To Wed a Proper Lady

by

Tea with Grace

 

Her Grace of Haverford enters the side door at Fournier’s. No one, not even her husband, would remark on her calling into a restaurant outside of opening hours, particularly one owned by protégés. Still, she does not wish to call His Grace’s attention to her visit. Her servants, she is certain, would keep her secrets — but it would be unfair to put their loyalties in conflict.

She spends a few minutes asking the restaurateur’s wife questions about her children. Though she is anxious to begin her private meeting, politeness is always important, and Cecilia and Marcel Fournier are very dear to her. Soon, though, Cecilia ushers her to the private room she was instructed to ask for.

Grace is already there. “Eleanor! You came.”

“Of course.” Eleanor hugs this dear friend. They have known each other since they were children, grieved together when Grace’s brother was exiled and believed dead, supported one another through the miseries of marriage to selfish brutal promiscuous men, rejoiced in one another’s children, worked together to better the lot of women whose marital unhappiness was made worse by poverty. They shared so much history, and now the respective heads of their families had decreed they must be enemies.

They both sit, and Grace turns to the waiting tea service and the calming ritual of afternoon tea.

“How are you managing, my dear Grace? How are the twins?” Eleanor asks.

“Better than I had hoped. You assured me James would not have changed. He is older, of course, and much more commanding. I can imagine him as the king the papers call him. But he is still the kind man you remember from our first Season. He promises that the girls and I will want for nothing, and may live wherever we please when Winshire finally releases our reins.”

Eleanor looks down at her cup. “I have seen him. Just in passing, at the Monteforte Ball, before Haverford decreed that none of us may attend any event attended by Sutton and his children. Sutton looks well, Grace. He had two young men and a young woman with him.”

“Elfingham, his eldest, and Drew, the fourth son. They are fine young men, Eleanor, even if they are part-Persian. Sutton brought six of his children with him. The two sons you saw, plus two sons still in the schoolroom, and two daughters. The youngest is of an age to be presented, but we — Georgie and I — suggested she wait until next year. By then, all this nonsense will be over.”

“I hope so. What Sutton must be thinking!” James, now Earl of Sutton and heir to his father the Duke of Winshire in place of two deceased older brothers, faces having to prove the legitimacy of his marriage and his children to a committee of the House of Lords. Thanks to Eleanor’s husband, who is claiming that the foreign-born wife was a mistress and the half-breed children an abomination that must not be forced on English Society.

Grace gave a short laugh. “James just smiles, and says the marriage was legal, his children are legitimate, and Haverford is an ass. I beg your pardon, Eleanor.”

Haverford is being an ass, which is not unusual. Eleanor is not going to say so, even in private to this dear friend. She takes another sip of her tea.

“Winshire is in a rare taking, and declares that none of us may speak or even acknowledge any of you.” Grace sighs. “It will be very awkward.”

Eleanor echoes the sigh. “We must decide how to manage our committees, and how to make managing the conflict easier for hostesses who would normally invite us both.” She met her friend’s eyes, a twinkle in her own. “Co-ordinating our social calendars so we obey our respective tyrants may require weekly meetings, dear Grace.”

Grace chuckles. “After all,” she says, “making sure our families don’t mingle is a sort of obedience, is it not?”

***

This is a background scene that won’t appear somewhere at the beginning of To Win a Proper Lady: The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. Haverford’s attempt to have Sutton’s marriage declared invalid is part of that book, which I’m currently expanding into a novel from the novella that was in Holly and Hopeful Hearts. Haverford’s motivation is that he and Sutton were once rivals for Eleanor’s hand. Eleanor preferred Sutton, and Haverford conspired with Sutton’s father to have him exiled. Haverford won a wife, but never her heart.

 

 

by

Tea with Sophia and others

An excerpt post from The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. Her Grace is having a celebratory lunch with guests when she is interrupted by a new arrival. I’m in the early stages of considering the extra scenes and plot threads to turn this novella into a novel.

***

After dinner, Sophia joined several of the other women in Esther’s room, to help her decide what to wear the following day when she and her Mr. Halévy gave their formal consent to marry.

“Your betrothal,” Felicity said, prompting a whole discussion about how a consent to marry differed from a betrothal, and the differences and similarities between betrothals and weddings in the Church of England, and those in Jewish tradition. Sophia found herself wondering how the Assyrian Christians managed such things.

The consent to marry ceremony the following morning was held in the gold drawing room, with everyone in attendance.

