Plot devices on WIP Wednesday
How did my goose girl equivalent come to be looking after sheep in the grounds of the castle of his betrothed? Amnesia seemed unlikely. And the goose girl trope of the thieving maid stealing her identity didn’t make sense to me, in a Regency context. (Though I’ve found a use for it.) So I have influenza, a snowstorm or avalanche, and a young man who doesn’t like fuss. This is how The Sincerest Flattery begins. (Don’t you love the cover?)
“Ride on ahead, Tris,” Percy begged. “Let them know I have been delayed.” At least, that is what he intended to say, though his stuffed up nose and raw throat garbled the words.
His brother apparently understood, for he shook his head. “I shouldn’t leave you, Percy. I won’t leave you, at least until after I’ve spoken with the physician.”
“Can’t keep a lady waiting,” Percy insisted, but he might have saved himself the trouble. Tris might be ten months his junior, and mostly content to go along with his old brother’s plans and schemes, but when he dug his toes in, there was no moving him.
A knock on the door. Perhaps it was the physician? It was the innkeeper’s wife, with a tray. “Some chicken soup for the young lord,” she offered.
Percy didn’t want food, but Tris insisted that he would recover more quickly if he kept up his strength. So he succumbed to having his pillows plumped so that he could sit up, at least enough to have the tray put on the bed.
But his head hurt to much to lift it, and the spoon felt as if it was made of steel and ten times the size. In the end, Tris fed him, a spoonful at a time, until he covered his mouth after the sixth spoonful. “Enough. Let me lie down, Tris. There’s a good chap.”
The innkeeper’s wife, who was hovering, asked, “Did you understand him, my lord?”
“He has had enough, and wants to lie back down,” Tris explained. “I daresay your head hurts, old chap.” He had picked up the tray and handed it the woman, and was supporting Percy with one arm, while rearranging the pillows with the other. “You should let me stay and nurse you, Percy.”
Percy shook his head, a slow and tiny movement from side to side, so as not to burst his pounding head right open.
“Are you twins, my lord?” the innkeeper’s wife asked, as people often did. They were not identical, but they looked very alike. It was an impertinent question, but Tris lacked the arrogance to give her rebuke any of the other Verseys would have offered. It was one of the things they all loved about Tris.
“We are not,” he said.
Another knock on the door, and this time it was the physician. Tris hustled the innkeeper’s wife away and fetched Martin while the doctor did his examination. That was a relief. If he had brought Martin to listen to instructions for Percy’s care, then Tris intended to follow his brother’s instructions.
This was a journey to meet the girl to whom Percy was betrothed. It would be rude to keep Lady Aurelia waiting, and Percy could already tell—was unsurprised to hear the physician telling his brother—that he would be a week or more in bed with this wretched cold.
This ague, rather, which is what the doctor called it. It didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did except for the wretched head, the throat, the blocked nose, the cough that seemed to twist his ribs inside his chest and tear his muscles.
The doctor droned on, and Percy heard bits and pieces in between bouts of coughing and musings about Lady Aurelia. Her miniature was pretty. His father had met her and said she was a comely chit. She had never had a Season, but then she was only seventeen, just a few months younger than Tris.
Their parents had signed the marriage agreements. The wedding was to be in six months. No one seemed to think it necessary for the two principals to the marriage to actually meet before they gathered in the church to be made man and wife.
Still, when Percy came up with the scheme to ride north and introduce himself to the lady and her family, the duke his father did not object. All he said was, “Comport yourself like a Versey, xxxtitlexxx. And take young Tris with you.”
Of course, that didn’t prevent his father from organising their travel, complete with a train of carriages branded with the crests of the Duke of Dellborough and full of servants. Percy and Tris abandoned them on the first day out from home. So here they were, travelling on horseback with just Martin to attend them, a couple of days behind the letter announcing their visit and at least four days ahead of the carriages with the rest of their servants and luggage.
The doctor had apparently finished, and was turning back to Percy. “Rest, Lord xxx. That’s the best—the only possibly medicine. I have left instructions for various ways to soothe your symptoms, but sleep is what you need more than anything.”
He left, taking the innkeeper’s wife with him. Tris took Percy’s hand and looked into his eyes, worried. “I do not want to leave you,” he said.
Percy squeezed Tris’s hand. “Lady Aurelia,” he said, though it sounded more like “Laay Aweia.”
Tris sighed. “Yes, I know.”
