-beens were stupid. She had been happy with James, at least in the beginning, until he proved to lack the gift of fidelity. Even after he made it clear that he would not give up his other women, he did not flaunt them in her face. He was courteous and friendly, respected her abilities and supported her decisions, gave her control of his estate and his income, expected little from her except his nominated allowance and the occasional public appearance. She had been content in her life, if not her marriage, and she had the three most wonderful children in the world.

Accepting Gil’s hand back up into the cabriolet-phaeton, she composed herself for the next stretch of the journey. Knowing he admired her still, at least enough to kiss her, set all of her body singing. She needed to be realistic, and smother the foolish dreams creeping from her memories. She was thirty-seven, and he was a baron. He would need to find a young wife who could give him an heir, and she would need to smile and be glad for him.

A less personal subject than family was needed for the next part of the trip.

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The Realm of Silence – coming in May

I am biting the bullet and committing to publishing The Realm of Silence in May. The book blurb is now up on my book page, and in the next couple of days I’ll set up a preorder through Smashwords for iBooks, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Too early for Amazon, but that will come later in the month.

So go take a look (by clicking on the link), and see what you think. Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt and the cover.

Gil was as quick to understand her now as when they ran wild over the lands around Longford. Susan made short work of discovering what Clementine didn’t want her aunt to know, and re-joined Gil by the stables.

“This governess. Was she slightly built, of below average height, and dark haired?” she asked, then, at Gil’s nod, “We need to find out whether a boy hired a post chaise, or possibly a young woman with a French accent. I have no idea whether there is a connection, but apparently the French music teacher is also missing, and she fits that description.”

She had thought he would take over the questioning, but he seemed content to allow her to coax answers out of the stable master, confining himself to looming at her left shoulder.

Looming was unnecessary, however. The stable master remembered the French lady on Saturday morning. “Just the lady on her own, ma’am. She wanted a post chaise for Newcastle, but I told her we didn’t go no further than York. She could get another there, I told her.”

“What of other travellers that same morning? Was there a boy, perhaps around fifteen or sixteen? He may have had a young lady with him of a similar age? Perhaps also travelling to York or Newcastle?”

The stable master was shaking his head when another ostler spoke up. “I saw the boy. With a girl, he was, but I didn’t see her proper. The boy came in and rented the post chaise while the girl waited out the front. It was while you was with that dook’s party, Ben. For York, but they only took ’un as far as Stamford. Joe—he’s the post boy, ma’am—he came back last night.”

The stable master nodded once, a swift jerk of the chin. “Right.”

“We will speak with the post boy,” Gil decreed. But the post boy was out on a job to a nearby town. He would return within the hour, and the stable master would keep him against Susan’s return.

“I will be back in one hour,” she said. “Thank you for your help.” She repeated the thanks to Gil before setting off at a brisk pace for the school. The fear jittered inside, but she quelled it. She had a lead, which was more than she’d had half an hour ago. If the French lady was the music mistress. If the boy was Patrice in disguise. If the two young people the ostler saw were her runaways. The whole trail of ‘ifs’ depended on Gil’s observation. If the girl in Stamford was Amy, the rest fell into place.

This time, she would demand to see Amy’s room and to talk to some of the other girls. She also had questions to ask the head mistress about the French music teacher.

The presence at her elbow impinged on her conscious mind. Gil, still looming, his long stride easily keeping pace with her rapid steps.

She stopped. “Did you want something, Lord Rutledge?”

Grave brown eyes met her glare, dark brows meeting above the straight aristocratic nose in a return glare. “I am helping.” Not an offer or even a request. An obdurate statement. Arrogant male.

Susan fought to keep her irritation from showing. “You have been helpful. Thank you. I can handle it from here.”

Gil lifted one shoulder and dropped it again. “Undoubtedly. Nonetheless…” A second shrug, as expressive as the first. She didn’t have time to argue; not that arguing ever changed Gilbert Rutledge’s mind once it was made up.

He had clearly decided his participation was a foregone conclusion. “What did the Foster chit tell you?”

She would be a fool to refuse him information that might make his help useful. “The Grahame chit,” she corrected. “Clementine Grahame said that her sister and Amy were always whispering together, and would not tell their secrets, so when Amy arrived at their house before breakfast and she and Patrice went up to Patrice’s bedroom, Clementine put her ear to the door to try to hear them or, failing that, spy on what they did next.”

He did not ask the obvious question; just waited for her to continue.

“They talked too low for her to understand. But Patrice left her room dressed as a boy and she and Amy caught Clementine in the hall. They threatened her with retribution if she told anyone what she had seen, and instructed her to tell the aunt they had left for the exhibition together. The rest of Clementine’s story is true, or so she assures me. She followed them here, and actually waited until they left in the post chaise. She then went off to school and pretended the whole thing had not happened.”

Exasperation coloured the last sentence. Susan understood the child’s fear of her unyielding aunt, and her jealousy of the friendship between the two older girls. But if Clementine had spoken earlier, Amy would be safe now.

“Come then, if you must. I am going to the school. You can question the headmistress about the French woman while I talk to Amy’s friends and check her room.” And if Susan weren’t so worried about her daughter, she might be amused at the thought of the coming confrontation between the haughtily disapproving educationalist and the grim uncompromising soldier.

