Monday for Tea

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Tea with Harriett

Harriett Staunton offered Eleanor another cup of tea. When the young lady had offered her resignation to the committee for the Foundation for the Education and Enrichment of the Lives of Ladies of Talent, she had explained merely that she intended to move to York.

Eleanor invited her to stay on after the meeting. A girl with Harriett’s questionable birth faced many challenges on the marriage market, and those challenges were magnified in London. Eleanor would help, if she could. But she needed to understand what motivated Harriett.

“Why York, Miss Staunton? Are you escaping your family or London Society?”

Perhaps Harriett picked up Eleanor’s genuine concern, for she did not take offence. “Perhaps a little of both, Your Grace. I have been educated as a lady, but my birth in the merchant classes means that I would not be accepted at the upper levels of London society if I was even invited to any of the events here.”

She took a deep breath and continued, “And the irregular nature of my birth means that the merchant classes also reject me.” A shadow of pain passed through her eyes. Eleanor, who knew more than most how less honourable men think, wondered at the insults the poor girl might have suffered from those who thought their birth on the right side of the blanket entitled them to look down on those less fortunate.

“So you do hope for a husband,” Eleanor concluded. “And, very sensibly, you think that a Season in York is likely to give you the opportunity to meet men who are not so fixed on status and on impressing other people.”

“In a nutshell,” Harriett agreed.

“I wish you every success, Harriett,” Eleanor said. “How can I be of assistance? Are you planning to stay with friends?”

“You are very kind, Your Grace. I have rented a townhouse, and will be living with trusted staff members, including my companion. But I very much appreciate your good wishes.”

“I shall write to a few of my friends and ask them to make sure you are on their invitation list, my dear. Please write to me and let me know how you get on.”

Harriett agreed, and they spoke for a while about places in York that Eleanor had visited and that Harriett might enjoy.

When the guest had left, Eleanor called for her writing desk and set quill to paper. She knew just the person who might take Harriett’s quest to heart.

“Dear Lady Beaumont…”

Harriett Staunton is the heroine of “I’ll Always Be Yours”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

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Tea with Major Kellborn

Major Augustus Kellborn was uncomfortable in Eleanor’s little sitting room. Not that his stern compelling face showed any emotion at all. Nor did his posture betray him. He sat straight and still, his dark eyes alert.

Nonetheless, his very tension betrayed a desire to be elsewhere. Anywhere else, perhaps.

The dog took his cue from his master, sitting to attention at Kellborn’s feet, watching every movement of Eleanor’s hands as she poured a cup of tea to Major Kellborn’s specifications. She gave it to the waiting maid to carry to the guest. Thankfully, Hattie was not nervous around dogs.

Sir Sancho, as the small beast was named, had not been invited, though he had been at Major Kellborn’s heel when Eleanor met him, visiting some his former command in the hospital for returned soldiers that was one of Eleanor’s charitable interests.

“I knew your mother, Kellborn,” she had told him. And invited him to afternoon tea.

The brindled terrier had arrived today three minutes after Kellborn, prompting the gentleman’s first display of emotion—alarm, quickly subdued, and a slight flush of embarrassment. “I apologise, Your Grace. I will return him to my carriage to wait.”

Eleanor examined the beast, who sat staring adoringly up at Kellborn. Clearly, the brindled terrier could not countenance a separation. “He is welcome to stay, major. He appears to understand proper deportment in a lady’s parlour.”

To draw the major out, she asked about the origins of the animal. Slowly, he relaxed, and even smiled a time or two as he told her about some of Sir Sancho’s adventures since he had insisted on adopting Kellborn. Eleanor imagined her guest had been an exemplary officer.

“What are your plans now that you have left the army, if I may enquire?” Eleanor asked, after a while.

“I have inherited Whitlaw Grange, an estate in Cumberland,” Kellborn explained. “I am told it is a fine manor, though I’ve not yet seen it. I will be heading north later in the week.”

Eleanor nodded with approval. “Wise to arrive before the winter sets in.”

“That is what I thought.” His brow creased momentarily with the first indecision he had shown. “From the books, it seems well run, though my relative has been gone for over a year.”

“No children, I take it?” Eleanor asked.

“Never married.”