“I will look after Lord xxxtitlexxx,” Martin assured Tris.
Still Tris stayed, supervising the administration of the potion the doctor had ordered, which contained something in it that soothed the throat and sent Percy into the prescribed sleep. Next time he surfaced, Tris wasn’t there, which was a good thing, but Percy could not remember why. It was a woman who spooned stuff down his throat—chicken soup and some more of the potion. He thought she washed his face, too, but he was sinking back into sleep, his last thought as he succumbed, “The innkeeper’s wife!” Yes. That was who she was.
***
Aurrie was the first to see the man as he came up the drive, hunched over his horse’s neck. It was a beautiful piece of bloodstock. That was her first impression, her eyes drawn to the horse ahead of the gentleman.
He was a gentleman, as witnessed by the greatcoat he wore against the cold bearing five capes and the top hat that he retained on his head despite his collapsed position. Was he hurt? She cut across the lawn while the horse followed the curve of the drive, and reached the arch to the stableyard just before the rider.
He had managed to draw himself up. His face was hectic with fever and his eyes looked through her without seeing her.
“Sir,” she called out, and for a moment his eyes focused on hers. “Lady Aurelia,” he said, clearly. “Profound apologies…” And then his eyes rolled back and he slumped again, this time so fully that the top hat finally fell.
NOTE: I don’t appear to have referenced Percy’s heir by title in the books where he has been mentioned, so I’ll have to think of one for the heir to the Dellborough dukedom. My first drafts can be fairly messy
Spotlight on Dragonblade Historical Recipe Cookbook
New Release 20th November
There is a saying – the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and no one understands that better than romance writers. If there’s a way to a man’s heart – they’ll find it!
Welcome to a cookbook inspired by historical recipes.
Every era, and every civilization, had their own recipes based on available ingredients, regional tastes, and more. At the dawn of time, food was meant for survival, but as the ages passed, food also became an artform… or a sign of wealth… or even a message of love. Because what winsome lass wouldn’t produce something warm and filling for the man she loves?
Look for my recipes, all collected by Victorian or Edwardian ancestresses.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dragonblades-Historical-Recipe-Cookbook-favorite-ebook/dp/B0C7DT5HHM
Villainous actions on WIP Wednesday
Do you intend to deprive me of all comforts?” Spen asked his father, to prolong the conversation and keep his father’s attention from the window.
“I intend to do everything necessary to bend you to my will, you ungrateful scoundrel,” the marquess replied. “Where is your brother?”
“How would I know?” Spen asked. “He was here when I was locked up. He was sent home with a broken arm. Has he gone back to school? Home to Rosewood Towers?” He couldn’t help the scorn that colored his voice
He braced himself as his father swung a hand back for a blow, but one of the servants shouted. “There are ropes my lord. I think it’s a ladder.”
“Haul it up and look, man,” the marquess scolded.
“I cannot, my lord. Someone is on it.”
The marquess strode to the window, his eyes narrowed. “Coming up or going down? But why? Ah! I see.” He grabbed the loose bar and pulled it out, then stuck his head through the gap to look down the tower wall.
Spen managed two paces towards the marquess before men grabbed him and dragged him backwards again.
“It’s a boy,” the marquess was saying, sounding bewildered, then chortling, “No, a girl dressed as a boy.” He pulled his head back and glee in his eyes as he said, “and I think I know her name.” He held out his hand. “Someone. Pass me a knife.”
“No!” Spen shouted as he struggled, but the two men holding him didn’t let go. “No, my lord. Don’t do it!”
The marquess managed to get one arm and his head out the window. Spen could see him sawing back and forth as he continued to speak. “Did you think I would not hear Milton has interfered with justice for that trespasser who was spying for your little slut?”
He snorted. “The magistrate had the nerve to tell me I could not have had him hanged or transported for his villainy, and my imprisonment of the man was punishment enough. My illegal imprisonment! Can you believe it? Who does the magistrate think he is? Ah.” A shriek from below, short and sharp, coincided with the marquess’s sigh of satisfaction.
He moved to the second rope, and Spen imagined Cordelia clinging to the rungs as the ladder, collapsed with one of its uprights gone, twisted and turned. “Don’t,” he moaned.
“What do I find when I stopped at the village inn on my way here,” the marquis went on, “but the magistrate with Milton’s solicitor, and both of them demanded to know what I have done with Milton’s niece. I told them I did not know what they were talking about. Now, of course, I do.”