The duchess had offered her own lap desk and quill for the signing and watched all with a benign smile.

Sophia envied Esther and her Adam, who lit the room with their smiles, eyes only for one another, and wished devoutly that she had gone with James.

Before they could sit down to the celebratory lunch that the duchess had ordered and Cedrica had organized, another commotion in the hall disturbed the assembly.

“See who is making such a fuss, Jonathan, please,” the duchess said. “Poor Saunders sounds out of his depth.”

A moment later, the shouting in the hall rose still louder, and Gren was shouting back, though both the visitor and Gren were speaking a language Sophia did not understand. Lord Aldridge hurried out without waiting for his mother’s signal, and his own voice sounded sharply. Silence fell. The guests exchanged glances, and the duchess hurried to fill the void.

“There. Aldridge is handling the matter, whatever it is. Now, Miss Baumann, explain to me what you and the chef have managed to produce for us.”

Esther began awkwardly and then with increasing enthusiasm to describe the dishes on offer, and one by one, the guests began to serve themselves. Sophia, though, caught the duchess sneaking glances towards the door until eventually Aldridge reentered the room and hurried to his mother’s side.

The duchess excused herself and left, to return after a few moments. “A messenger has come to fetch my son Jonathan. If you will excuse me, my friends, I will go and help him prepare for his trip. Please. Continue the celebrations. I will join you again as soon as I can.”

Sophia followed her into the hall in time to hear Aldridge say, “If you must go, use my yacht. It stands off Margate, but we can be there in two days, and she is faster than anything you’ll pick up in London. You will not have to wait for the Thames tide, either.”

“What you propose is not safe, my darling boy. The Grand Army is in your way. You could be shot as a spy,” the duchess said. “Why, this friend of yours cannot even give you assurance that the grand duchess will not behead you on sight. It is possible that…”

“Mama, all things are possible.” Gren was lit from within, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if his joy were too big to contain. “All things but one. I have tried living without the woman I love, Mama, and that, that is impossible. Anything else, I can do. Wait and see.”

“I have sent a message to the stables,” Aldridge said, “and another to my valet telling him to pack for us both. Mama, we shall rest overnight in London then leave at first light for Margate. If you have any messages, write them now.”

“Take me.” Sophia did not know she was going to speak until the words were from her mouth.

“Lady Sophia?” Lord Aldridge was frowning.

“You are right,” Sophia told Gren. “Only one thing is impossible, and that is living without the man I love. I should have said yes. I will say yes. Take me to London, Gren, and to James.”

Gren looked at his brother and then back at Sophia. “We shall be travelling fast,” he warned.

“All the better.”

“What shall Hythe say?” the duchess asked.

“I hope he shall wish me well, but I am going, Aunt Eleanor. If Lord Aldridge will not take me, then I shall catch a mail coach.” The decision made, she would not let anything stand in her way.

Lord Aldridge spread his hands in surrender. “Say your farewells, then, Lady Sophia. We leave in thirty minutes.”

by

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.

by

A bit of horse sense

In today’s Footnotes on Friday, I’m recycling a post I wrote for Regina Jeffers. If you didn’t catch it first time round, please enjoy.

My qualifications for writing about horses are ten years as a Riding for the Disabled mum, five as a Pony Club mum, and seven as the reluctant care-taker of one or more obstreporous ponies.

Yet I write Regencies, and in Regency times, gentlemen were as obsessed with their horses as today’s men are with their cars or motorbikes. In fact, in two of my books, including the latest release, the hero breeds horses for sale.

Which meant I had a lot to learn. I knew the smell of wet pony, and the tricks it can get up to when it doesn’t want the bridle and saddle. That was a start. Many blog posts, library books, video clips, websites, and questions to friends later, I still think that one end bites and the other kicks. But I’m slightly more confident about sending my horse-mad heroes out into the wide world.

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Lord Sutton breeds Turkmen horses he and his family have brought from their home in the Kopet Dag mountains. Lord Sutton’s Turkmens, a predecessor of today’s Ahkal Teke, arrived in England well after the heyday of what they then called the orientals, or hot bloods. Finer boned, thinner skinned, faster, and more spirited than the European horses (known as cold bloods), the imports from Turkey, Persia, and middle Asia fascinated the English of the seventeeth and eighteenth centuries.