Eleanor thought about Cumberland—parts of it were very remote, and all of it was too far from London for easy travel. Would Major Kellborn appreciate advice? Perhaps not, but he could always ignore it. “Marriage is not for everyone, I know, but if you do plan to seek a wife, you might consider looking in the north. York, perhaps, or even Edinburgh. Someone who won’t be intimidated by the weather, and who prefers country living.”

His eyes crinkled and his lips curved in a smile. “Excellent advice, Your Grace. I have not thought that far ahead, but I know sense when I hear it.

Gus Kellborn is the hero of “Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

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Tea with Lord Cuckoo

Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire, had called into Haverford House to have tea with her son, the new Duke of Haverford and her daughter-in-law Charlotte–or Cherry, as the whole family had taken to calling her (at least in private).

“Anthony will be joining us shortly,” Cherry assured her, after they had greeted one another, commented on the weather, and shared the most pressing of the family news. “He had a meeting.”

Even as she spoke, the Duke entered the room, another young man trailing in his wake. Haverford greeted his wife with a kiss on the cheek and gave another to Eleanor. “You are looking well, Mama. Marriage to His Grace of Winshire clearly suits you.”

It certainly did. Eleanor could not help a smug smile.

“But allow me to present my guest,” Haverford continued. “Lord Diomedes Finchley, Your Graces. Lord Dom is heading to York later this week, and has been kind enough to offer to carry out a commission for me while he is there. Dom, these wonderful ladies are my mother, the Duchess of Winshire, and my darling wife, the Duchess of Haverford.”

Lord Dom bowed, flushing a little as he looked at Eleanor. She knew what was troubling him and hastened to put him at ease. “Dom, how pleased I am to meet you. May I call you Dom? We are, after all, in some sort related, since you are half-brother to my sons and to my wards.”

He flushed still more. “Your husband did not acknowledge the connection, Your Grace,” he pointed out.

“My deceased husband did many things he should not, and left undone many things that were his duty, Dom. We do not need to perpetuate his errors.”

“Please sit down,” Cherry suggested. “Will you have tea? I know Anthony would prefer coffee.”

The young man sat, looking very uncomfortable at first. But Eleanor and Cherry exerted themselves to make him feel welcome, and soon they were talking about the charitable foundation the duchesses supported that found work and offered medical care to returned soldiers and sailors. Dom, who had been a captain in the Hussars during the recent wars, was very interested and offered to make a donation.

“And what is at York?” Eleanor asked, after a while. “If my question is not intrusive.”

“Not at all,” Dom told her. “My mother’s brother apparently died while I was overseas with the army. The solicitor’s letter has only just reached me. I have apparently inherited his estate, which is not far from York. I’m off to see whether it is a place I can make into my home. And I have promised Haverford to look into how people are feeling about the reform movement, while I am up there.”

“The York Season will be in full swing in a month or so,” Cherry commented. “I know my brother used to attend from time to time, mostly for the races, which are in early May.”

“I do not know if I will be there that long,” Dom said. “It depends how I find the estate.”

“Keep it in mind,” Eleanor advised. “Every single young man in possession of an estate, should be on the lookout for a wife.” She smiled again, thinking of her own recent remarriage. “And love. Love, I have discovered, is the best of all reasons to wed.”

Dom Finchley, alias Lord Cuckoo, is the hero of my “Lord Cuckoo Comes Home”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

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Tea with Doro

The Hampton Hotel, Harrogate

September, 1815

Doro Bigglesworth was rather startled when her employer, Horace Crowley, stopped by her office. Office may be too grand a word. Doro managed the kitchen and catering service bookkeeping from a windowless room no bigger than a linen closet.

“A guest wishes to see me?” Doro asked.

“Aye. One of the posh guests in the Grand Duchess Suite.” Crowley started to laugh. “Full fancy duchess she is with an entourage. She must think we’re all upper folk here. She called you Lady Dorothea. It was all I could do not to laugh! You best go see what the grand dame wants. Try to act a posh lady when you do.” He left chuckling.

Doro’s heart sank. She kept her title to herself here. Socially prominent guests would be horrified at an earl’s daughter working for wages. Worse, Crowley and the other staff would treat her as an oddity. She’d lose their comradery or, worse, find herself unemployed.

A young woman, wearing a plain but well-made afternoon dress, opened the door to Doro’s knock.