He pulled back again, to grin at Spen. “Three quarters cut through. Let us leave the bitch’s destiny to fate, shall we? If the rope holds, she spins for a while until I feel like sending someone to retrieve her. If the rope breaks, she dies.”
Another scream came as he finished speaking. The marquess looked out of the window again. “Oops,” he said. His grin was wider as he turned back into the room. “Well, my son. It seems your impediment to the marriage I wish is no longer a problem.”
***
This scene comes from my reimagining of Rapanzel, Weave Me a Rope. It’s with the publisher, and I’ll let you know as soon as I have a publication date.
Tea with a worried son
Eleanor knew the signs. Anthony was worried about something. (She was so pleased that he had agreed to allow her to call him by his first name. He had been Aldridge since he was a babe in the cradle, but it made her stomach ache to call him Haverford, which was the proper way to address him, now. Haverford — her son’s father and her husband for nearly forty years — had always insisted on the formal address, and to address the son she loved by the title of the man she ha… that she did not love would be unpleasant, to say the least.)
Fortunately, Anthony and Cherry, his wife, were not keen on such formality when family were alone, so she could save the hated title for formal occasions, and even then found ways to address her beloved son without naming him. No doubt, in time, the memories would fade. Should she be fortunate enough to live long enough, Haverford past would be forgotten, and Haverford present would own the name, even in the mind of his predecessor’s widow.
Which was not to the point, but she was doing her best not to question the dear man, and thinking about something else was helping. She offered him another cup of tea, but he shook his head. He did take another shortbread biscuit. Anthony was very fond of shortbread the way the Scots made it. “Mama,” he said, as soon as he had swallowed, “did you know the Earl of Beckworth and his younger brother, Benjamin Famberwold?
“Yes, my dear,” Eleanor was pleased to be able to reply. “An unconscionable pair of rakehells. Even worse than your father, who at least felt a sense of duty to his estates and his country. That pair of reprobates cared for nothing and no one except their own pleasure. There were a number of very unpleasant incidents with innocent girls. No one was safe from them. They were, if you can believe it, worse than Richport, for he at least leaves innocent ladies alone, mostly.”
She frowned, slightly. “Although, perhaps I am being unfair. As I remember it, the younger one had a religious conversion, and convinced his brother to give up his evil ways. They retired to the country to live godly lives, or so we have been told. Certainly, I have not heard a word from them since. Except…” she paused to catch the elusive thought she had glimpsed from, as it were, the corner of her mind’s eye. “That’s it. Beckworth took a wife to the country, and has remarried twice since. Country marriages, I believe. A baronet’s daughter, and the spinster daughter of a viscount.” She frowned, and then brought the rest of the thought to the surface. “A lady in her thirties who had had a single Season in Town, where she did not take. I have heard of no children. Does that help, dearest?”
“It is of interest, Mama. It seems that the religious conversion was not to anything resembling Christianity, and the earl’s lack of children has been countered by a multitude belonging to his brother, who had more than fifty wives, many of them at the same time. I’m telling you in the strictest confidence, of course. We are trying to untangle the legal and moral mess, which also includes depravities I have no intention discussing with my mother, up to and including wholesale murder. Beckworth was in it up to his eyeballs, but the new Beckworth, whomever he may be, does not deserve to have his father’s and uncle’s scandals hanging over his head, and nor does Beckworth’s widow.”
Eleanor nodded her agreement. “Both brothers are dead,” she deduced.
Anthony nodded. “the Famberwolds made the mistake of tangling with one of Lion’s Zoo,” he said.
The former Aldridge, now the Duke of Haverford, is on a Parliamentary committee making enquiries into the scandalous goings on at a village called Heaven, a month or two after the events covered in The Darkness Within, Book 4 in Lion’s Zoo, planned for publication in December 2023
Backlist Spotlight on A Baron for Becky
A fallen woman, she dreams of landing on her feet. Unexpected news brings a chance at a new life, but past wounds may destroy her and the man she loves
Becky is the envy of the courtesans of the demi-monde — the indulged mistress of the wealthy and charismatic Marquis of Aldridge. But she dreams of a normal life; one in which her daughter can have a future that does not depend on beauty, sex, and the whims of a man.
Finding herself with child, she hesitates to tell Aldridge. Will he cast her off, send her away, or keep her and condemn another child to this uncertain shadow world?