From the two lines came the warm bloods, direct ancestors of today’s thoroughbreds. Indeed, the thoroughbred stud book was founded in the late eighteenth century (for horses intended for racing) and records all English Thoroughbred breeding even today. A thoroughbred was a horse whose birth and lineage was recorded in the book. Other horses with the same breeding not intended for racing were known simply as ‘bloods’.

If you wanted to sell, or to buy, a horse, you might go to a local horse fair. Or, if you lived in London, you’d drop down to Tattersall’s on Hyde Park Corner. It had been founded in 1766 by a former groom of the Duke of Kingston, and held auctions every Monday and on Thursdays during the Season. Tatersall’s charged a small commission on each sale, but also charged both buyers and sellers for stabling.

Tattersalls was an auction ground, a meeting place for gentlemen, the home of the Jockey club, and the place gentlemen recorded bets on racing and other bets

You could buy horses, carriages, hounds, harnesses — whatever a gentleman (or his lady, but ladies did NOT go to Tattersall’s) needed. And in Regency times, gentlemen visited on other days to place a bet on an upcoming race, or just to meet and chat. The Jockey Club met there, and moved with it to a later London location and then to Newmarket. Tattersall’s is still a leading bloodstock auctioneer, and still in Newmarket.

My hero in A Raging Madness had been a cavalry officer. Britain had no formal studs for breeding war horses. Instead, they bought their horses from civilian breeders. This meant the British cavalry rode horses bred to be hunters, race horses, and carriage horses—usually thoroughbreds or thoroughbred crosses. Each colonel bought the horses for his own regiment. In 1795, the regulations established a budget of thirty pounds for a light mount and forty for a heavy mount. This budget didn’t change for the rest of the war with France, despite wartime shortages.

Here Alex is telling his brother his plan:

“Father says you are planning to breed horses. For the army, Alex? Racing? What’s your plan?”

“Carriage and riding horses, we thought. I know more about training war horses, of course, but to breed them to be torn apart for the sins of men? I don’t have the heart for it. And there’s always a market for a good horse.”

Alex buys his first stallion from another cavalry office, Gil Rutledge, who is hero of The Realm of Silence, my current novel-in-progress (the third novel in

series.

****

More about horses

Geri Walton tells us about work horses, especially the heavy breeds. https://www.geriwalton.com/work-horses-in-the-regency-era/

Regency Redingote explains the origins of the term ‘blood horse’, and the pedigree of the General Stud Book. https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-english-blood-horse/

Regency Writing has a useful article on housing horses, and the work of a stable. http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-horse.html

Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink explains the many different uses of the horse in Regency England. https://shannondonnelly.com/2011/07/28/the-regency-horse-world/ This article also describes common carriage types, side saddles and riding habits.

by

Tea with Sophia

monday-for-tea

On this fine afternoon in September, the duchess had ordered tea served on the terrace overlooking the rose garden. “We should enjoy the sunshine while we can,” she told her goddaughter, Lady Sophia Belvoir.

Sophia had been surprised—and somewhat disconcerted—to find she was the only guest. What was Aunt Eleanor up to?

But Her Grace discussed only the weather and the roses as she poured the tea and passed the cucumber sandwiches; tiny triangles of finely sliced bread with the cool crisp vegetable melting on the tongue.

Sophia took a sip of her tea. Ah. The finest oolong with just a touch of lemon. Aunt Eleanor never forgot.

At that moment, the duchess pounced. “Tell me about Lord Elfingham, my dear.”

Sophia’s hand jerked as she returned her cup to its saucer, and it clicked loudly. She blushed. At her clumsiness, of course, not at the mention of the young viscount who had been everywhere she went for months

“You met him even before most of London, his aunt tells me,” the duchess prompted.

“Not met, exactly,” she demurred. “We were not introduced.”

Aunt Eleanor said nothing; just raised her brows in question, and after a moment Sophia added, “I was visiting the orphanage at Bentwick. A child ran out of the gate into the road, and was almost run down by racing curricles. Lord Elfingham rescued the child and returned him to the- the orphanage servants.”

Appearing from nowhere just as she emerged from the gate and saw disaster unfolding before her. Riding down on the cowering boy right under the noses of the teams that threatened to trample the child underfoot. Scooping up the runaway and leaping to safety on his magnificent stallion. Fixing her in place with a fervent gaze from his dark eyes. Haunting her in dreams ever since.

“He has been pursuing Felicity,” she told Her Grace. “Hythe will not consider it.”