“I’m, ah, Dorothea Bigglesworth. Someone wishes to see me?” she asked, hoping it was a mistake.

“Thank you for coming, my lady. Her Grace will be pleased.” Before Doro could think, deny, or react, the woman showed her into a sitting room, and she was confronted by one of the most powerful women in Britain. The Duchess of Haverford smiled across at her.

The duchess appeared much as she had six years before when they had met at a house party. She had the inherent dignity of a duchess and the profound beauty of a woman whose character and bone structure combined to allow her to age well. Their encounter had been brief, and Doro couldn’t imagine what this august person might want with her.

“It is you, Dorothea! I was certain I recognized you working in the dining room this morning, but I feared my memory might be faulty.”

Doro sighed. Most people saw what they expected to see and would have seen only a hotel employee. Her Grace was sharper than most.

“Please come and sit with me for a while. I suspect you have a story to tell, and I’d like to hear it.” The duchess glanced at her companion, who bowed out and promised tea. Doro doubted she would be there long enough for it to come up from the kitchens, but she sat across from Her Grace as requested.

“This hotel is charming, but it must be fine indeed if it can manage to include an earl’s daughter among its employees,” the duchess said, sympathy and curiosity radiating from her expression in equal measure.

“They don’t know about my status, Your Grace. My employer didn’t believe the message. He assumed you were mistaken, and I would prefer to keep it that way,” Doro said. “I know what I’m doing isn’t the done thing, but I want neither pity nor scorn, and most people—”

“I am not most people, and I have no doubt you have your reasons. Dare I ask you to share them with me?” the older woman asked.

Tea appeared miraculously from somewhere in the suite, along with some rather lovely biscuits. If Doro hadn’t been so distressed, she might have asked the source and the recipe.

“I’m not the dragon many call me, Dorothea. If you are in distress, perhaps I could help.”

The sympathy, the tea, and some magic all the duchess’s own, soon had Doro spilling out her heart. The entire haut ton must know about her father’s death, his lack of an heir, his five wives in succession, and his overabundance of daughters. The rest, too embarrassing to bandy about, had been less well known. She explained about the lack of provision in her father’s will, her distant cousin’s rapid seizing of her childhood home, and his vile wife’s treatment of Patience, her stepmother and good friend.

“All of you? Living in a tiny cottage in Starbrook?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Patience has a toddler and two half-grown stepdaughters to raise. Most of my sisters live there still, but we have all tried to fend for ourselves, and, where possible, send her money to help with expenses.” Doro leaned forward urgently. “Please know that I don’t mind it. I board here, freeing board and space. I rather like working. It gives me pride, and I love Patience. We’re all doing what we can.”

“You never wished for a come-out? Marriage? A home of your own?” The duchess asked.

“Once. Mourning followed by poverty made a Season impossible. That time has passed, however, and I am content.” She was. Doro sincerely meant it. Mostly. Except walking out with Mr. Clarke on her half days had allowed hope to creep in to her lonely heart. She saw no reason to share that bit of information.

The Duchess of Haverford appeared skeptical but was too generous to voice her doubts. She put down her teacup. “Thank you for sharing your situation. I’m not sure what I can do to help you or your stepmother, but know that I will keep you all in mind should an idea occur.” She raised a brow as a thought occurred. “Lady Patience is the cousin of Lady Rose St Aubyn is she not?”

Doro agreed that was true, but could see no way it mattered. The duchess brushed it aside.

“I regret I may have complicated your life, Dorothea. What will you tell your employer?”

Doro grinned. “I’ll tell him you discovered that The Hampton’s famous current buns were my doing and you wanted my recipe. I’ll tell him I refused. We can’t have Hampton’s treasures bandied about.”

The duchess laughed gleefully. “I admire your backbone, Dorothea Bigglesworth. You are a woman of strength and courage.”

Doro returned to her little cupboard with a song in her heart. The office may not be much, but it was her domain and she, Doro Bigglesworth, was a woman of strength.

Doro Bigglesworth is the heroine of Caroline Warfield’s  “Lady Dorothea’s Curate”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

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Tea with the Duke of Bourne

The Duke of Bourne had the usual arrogance of his rank—bred in the bone and trained from the cradle, but he also had excellent manners. When they chanced upon one another in Miss Clemens bookstore, Eleanor invited him to take tea with her so that she could ask after his aunt and his sister. He agreed immediately and without any visible signs of racking his brains to think of an urgent engagement elsewhere.