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The smart widow’s country carriage

When I was writing the first, and even the second, draft of The Realm of Silence, I called the carriage my heroine is driving up and down the Great North Road, to and from Edinburgh, a phaeton.

A high-perch phaeton for the sporting man around town — far too dashing for my widow, and built for show, not for comfort.

I knew a phaeton was a round-town vehicle, and that I’d be smacked by those who know better, so last week I went hunting for a four-wheel two horse carriage that a dashing, fashionable, but not scandalous widow might use when travelling. (The children and servants are in a travelling coach, but Susan prefers to drive herself as much as possible. As who wouldn’t.)

The story required that the carriage had room enough for two people in comfort and three at a squeeze, with one of them driving. I allowed for space behind for a servant, and a fold up top against the weather. And I found the carriage I needed, allowing for the fact that each carriage would have been custom-made, so Susan’s did not have to fit some factory production process, but could be made to her preferences (and my story).

A cabriolet — later, many of them became taxis, giving us the term ‘cab’

I’ve found some neat resources, which I share at the bottom of this post, and some interesting information.

I knew that phaetons came in high-perch and low, and that ladies might drive the later without risk to their reputation, but probably not the former. Cabriolets were an Italian invention that reached England late in the 18th century — another sporty vehicle, but this one entirely suitable for a lady, low slung between the single wheels, and pulled by a single horse. But, again, not what I was looking for.

A phaeton from later in the century, after the name began to be applied to a vehicle with four wheels.

But the field was vast. Carriages, even more than custom-made cars today, varied according to the needs and tastes of the owner around certain defined features. Number of wheels. Number of passengers. Seat for a driver-groom or not. Type of axle, wheel, and spring. Height from the ground. Open or closed. Rain cover or no cover. One horse, two, or up to six. And lots more.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, one enterprising coach builder created a four-wheel vehicle with some of the features of a cabriolet, and some of a phaeton. This hybrid cabriolet-phaeton was not a great success, but a few years of refinement, and it gave birth to the four-wheel cabriolet, the victorian, and several other comfortable but elegant carriages for town and country driving.

I’m postulating that in 1812, my Susan had one of the early successful models, and that she might well have chosen to bring it with her from London to Edinburgh and back again, driving it herself on fine days, perhaps with one or two of the children to keep her company.

A Glossary of Carriages: http://www.arnkarnk.plus.com/glossary.htm

The Slower Road: https://theslowerroad.com/category/reference/carriages-carriage-types/page/6/

The victorian was a popular carriage in the mid-19th century.

 

 

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Moving the courtship along on WIP Wednesday

I’m writing romance, which means courtship. Even if the relationship gets off to a rocky start or hits a rocky middle, courtship has to come into it, or there’s no romance and no story.

So this week, I’m asking for a scene that shows a crucial step in the courtship. It could be a step forward, or a step back. You decide. But something that changes the relationship. Mine is the proposal scene from House of Thorns. It is still at the all dialogue stage, and will probably change on the redraft, but here it is, raw, awkward, and as is.

“Miss Neatham, the Rector came to tell me that the village has been talking.”

“I expected it. When do you wish us to move out? I can put my weight on my ankle again.”

“I do not wish you to move out, though I will move into the village for a couple of weeks.”

“But your work… A couple of weeks… What can you mean?”

“I am doing this wrong. Look, Miss Neatham. Rosabel. Would you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife?”

“Your wife?”

“It will protect you and your father, and it would suit me very well, too. I need a wife, as these past few days have shown me. Someone to look after my house and make it into a home. I have never been more comfortable. I like having you around.

And it isn’t just that. You would be an asset to my dealings. I need to entertain from time to time, and you would show to advantage with the people with whom I do business. You are a lady to the fingertips, Rosa, and the people who buy my houses would like that.

Also, I need a child. A daughter would be best, because my great aunt’s property must be left to a girl, but we could try again if we had a son, and an heir would be rather a nice thing, I think. I had thought of adopting, but a child needs a mother, and that means a wife.”

“But… I am thirty-six.”

“I am forty-three. Which means we are both still capable of having a child.”

“Surely there are younger women with better connections…”

“I don’t want them. Silly ninnies. No conversation. I like you, Rosa. I like spending time with you.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I don’t want… Rosa, you deserve to have choices, and you won’t have them in this village. If you won’t marry me, will you let me find you and your father a house somewhere away from here, where you can live life without your aunt’s history following you?”

“You know about my aunt?”

“The Rector told me.”

“And you still want to marry me?”

“You are not your aunt, and very few families lack a skeleton or two in their closet. Marry me, Rosa. I will try to be a good husband.”

“You could find a better wife.”

“I’ve tried. And one Marriage Mart was enough. I’m never going back. If you won’t have me I’ll dwindle into a lonely old man.”

“I cannot help but feel that I benefit most from this arrangement.”

“The benefits are two way. You get a home and respectability. I get a home and all the things we have listed.”

“We have no guarantee that I am fertile.”

“That would be true no matter who I married.”

[goes away to think]

“Yes, Mr Gavenor.”

“Then you had better call me Bear. Or Hugh, if you prefer. My great aunt used to call me Hugh.”

“Hugh, then. Thank you, Hugh. I shall try to be a good wife.”