The duchess’s brows rose again. “Your sister Felicity? Are you certain? It is you his eyes follow when you are at the same entertainments, Sophia.”

For a moment, Sophia’s heart leapt, but Aunt Eleanor was wrong. She was too old for the marriage mart, and had not been as beautiful as Felicity even when she was a fresh young debutante. Besides, her brother the Earl of Hythe would not countenance the connection, whichever sister was being courted.

She shook her head, not trusting her voice. “May we speak of something else?” Which was rude, but Aunt Eleanor graciously allowed it.

“Very well. Let us discuss next week’s meeting to set up the fund for the education of girls. You will take the chair, my dear?”

******

Sophia is the heroine of The Bluestocking and the Barbarian in the Belle’s box set Holly and Hopeful Hearts, now on sale.

the-bluestocking-and-the-barbarian-fb

 

by

Win a kitten in the Holly and Hopeful Hearts kitten tour

A kitten from the Bluestocking Belle’s box set Holly and Hopeful Hearts needs a home.

Meet Snowball, the kitten who captured the heart of the Earl of Hythe

Meet Snowball, the kitten who captured the heart of the Earl of Hythe

In my story, The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Snowball is tempted from hiding by dangling gold tassels on James’ boots.

“I reckon gold tassels on the boots would be right proper, my lord,” the footman ventured.

He was right, too. Gold tassels that swung as James walked, catching and then losing the light. Not that gold tassels were going to make up the ground he’d lost with Sophia, but still…

“See what you can find,” he told the servant. “Adam, go on ahead and find your lady. I’ll be down in a minute.”

So it was that when he left his chamber, three gold tassels dangled from the front of each boot and proved a tempting target. A white kitten darted out from under an occasional table when James stopped to close the door behind him and took a flying leap at the tassels, as James discovered when he felt the sudden weight.

He took a careful step, expecting the small passenger to drop away, but it buried its claws and its teeth into its golden prey and glared up at him.

“Foolish creature,” he told it, going down onto the knee of the other leg so he could remove it, carefully lifting each paw to detach the tangled claws. “These gaudy baubles are to attract my lady, not a fierce little furry warrior.” He lifted the kitten in one hand and held it up to continue his lecture face to face. “Now where do you belong, hmmnhmmn? Have you wandered off from your mama? Do you belong to this house, I wonder, or did you come with a guest?”

The kitten squeaked a tiny meow.

“No, little one. I will not put you down to chew my tassels, or to trip one of the great ladies or to be trodden on by one of the gentlemen. You are a pretty little fellow, are you not?” He tucked the cat against his chest and rubbed behind its ears, prompting a loud rusty purr incongruously large for the small frame of the kitten.

Although focused on the kitten, he was aware of footsteps approaching. It was Hythe, who looked uncomfortable in a tight-fitting jerkin over short ballooning breeches that allowed several inches of clocked stocking to show between the hem of the breeches and the thigh-length fitted boots. The short robe, flat cap, and heavy flat chain gave a further clue, and Hythe had tried for authenticity by stuffing padding under the jerkin—a pillow, perhaps?

“Henry the Eighth?” James ventured, half-expecting Hythe to walk past without speaking or make another intemperate verbal attack.

Instead, the younger man nodded. “My sister Felicity picked it. Er… I wanted to speak with you… I owe you an apology, Winder… Er… Elfingham. My sister Felicity told me that… Well, the fact is I made an accusation without checking my facts.” Hythe nodded again, clearly feeling that he had said what he needed to say.

“Very handsome of you, Hythe,” James said.

Hythe ran a finger around inside his collar, flushing slightly. “Yes, well. The thing is… You will tell Sophia that I apologized, will you not?”

Ah. Clearly Sophia had expressed her discontent.

“Sisters can be a trial, can they not?” James said, and Hythe warmed to the sympathy.

“Just because she is older, she thinks she can…” He visibly remembered his audience. “Sophia is of age and will make her own decisions, but I think it only fair to tell you that I have advised her to wait until after the hearing at the Privileges Committee before she makes any decision.”

James inclined his head. “I understand your position.” Which would not prevent him from doing his best to persuade Sophia to ignore the advice.

Time to change the subject. He held up the little kitten. “Do you happen to know where this little chap belongs?”

Hythe flushed still deeper. “So that’s where he got to. He… ah… appears to be mine. In a way. The housekeeper’s cat had kittens, and this one seems to have adopted me. Little nuisance.”