He was also very happy to talk about his women folk. “Lady Philidia is well, Your Grace. She is staying with friends in the country at the  moment. We both miss Clarissa while she is away at school in Yorkshire, but my aunt most of all, perhaps. They are very close.”

“My regards to her when you next speak, Bourne. And how is Lady Clarissa?”

“My sister seems to be enjoying her school, at least as far as I can tell from her letters. I plan to open our estate up there for Christmastide, so we can enjoy the holiday together. I shall tell her you ask after her.”

“Do that, Bourne. And let her know that Frances is still talking about the fortnight they spent together at the Chirburys in the summer.” Eleanor chuckled. “Seven girls, all on the verge of putting away their childhood and beginning to explore stepping into their future role as young ladies! I quite understand my niece’s motivations in suggesting the house party, for they will already have friends when they face their first season, but I imagine keeping their feet on the ground and their high spirits under control was quite a challenge.”

“Clarissa will have friends from school, too,” Bourne agreed. “Not that I wish to think of her on the marriage mart, ma’am. To me, she is still my sweet little sister.”

“And so she always will be,” Eleanor told him. Her eyes twinkled. “Perhaps you should think of marrying, Bourne. A wife would be a huge boon when it comes to your sister’s debut. You would be able to leave her and Lady Philidia to be her guard dogs while you retire to the card room with the rest of the gentlemen.”

Bourne actually paled. “An interesting idea, Your Grace,” he managed to say. Which, interpreted, meant, “Over my dead body, you interfering old biddy.”

Eleanor smiled and offered him another cup of tea.

The Duke of Bourne is the hero of Meara Platt’s  “A Duke for Josefina”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

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Tea with Lord Cranfield

Richard’s cravat was too tight. It had been perfectly fine when his valet tied it, but somewhere between his townhouse and this encounter with the Duchess of Haverford, it had shrunk. To be precise, it had shrunk at that moment Her Grace caught sight of him and beckoned him to her side.

“Go and take a stroll around the room, dear,” she said to her companion. “I have been hoping for a private word with you, Lord Cranfield. Please sit.”

Richard obeyed. One did not refuse the Duchess. Besides, he rather liked the old lady, at least in part because his mother and father could not stand her.

“Will you have tea?” she asked. In this vast room, all the refreshments were being served buffet style at one end of the room and most of the guests clustered at that end. Her Grace of Haverford sat at the other end and had somehow secured a table with a pot of tea, a plate of savouries, and another of sweet cakes.

“Yes, please,” Richard said, thinking it would be good to have something to do with his hands.

She asked how he preferred it, made it for him, and served it, also passing him a plate and inviting him to help himself.

He was taking his first sip when she said, “I have been told, Cranfield, that your parents are sending you to York to find a husband for your sister and a wife for yourself.”

Richard managed not to spray tea all over his lap, but it was a near thing. “How did you…? Never mind.”

“Never mind, indeed.” Her smile was kindly. “Good luck with your quest, my dear. I just wanted to give you a piece of advice, based on my experience. Your sister is a wise woman. She has refused to marry for a title and wealth, as your parents wanted. She is waiting for someone she can respect; someone who respects her.”

“She is waiting for love,” Richard corrected, wondering how the duchess came by her information.

She nodded at his remark. “I know you are a loving brother, and I trust you to honour her choices. I just wanted to tell you that she is right to be careful, Cranfield. Marriage is for a lifetime.  I know you think I am an interfering old woman, and perhaps you are right. But I have observed many marriages over my lifetime.” She leaned forward to emphasise her point. “People think that women have the most to lose when a marriage turns sour, and they are right. But men lose, too. Choose wisely, my dear. Choose someone who can be your partner in life’s adventures, your friend and companion.”

She sat back. “There. That is my lecture done for the day. Finish your tea, dear boy. Or don’t, if you are anxious to escape. I will not be offended.”

Richard, relieved of the threat of more advice, relaxed. “Your son Haverford seems happy in his marriage,” he observed. Now that his cravat had loosened, perhaps he would have a savoury.

Richard, Viscount Cranfield is the hero of Sherry Ewing’s “A Countess to Remember”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication.