The devil-may-care face Hugh shows to the world hides a desperate sorrow; a sorrow he tries to drown with drink and riotous living. His years at war haunt him, but even more, he doesn’t want to think about the illness that robbed him of the ability to father a son. When he dies, his barony will die with him. His title will fall into abeyance, and his estate will be scooped up by the Crown.
When Aldridge surprises them both with a daring proposition, they do not expect love to be part of the bargain.
Who succeeds the earl (or any other peer)?
Highclere Castle, country seat of the Earls of Carnarvon
One error that always rips me right out of a story is the idea that a Regency era peer can pick someone to succeed him — disinherit one son and promote another, pass the title on to an illegitimate son, or repudiate a son who has been accepted as his own.
Who succeeds to a peerage is set out in the documents that established the peerage. In most cases, the wording is “heirs male of the body”. What that means is the peer’s oldest surviving legitimate son inherits the peerage.
And by eldest legitimate son, we mean the eldest son born within the marriage. If the peer has three sons by his mistress and then marries her and has a fourth, the fourth son inherits. The other three are not legitimate. If the eldest surviving boy born within the marriage was the result of the wife having an affair with another man, but the peer accepts the boy as his own, then that the boy is the eldest legitimate son.
And he pretty much had to accept the boy as his own. The law assumed that any child born within a marriage was the child of the husband, unless the father could prove otherwise. That was not simply a matter of denying responsibility, he had to produce evidence that the child could not be his; for example, that he was in another country for the entire period in which conception was possible.
Both men marrying their mistresses and sons of other fathers inherited in real life and the same circumstances are found in Regency fiction.
The peer has no choice about this. He can refuse to leave the heir any property that is not entailed to the title, he can run the entailed property down so that it isn’t worth anything, he can throw the heir out of the house and not speak to him for the reminder of his own life. But once he dies, the heir gets the title (and any entailed lands).
A bold move in WIP Wednesday
I do like a bold lady–one who decides what she wants and goes for it. That’s Laurel, my heroine in Hook, Lyon and Sinker, which I’m currently writing for publication next year. Not that she has always stood up for herself. She had allowed first her betrothed, then her father, then her mother to talk her into maintaining her betrothal, despite the number of times the man who promised to marry her changes his mind about the date. No more! She has given him the shove and is about to arrange her own marriage.
Mrs Dove Lyon was not as Laurel had imagined her. Laurel had expected someone garishly painted and indiscreetly clad in gaudy colours. After all, she ran a gambling establishment which also offered other sorts of entertainment of the most scandalous kind.
The person who joined Laurel was clothed all in black and veiled. Her garb would not have looked out of place on the most dignified of Society’s fashionable matrons, and was far less revealing than many gowns worn by such august ladies. Her language and carriage too, as she invited Laurel to sit and asked her preference for beverage, were those of a lady.
The knowledge comforted Laurel. Perhaps this desperate scheme might work after all.
Once Laurel had her tea, Mrs Dove Lyon came directly to the point, without any polite roundabation. “Why have you asked to see me, my lady? Do you wish for me to find you a husband?”
Blunt and to the point. Also surprising, for Laurel had agreed to Benjamin’s request that the broken betrothal should not be made public just yet. Laurel thought he wanted to give Tiber time to talk Laurel into reversing her decision, as she had last time, but it suited her to keep the gossips at bay for a week or so.
Her hostess must have guessed at her thoughts, because she said, “Lord Tiberius was here last night, and he is indiscreet when in his cups. Most of the gentlemen present will now be spreading the news that you have jilted him. Mind you, this is to your advantage, for he was bemoaning his own stupidity in putting off the wedding once again. And making it clear that his chiefest regret was losing your dowry.”
She deepened her voice and spoke again in a tone so reminiscent of Tiber’s that Laurel would have guessed she was quoting the dastard even if she hadn’t heard words very like them the previous afternoon.
“It’s not that I’m not fond of the lady. She is pretty enough and good company. I just never wanted to be married. If her dowry wasn’t so attractive, I’d never have proposed, and I’ve never needed her money enough to actually go through with the wedding. If only she was a placid biddable little thing. I could have planted my babe in her belly and then ignored her. But Laurel is too strong-minded for my tastes. Chaste, too. Never would let me steal more than a kiss, dammit. If she had, I could force her to have me. Still. I am going to miss her dowry.”