But Hythe’s hands were gentle as he took the kitten from James, and he tucked it under his chin, his other hand coming up to fondle the furry head.

“I’ll just put him back in my room so he doesn’t get in anyone’s way. Foolish boy, Snowball. Do you wish to be lost? Was the fish not to your taste?”

Hythe retreated back down the hall. James could not hear individual words, but from the sound of his voice, he was continuing his loving scold. And James had managed to have what almost amounted to a conversation with his intended brother-in-law. He would count that as a win.

Follow the book links to learn more about the stories. Enter the rafflecopter below to be entered for the random draw to win the kitten.

the-bluestocking-and-the-barbarian-fb

The winner will be announced at the Book Launch Party on November 13th. The other kittens in the novellas are also looking for new homes, so be sure to keep an eye out for them! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

by

How a disease of cows saved hundreds of millions of lives

Would people innoculated with cowpox become cows? The cartoonist James Gillray lampooned the fear.

Would people inoculated with cowpox become cows? The cartoonist James Gillray lampooned the fear.

I’ve been looking back over 250 years of growing knowledge about the human body, the ills that befall us, and how to treat them. In her book Smallpox, Syphilis, and Salvation, Sheryl Persson points out that the idea of curing disease is a very new one. For most of history, and for many illnesses even today, physicians have treated symptoms and tried to keep the body alive long enough for it to cure itself.

smallpoxAs for eradicating a disease, we’ve managed to get rid of one, and it took us 180 years from the time a country doctor in England first published a pamphlet suggesting not just the possibility, but the method.

How can we who live in the West in the 21st Century imagine a society where a single illness killed one tenth of the population every year? Where a quarter of the entire population was killed or permanently scarred by that same illness?
Smallpox was no respecter of persons, killing kings and street beggars alike. It was responsible for one out of every three deaths in childhood at a time when a third of children died before they were nine.

It changed the course of history several times, contributing to the fall of Rome, altering the succession of the British throne and ushering in the Georgian era, killing the rulers of the Aztec and Incan nations and crippling their nations so the conquistadors could sweep all before them… The list goes on and on.

Death among the Mezo-Americans

Death among the Mezo-Americans

By the middle of the 18th century, England had learned the practice of variolation; fundamentally, the practice of rubbing a cut or scratch with material from a smallpox scab to give a healthy person a case of smallpox. As long as the person administering the treatment avoided both of the two major risks, the person had a far better chance of surviving the disease, and then they wouldn’t catch it again.

The risks? Doctors tried to find milder strains of smallpox by looking for people who were recovering, but sometimes they got it wrong. And—without a germ theory of disease transmission—some of them weren’t that careful about washing their instruments (or even their hands) between patients. Variolation was common during a smallpox epidemic, and doctors carried contagion from their dying patients to their well ones.

George III of England lost two infant sons to variolation within six months of one another. Still, a death rate of less than one in fifty was an improvement over the status quo.

A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid' Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid's hand while a farmer (?) passes another physician a lancet. Coloured etching, c. 1800. Published: [ca. 1800]

A physician inspects the growth of cowpox on a milking maid’
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images, http://wellcomeimages.org

Edward Jenner, the country doctor I mentioned, drew on folklore to find a better way. While not the first to inoculate healthy patients with cowpox, he was the first to press his treatment on the medical community. Cowpox was a related disease, seldom fatal or even serious, and country folk had long known that milkmaids were immune to smallpox.

When, in 1796, Jenner inoculated his gardener’s son with cowpox taken from a local milkmaid, he founded the science of vaccination, and took the first step in the long road to the last natural case of smallpox, a hospital cook in Somalia in 1977.

image002

I’ve been reading about illnesses and deaths in the 18th and 19th centuries, and about medical knowledge, for some of my books. In A Raging Madness, (Book 2 of the The Golden Redepennings) the hero is crippled after being hit by a canister shell (today we’d call it shrapnel) and the heroine is a doctor’s daughter and was her father’s apprentice. In the Mountain King series, the next book after The Bluestocking and the Barbarian is The Hermit and the Healer. My healer takes on a cholera epidemic at a girls’ boarding school, and needs to deal with the prejudice of the locals as well as the suspicion and anger of the reclusive parent of one of the girls.

I have one of my regular background characters dying of syphilis (the great pox—more about the medical history of that scourge next week).