 

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Tea with a daughter-in-law

Another excerpt post from Paradise At Last, published this week as part of Paradise Triptych. Eleanor has a heart to heart with Cherry, the new Duchess of Haverford.

They took tea one afternoon in the little parlour Cherry had made her own. The previous evening Haverford had escorted them both to a formal dinner, with dancing afterwards, at the home of Lord Henry’s daughter Susan.

“You will be able to take up the work again, now that you are feeling more energetic,” Eleanor told her daughter-in-law. “I’m very happy to hand it all back to you, or to continue with some of it. You must just tell me what you need.”

“We shall see,” Cherry commented. “I expect I will need your help later in the year. You have guessed have you not?”

Eleanor acknowledged the truth of that with a smile and a nod.

“I thought so. You have not fussed over me as much as Anthony, but you are always there with a snack or a drink when I need it, and always ready to take over when a nap overwhelms me.” She put a hand over Eleanor’s and squeezed. “You and Mother are the only ones to know, apart from Anthony.”

“And, I imagine, your dresser,” Eleanor joked. “It is hard to keep such a secret from one’s maid.”

It was Cherry’s turn to smile and nod.

“Dearest, I could not be more thrilled,” Eleanor said. “And not because of that nonsense about an heir to the Haverford duchy. I have seen enough of you together to know that the love you bear one another is far more important than who carries on the title after we are all gone. But you deserve the little blessing you carry. You and my son will be wonderful parents.”

Cherry burst into tears. “Excuse me, Aunt Eleanor. I seem to have little control over my emotions at the moment.” She put her arms around Eleanor and Eleanor hugged her back, then offered a handkerchief so she could dry her eyes.

“And what of you?” Cherry asked. “I always thought you and Uncle James would make a match of it after the old duke died. We would all be so pleased. Can you not talk to him, Aunt Eleanor?”

Eleanor shook her head. “I expect you know what he thinks of me. Sarah was there when he found out what I had done. I cannot even blame him for it, for I was wrong.”

Cherry made an impatient noise. “And I suppose he has never made a mistake in his life? To throw away all of your history and the friendship you have found in the last few years—surely he is not so foolish.”

Eleanor sighed. “Shall we talk about something else, my dear? What dreadful weather we are having.”

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Tea with Cherry

“How was your trip to York, Cherry?” Eleanor, Her Grace of Winshire asked Charlotte,  Her Grace of Haverford, as she handed her daughter-in-law a cup of tea, made just the way she liked it, with a spoonful of cream and a small drizzle of honey.

“Delightful,” Cherry replied. “I understand why Anthony loves spending time on his yacht. The freedom, the sea air, the sense that we might be able to sail anywhere we please.” She laughed. “The knowledge that the door knocker won’t announce unexpected callers, and that a message will not arrive with an urgent summons to Clarence House.”

Eleanor nodded and agreed, though she privately thought that the kind of unexpected visitors who might invite themselves aboard at sea were somewhat more troublesome than a garrulous vicar or a gossip-seeking harridan. “I’m glad the weather stayed pleasant for you. And what of the wedding?”

Cherry laughed again. “That was fun, too. Lord Diomedes is a charming man and I found Lady Diomedes clever and delightful. Pretty, too, though not in the common way. The newlyweds are clearly deeply in love, and it was amusing to see Anthony competing with the Marquess of Pevenwood for most supportive half-brother. Apparently the Pevenwood side has only recently learned that it was their father who cut the connection, not Lord Diomedes himself. The two brothers came to York to find him, and then didn’t know how to approach him, so kept wandering in and out of social events for weeks, hoping to bump into him by accident.”

“Men can be duffers,” Eleanor remarked.

Cherry smiled and nodded. “So Pevenwood was anxious to make some magnificent gesture to show how pleased he was to have his brother back again, and Anthony was just as determined to show that the Haverford connection had an equal claim to flamboyant gestures. ”

Eleanor snorted. “Men,” she repeated.

“It all worked out in the end, and the bride and groom are very happy.”

Cherry is reporting on the wedding of Dom Finchley and Chloe Tavistock, from my story Lord Cuckoo Comes Home, out in the anthology Desperate Daughters on 8th May. The anthology has nine stories, all centred around the York Season and the daughters and other family connections of the dowager Countess of Seahaven.