“Tiber has done me a favour, then,” Laurel realised. “He is wrong that I would marry him under any circumstances whatsoever, but at least he has made it clear that I am not…”
The other lady nodded. “Not used goods? Exactly. So your errand to me may be unnecessary, Lady Laureline. You can take your time and choose a husband in the usual way, since Lord Tiberius had taken all the blame to himself and by the end of the week all of Society will know that the pair of you did not avail yourself of the license usually extended to a betrothed couple.”
Not much license. Not when Tiber had been away from London on military duties for much of their betrothal and spent as little time with Laurel as he could when he was in London. Not when her father had insisted on her being as closely chaperoned after the betrothal agreement as she was before. Not, furthermore, when she had had doubts about the relationship for the past three years.
“You are free to go,” Mrs Dove Lyons insisted, “if that is what you wish.”
Laurel shook her head. “No,” she said. “It is not.”
Tea with Mrs Moriarty
This was not the first time that Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire, had sat down to afternoon tea with Mrs Moriarty. The young woman was the daughter of an excellent family, but had been ruined—by the rules of Society, at least—several times before she was out of her teens.
She had hidden in the slums to escape from the murderers of her parents. That was the first count against her. Eleanor had heard the cats among her peers saying, “Of course one cannot blame the child, but she survived on the streets for two years. Heaven knows what she did to feed herself. Any proper young lady would have been dead in a week.”
Eleanor, of course, admired Mrs Moriarty for her courage and her resilience.
The second mark on her copybook was her uncle, who had taken her from the slums and, instead of retrieving her reputation and seeing her reestablished in Society, had taken her to Spain to follow the army. Rumour had it she had been a spy and worse. Those who raked for scandal never worried about whether rumour was correct or an outright lie.
Then, when she turned up in London again this summer, she was somehow involved in a vast criminal enterprise. It did not matter to the gossips that she and her husband had been instrumental in bringing down said criminals. Ladies, they said, did not involve themselves with such things.
The final count to her demerit was that her husband was a commoner, a former street boy and current Supervisor with the Thames River Police. A wife took the status of her husband, and so Mrs Moriarty could safely be ignored.
Not by Eleanor, she could not. Eleanor found her to be an estimable young woman.
“Let me pour you a cup of tea, my dear,” she said to her guest, “and tell me more about your place for an agency of hired guards. Moriarty Protection, I think you said.”
Eleanor’s guest is the heroine of One Hour in Freedom, published yesterday.
Spotlight on One Hour in Freedom, published today
Book 3 in Lion’s Zoo
Once they meant everything to one another.
First, in London’s meanest streets and later in Spain facing Napoleon’s army, where betrayal and lies tore them apart. When the machinations of a criminal compel Ellie Nomikos to seek out Dan Moriarty, she doesn’t know what to expect.
With the mysterious King Nemesis circling for the kill, they must learn to trust one another again. Together, can they discover his identity and bring him to justice before he finds and kills the person most precious to them in the world?
The stakes could not be higher. Their love. Their lives. Their daughter.
Buy now: https://books2read.com/LionZooOHiF
Excerpt
The neutral expression Daniel habitually wore dropped for a moment to reveal surprise, then delight and lust, before he reimposed control over his features.
He stood to one side. “Ellie. Please come in.” The huskiness of his voice sent her body humming, as did his state of dress—or undress. He had wrapped a towel around his waist to open the door, but—apart from that scrap of fabric—he was naked.
She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and walked past him into the room.
“Give me a moment,” he demanded. He went behind a dressing screen. He is quite correct. We need to talk. Ellie took a deep breath and attempted to distract herself from her sudden lust by cataloguing the contents of the room. A bed. A couple of chairs by the fire, one of which had a half full glass on the little table beside it. She sat in the other chair, and continued her examination.
A clothes press. A side table under the window. Another by the door. Very similar to her own room, so probably a washstand and some pegs for clothes behind the dressing screen.
Daniel was there, too, presumably armouring himself against her lustful eyes by hiding his glorious chest and strong legs under clothing. But the sight was engraved on her eyeballs, and her efforts to think of something else were not working.
He emerged in a pair of trousers, with a shirt worn loose over the top. “Still undress,” he said, “but not quite as scandalous.”
“Not scandalous at all, under the circumstances,” she pointed out.
“Yes, but the household doesn’t know that, do they?” he argued. “Do you want a whisky, Ellie? Lion brings it down from Northumberland. They brew it in the hills there. He has his family seat up that way.”
“I have never tried whisky,” Ellie admitted. “Perhaps just a little. As to the scandal of my presence here, or not… that is one of the things I wanted to talk about.”