And I’m still working out what will kill Mia Redepenning’s husband’s Javanese wife so that Mia can finally have her happy ending in Unkept Promises, Book 4 of The Golden Redepennings. (Something lingering, so she has time to send a letter halfway around the world to her English ‘sister wife’ to beg Mia to be a mother to her four little children.)

The first vaccination

The first vaccination

by

Globalisation ancient central Asian style

Not so much a road as a route, and only one of them, at that. Imagine a procession of heavily laden camels, donkeys and carts.

Not so much a road as a route, and only one of them, at that. Imagine a procession of heavily laden camels, donkeys and carts.

I’ve been fascinated for most of my life by the histories I didn’t learn at school. According to the wisdom I received from my teachers, enlightened thinking began with the Greeks, was codified by the Romans, and was resurrected after the Dark Ages in the Renaissance where it grew into the humanist and democratic beliefs that bubbled up in Europe in the 18th Century and reached its culmination is the set of beliefs and practices widely known as western civilisation.

(Gandhi was once asked what he thought of western civilisation, and said he thought it would be a good idea.)

This view, of course, completely ignores the fact that Europe was a backwater until at least the 16th Century, and all the time inventions and advances and discoveries in the rest of the world laid the foundations upon which Europe would later stand.

Let’s leave for today the great kingdoms of Kush, Nri, Songhai, and Asumite in Africa, the Olmec, Aztec, and Mayans of the Americas, Kutai, Khmer, Dvaravati in South East Asia. In the past months, I’ve been filling my head with the broad swathe of city-states, kingdoms, principalities, and empires that created, maintained, and thrived because of the Silk Road. Not so much a road, but rather a rambling plaided string of trade routes from China and India to the Mediterranean Sea by diverse ways.

This was the mixing ground of cultures, ideas (including religious ideas), new technologies, and products. Above all, products: silk, paper, and spices travelling West; carpets, jewels, drugs, metal, glass, and other trade goods travelling East.

To hear the Venetians tell the story, they started the whole thing. In fact, they were very late into the game. One of the main western arteries did come first, established in Persia. It was the old Persian Royal Road, with postal stations along the route. The pony express was nothing new. The Persian route was established close to 2,500 years ago.

2,250 years ago, an emperor of China, struggling to keep the horse nomads of the north out of his land, sent an envoy west looking for help. Zhang Qian’s expedition led to trade deals to purchase the larger faster horses the envoy found in central Asia. Silk for horses. The Chinese beat of their enemies, and settled down to consolidate the trade, while from the other end the Parthians (who now controlled Persia) were doing the same.

For 2000 years, the Silk Road was how China got its western goods, and places as far distant from China as England got its silks and spices. Then, in the 15th Century, the rising Ottoman Empire blocked European merchants from using the routes, impelling them to find a sea route. Columbus went west, and Vasco da Gama south. And the rest is history.

If you’d like to know more, this 10:30 minute video is entertaining and interesting.

Huh! How about that. I set out to write about the Kopet Dag mountains between Turkmenistan and Iran, and the place of their inhabitants in the silk routes, and I’ve got all excited about ancient history. Another time, perhaps. Meanwhile, feel free to look at the novella I have in the Bluestocking Belles 2016 box set. Called The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, it features as hero a young man who grew up in a small kaganate high in the Kopet Dag mountains. The link is to my book page, which in turn links to the first two chapters.

by

The ‘meet cute’ on WIP Wednesday

meet-cute‘Meet cute’ is a term from Hollywood that has crept into book publishing. It means that moment in a romantic comedy when the hero and the heroine first encounter one another. The implication is that the first meeting is amusing, entertaining, or charming.

Even if you’re not writing romantic comedy, the term can apply, but today I’m just using it as shorthand for the first meeting in your book. My own current works-in-progress have progressively less and less cute about them. The Bluestocking and the Barbarian comes close, with James swooping down to save a child from the path of racing curricles.

With hand, body and voice, James set Seistan at the child and dropped off the saddle, trusting to the horse to sweep past in the right place for James to hoist the child out of harm’s way.

One mighty heave, and they were back in the saddle. James’ shoulders would feel the weight of the boy for days, but Seistan had continued across the road, so close to the racers that James could feel the wind of their passing.

They didn’t stop. Didn’t even slow. In moments, they were gone.

The boy shaking in his arms, James turned Seistan with his knees, and walked the horse back to the gates of the big house. A crowd of women waited for them, but only one came forward as he dismounted.