See more about Lord Cuckoo Comes Home

See more about Desperate Daughters

Order Desperate Daughters at the preorder price of only 99c

 

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Tea with a lover

Eleanor kept peeking at her lover over the rim of her tea cup.  Strictly speaking, she supposed, he was her betrothed. Certainly, he had stated his intention to marry her. It had been thrilling, at the time.

“I want to take you back to the townhouse you have rented, lock all the doors, take you to bed, and show you those young people at the farmhouse had no expertise in what they were doing. And after that, I want to marry you, make you my duchess, and spend the rest of my life loving you.”

She supposed, in accepting his invitation, she had replied, in a way. She would be his wife and his duchess soon. But meanwhile, she had taken a lover for the first time in her life, and she intended to enjoy the naughtiness of it.

“A penny for your thoughts, my love,” James said.

Eleanor felt the heat rise. She must be bright scarlet. She had been thinking about precisely how naughty James had been when he took her to bed not three hours ago.

She had been nervous, and no wonder. Though she had been a wife for thirty-six years and had given birth to two sons, both now adults, she knew next to nothing about bed sports. Just what she had picked up from the gossip of wives who had been more fortunate than she. Since Haverford appeared to have no trouble attracting women of every class, she had always wondered if some sort of a lack in her caused his perfunctory attention to bedding her, as if it was a tedious duty to be completed as quickly as possible.

“I don’t know what to do,” she had told James, shyly, as he helped her out of her clothing. He was kissing her back, going lower with each button opened, and there were a lot of buttons. But at her comment, he stopped. “Anything you wish, Eleanor,” he said.

“But I don’t know what to wish,” she objected, annoyed at herself for her own ignorance. She should have asked more questions when the conversation turned risque, instead of reminding those present that they were ladies by introducing another topic of conversation.

James turned her in his arms so that she was facing him. He had removed his outer clothing, and his shirt gaped at the neck. She stared at a patch of dark chest hair, wondering if it would be soft or wiry to the touch.

“Tell me what troubles you, my love. If you wish, we can wait until we are wed.”

For pique at his obtuseness, and to distract him, she almost reminded him that he had not proposed and she had not accepted. But that was hardly relevant to her dilemma. “I want us to be lovers, James. Now. Today, that is. But I have never done this before. Haverford never…” She took a deep breath and shut her eyes so that she did not have to seem him. That made it easier to explain. “In my marriage, I waited in bed. He visited. He pulled back the sheets, climbed on top, pushed himself into me, heaved a few times until he was done, and then left. I know there is more, and I trust you to show me, but James!” Her voice rose into a wail. “You have to tell me what to do!”

His voice was strained when he replied. “Give me a minute, beloved. I am fighting the urge to mount horse immediately, ride to Kent, fetch your husband out of his tomb, and kill him again.”

Her eyes flew open. Her lover’s face looked as if it had been hewn from granite, and his eyes blazed. His anger reassured her. James didn’t believe that her dismal experience of marital relations had been her fault. “A better revenge, I suspect, would be to thoroughly tup his wife.”

He laughed at that. “True. And show her the many ways that our bodies can give one another pleasure. Let me take you to Heaven, Eleanor. You don’t need to do a thing, but anything that occurs to you is good, too. Do whatever pleases you. And if anything I do does not please you, then tell me, and I will stop.”

It had worked. And it proved to be true that a man of his age had stamina and staying power. She smiled at her lover as she recalled her three occasions of pure bliss before he found his own completion.  “I was thinking that we should finish our tea then go back to bed and do it all again,” she said.

The proposition above is what James, the Duke of Winshire, said to Eleanor, the Duchess of Haverford, towards the end of Paradise At Last. Come on! It’s hardly a spoiler. You knew they were going to end up together, but what a journey they had to get there! Between the end of the last chapter of that book and the Epilogue that follows (a letter to her son who is on holiday in Europe), they clearly followed through on James’s suggestion, but I don’t show that in the book. So here is part of that scene. I left the bedroom door shut for the crucial part, because Eleanor is, after all, a lady and little shy about such things. Except, as it turns out, with James.