“How can we ever thank you enough, sir?” She took the child from him, and handed him off to be scolded and hugged and wept over by a bevy of other females.

The woman lingered, and James too. He could hear his father and the others riding toward them, but he couldn’t take his eyes off hers. He was drowning in a pool of blue-gray. Did she feel it too? The Greeks said that true lovers had one soul, split at birth and placed in two bodies. He had thought it a nice conceit… until now.

In Revealed in Mist, David and Prue parted in anger in the Prologue, and meet again for the first time in months in the first chapter. Prue has just saved a young lady from rape.

She put the girl behind her with her free hand, then pulled the door closed. Something thrown banged against it on the other side.

“We must get you to safety,” she told the girl, a very young debutante in a torn white gown, her honey blonde hair falling from its careful coiffure, the delicate oval of her face streaked with tears.

“I cannot… I did not… Everyone will think…”

“Take the child to Lady Georgiana.” Prue started at Shadow’s voice and the girl yelped and clutched at her for protection. Fussing over the girl gave Prue time to catch the breath that had escaped at his sudden appearance. He was leaning against the next door down, half concealed in the doorway. “There’s a small sitting room along there.” He pointed down the passage towards the far end, seemingly unaffected the meeting, while Prue was torn between spitting in his face and throwing herself at his feet to beg him to forgive whatever offence she had caused. “Half way to the corner. Lady Georgiana is in there. She’ll take care of your maiden, and I shall see to the assailant. Who is it?”

And A Raging Madness has the least cute meet of all, as Ella flees confinement and abuse in her in-laws house to beg help from Alex, who she knew long, long ago.

The couch faced the fire, its back to the bed chamber door. The occupant was invisible until they stood right over it, and then there she was, lying on her back, wrapped tightly in a scruffy grey woollen blanket, heavily mired at one end with dried mud. All they could see of the woman was her head, and that was somewhat the worse for wear. Her face was far too thin, with dark patches under the eyes and bruise over bruise along her jaw, as if she had been gripped too hard time after time, week after week. She lay in a tangle of long brown hair, escaped from the plait to which it had been confined.

As they watched, she opened her eyes. For a moment, she stared at them, confused. Then she seemed to recall where she was, and sat up in one convulsive movement, clutching the blanket to her with a bare arm as it fell, but not before Alex had seen she wore nothing but her shift.

“Alex, thank God. You must help me. Please.”

“Lady Melville.” Alex bowed as well as he could, leaning heavily on his stick, hating to show weakness in front of her of all people. But her eyes did not leave his, and she displayed no signs of noticing his infirmity.

“Please,” she repeated, just as someone knocked on the door. She shot off the couch, clutching the blanket, and retreated to the wall, her eyes wide. He had seen such a stance before, people under threat finding a wall for the back, animals at bay, almost dead from fear, but  still searching for escape.

“It is just the major’s breakfast, my lady,” Jonno said, soothingly. But a male voice in the hall belied his reassurance. “Knock again,” it said, loudly, authoritatively. Braxton.

“Please,” Ella begged, one more time.

by

Reflection characters on WIP Wednesday

masqurade-1795‘Reflection’ character is Michael Hauge’s expression. I’m still processing his full-day Story Mastery workshop from the RWNZ Conference, but have already strengthened Revealed in Mist by applying his inner and out journey methodology to the hero and heroine.

The reflection is the person that shows the protagonist when they are acting according to the armour they’ve built around their woundedness, and when they’re reaching into the real person they’re meant to be. As always, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, the heroine’s sister holds up a mirror to her just before this scene, set at the Costume Party.

Sophia frowned at Felicity, who was ostentatiously ignoring her from the other side of the room. They had had words, especially when Sophia had realized Felicity had deliberately sought Lord Elfingham out, accosted him in the garden, rejected him for herself, and sent him to Sophia. Sophia was not taking her sister’s leavings, and so she told her. Felicity, of course, claimed that Elfingham wanted Sophia all along, but Sophia did not believe that for a moment.

Oh, dear. He was coming this way. He stopped to speak to the Persian king, and Sophia took the opportunity to hurry away, putting as many people as possible between herself and her suitor.

He could not possibly be serious, and besides, she had her life all planned. She would never marry. She would be content with her studies and her work for the disadvantaged. She would be an aunt to Felicity’s children and one day to Hythe’s. If Hythe married someone she did not care for, she had money enough to hire a companion and set up her own establishment. She would be free and independent.

Why did such a life suddenly sound dreary?