Paradise At Last is being published on March 15th, as part of Paradise Triptych, and is available on preorder.  Order now on https://books2read.com/Triptych

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Tea with Miranda

Miss Miranda de Courtenay squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and entered the parlor of the Duchess of Haverford. This wasn’t the first time she had been introduced to Her Grace nor was this the first time she had been in the Haverford household.

Brief glimpses of memory flashed quickly across her mind. Miranda’s stupid bet with her sister Grace had almost been Miranda’s ruin at Hollystone Hall. Of course, Miranda could look back on it now and be thankful she had left the manor still a virgin. She should have never set her caps so high as to actually think she could get the Marquis of Aldridge to propose marriage to a girl of her inexperience and young years. Her bet had been destined to fail from the start.

The duchess was sitting near a window where the sunbeams seemed to float into the room. A tea trolly was near at hand. Miranda gave her best curtsey still curious as to why she had been requested to join the duchess for tea. The reason did not matter in the least. When the Duchess of Haverford summoned you, it was best that you present yourself post haste!

“Miss de Courtenay. A pleasure to see you again. Please take a seat and let me pour you a cup of tea,” the duchess said politely.

“You are too kind, Your Grace,” Miranda murmured taking the china cup and taking a sip of the tea that she hoped would calm her overly active nerves.

The duchess took her time assessing her before she spoke. “You must be wondering why I asked you to join me here today.”

Miranda’s cup rattled on the saucer before she put the tea down on a nearby table. “It has crossed my mind a time or two.”

“I am not here to discuss your past… indiscretions,” the duchess began.

“Your Grace, I—”

“There is no need for you to explain, my dear. I am only concerned that going forward you shall remain wary of putting yourself into situations that could once more be the ruin of your reputation.”

Miranda attempted not to fidget in her chair. “Your Grace is all too kind to be concerned for me. However, I assure you that with my brother and sister having me live at their estates in the country, there are have been no further opportunities to… get myself into trouble.”

The duchess’s brow rose. “Your quest for a title gentleman is well known within Society. Living in London or the country and knowing you as I do, I have no doubt that trouble shall follow you if you continue on your current course of finding yourself wed to nobility. Do not be so foolish as to put yourself in another situation as you did at Hollystone Hall.”

Miranda gulped at the horrible reminder of what Aldridge and Gren had proposed; to be a shared mistress between them. God forbid if she ever found herself in such a circumstance again.

“I assure you, Your Grace, that I have learned my lesson well,” Miranda answered quietly.

“Splendid!” the duchess declared. “Now tell me of Bath and how your family has been fairing since I have last seen them.”

Miranda began filling in the duchess on the mundane matters of living in the country. Before long, her audience with the Duchess of Haverford was at an end. Somehow, Miranda had survived the meeting. She couldn’t leave fast enough and for once, looked forward to returning home to the boring routine her life had become.

Did you think you knew Miranda de Courtney? Jude’s review of Before I Found You

I’m so pleased Sherry Ewing has finally given Miranda her match in Before I Found You. Miranda made her first appearance in A Kiss for Charity, in which her older sister was the heroine. With her determination to garner herself a title, and her foolhardy boldness in picking my Marquis of Aldridge as a target, she certainly attracted my attention. The lesson she received from Aldridge and his brother Gren didn’t take. In The Earl Takes a Wife, she is up to her old tricks. This time, her machinations trap her brother and her best friend into a forced marriage.

How was Sherry going to make her a sympathetic character, so that we readers wanted her to succeed? The answer is given in Before I Found You. All I can say is that Jasper at first seems better than she deserves. But he sees her as she is, and she becomes the woman he thinks her. A beautiful love story, and one I strongly recommend.

Before I Found You

Miss Miranda de Courtenay has only one goal in life: to find a rich husband who can change her status from Miss to My Lady. But when a handsome stranger crosses her path at a Valentine’s Day ball, her obsession with titles dims. Might love be enough?

Captain Jasper Rousseau has no plans to become infatuated during a chance encounter at a ball. He has a new ship to run, passengers to book, and cargo to deliver. But one look into a young lady’s beautiful hazel eyes, and he becomes lost. Does love at first sight really exist?

Their paths continue to cross until they are both stranded in Fenwick on Sea. Their growing connection is hard to dismiss, despite Miranda’s childish quest for a title at all cost. But what if the cost includes love?

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/4XDrva