Proposals on WIP Wednesday

I have The Talons of a Lyon ready to go to Dragonblade, and am just waiting till the end of tomorrow in case the last beta reader has some comments. Meanwhile, I wanted to share with you Lance’s third proposal. He mucked up the first two.

“I asked Elaine for some time alone with you, Seraphina. Can you not guess why?”

“Oh,” she said, and to his dismay cast a longing glance at the door before abruptly sitting down on the nearest chair. “You mean to propose again.”

However hard he tried; he could not interpret her tone as encouraging. Nonetheless, he sank to one knee.

She leaned toward him, her hands up as if in protest. “You should not, Lance. You have done so much for me already. I cannot let you sacrifice your chances of a match with someone worthy of you.”

His surge of anger was not at her, but at all the people who had convinced her of her unworthiness, with her father and Lord Frogmore at the top of the list. “It is I who am not worthy of you, Seraphina. Your courage, your devotion to your family, your determination, your dignity—they humble me. As for sacrifice—the shoe is quite on the other foot, but I am more selfish than you. You could do much better than the left-over spare of a duke, whose brother has sons and a grandson to take his place. I’ve never achieved much in my life beyond good manners and a well-tied cravat. I don’t deserve you, but I am asking, anyway. If you will have me, I will be the best husband and father that I can.”

Seraphina stood to stamp one foot. “You shall not say such things. The left-over spare, indeed! No one could have done what you have done for me. Ever since you gave me hope that day in the park, you have always known exactly the right person to help me, and how to persuade them. If not for you, I would still be living in Pond Street, separated from my children, my reputation in ruins. I am so grateful, Lance. That is why I cannot take further advantage of your generosity.”

Lance felt like stamping his own foot. Might have, if he’d not still been on one knee. “Dammit, woman, I am not being generous. I love you.”

She sank back into her chair, one hand fluttering over her chest. “What did you say?”

He felt his cheeks heat. “I beg your pardon, Seraphina. Language unbecoming. I don’t know what came over me.”

She waved his apology away. “Not the curse, Lance. You said… did you really say you love me?” Tears trembled in her eyes, but she was smiling, almost glowing.

“I love you,” Lance repeated, hope almost choking the words. He swallowed hard and continued, “I cannot imagine facing the rest of my life without you. Will you marry me, Seraphina? Even if it is just because you need a guardian for your children, let it be me. I will ask nothing you are not prepared to give. Only the privilege of being your husband, of loving you.”

She slipped off her chair to kneel before him, slipping her hands into his. “I want to give you everything,” she told him. “I love you, Lance.”

“You will marry me?” Lance needed her to say the words, so he could start to believe them.

Her smile spread. “I will marry you.”

His eyes focused on her lips, turned up towards him, and his mouth lowered almost without his volition. “I am going to kiss you, my love,” he warned her.

Seraphina said nothing, but lifted her mouth to meet his.

Spotlight on Duke in All But Name

Duke in All But Name (Book 1 of The Entitled Gentlemen)

By Caroline Warfield

Secrets and lies threaten to pull them under, but a forced marriage may be their salvation.

Gideon Kendrick grew up as the despised bastard son of the Duke of Glenmoor. Exiled to the mines by his father, he has not only survived but thrived and prospered. He lives apart, wanting nothing to do with the duke, the estate—or anything in his past, except his younger brother Phillip, the new duke.

When Phillip disappears, leaving behind a letter asking his brother to care for his affairs, Gideon can’t refuse. Armed with authority making him the duke in all but name, he returns to the scene of his worst memories, facing vicious rumors and his family’s past. He also finds a grasping would-be heir, a steward with secrets, and a woman who stirs in him a desire he thought buried with his beloved wife.

Mia Selwyn lives in the shadows, an unwanted poor relation in the house of her viscount uncle. When her cousin’s hoydenish attempt to meet the supposed heir sees her drenched, ill, and in need of nursing, Mia is sent to care for her. Though warned to stay clear of the despised Kendrick, she is drawn into the dark undercurrents among the mismatched collection of residents and enthralled by the enigmatic Mr. Kendrick.

She quickly realizes he is not the monster he is rumored to be, twisted in body and mind. Instead, he is a resilient resourceful man with a deep love of family. As family, household servants, and villagers take sides on whether Gideon is the source of all the estate’s problems or its salvation, Mia and Gideon forge a partnership.

Together they struggle to unravel secrets and the tangle Phillip left behind, and in the process, find a future for themselves.

Buy now or read on KU: https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Name-Entitled-Gentlemen-Book-ebook/dp/B0BJS3GDN7/

My comment: Warfield goes from strength to strength. I loved Gideon in The Defiant Daughter, and I’m thrilled to see him with a heroine worthy of him. Every book that Warfield writes, I think she has created the best heroine yet, and now Mia! What can I say? Brilliant. Add Gideon’s gorgeous children–Warfield writes the best children in romance–and a couple of slimy villains. What more does one need for a happy afternoon inside a book? Buy and enjoy!

Tea with a new granddaughter

Outside of the nursery they may be the Duchess of Winshire and the Duchess of Haverford, but leaning over the ornate and much befrilled cot, Eleanor and her daughter-in-law were merely Grandmama and Mama.

“She is so beautiful, Cherry,” Eleanor exclaimed. “Look at the little darling.” Her voice slipped into the higher register that is natural to even the most dignified of ladies when speaking to a tiny infant. “Are you smiling? Are you smiling at your Grandmama? You are, Sally. Yes, you are.”

The baby, highly amused at the faces Eleanor was pulling, chortled.

“She is so precious,” Eleanor added.

The child’s mother was wearing a frown. “Anthony says that he does not mind that she is a girl,” she said.

“No more he should,” Eleanor replied, stoutly. The next words were cooed to the baby. “She is a little blessing, and he adores her from the tip of her sweet little toes to the dear little curls on her head.”

“He does.” Cherry sounded uncertain, and Eleanor dragged her attention from the dear little angel to focus on the mother.

“Cherry, he will has five nephews to be duke after him. He married you because he loves you, knowing the pair of you may never have children, and has never regretted his choice. He did not expect a child, and is over the moon with this one. Believe me. He is my son.He adores this little miracle, and would not change anything about her.”

Once, long ago, Eleanor had tried to talk Cherry out of accepting Haverford’s offer of marriage, knowing that Cherry had been told a disease had made her unlikely to carry to term, and being convinced her son would resent a barren wife.

She had been wrong. She had castigated herself many times for putting doubts in her beloved daughter-in-law’s mind, since they surfaced to torment Cherry every time a pregnancy failed.

“Come, darling,” she suggested, “let us send for a pot of tea and sit and talk. You shall tell me what is worrying you, and I shall rattle on about how happy we all are that Sally is a beautiful, healthy, little girl.”

She picked the baby up and cradled her in her arms. “You darling, darling child. You are going to be a heartbreaker, I can tell. Your father’s eyes and the curls your father cuts off lest anyone call him pretty! You shall be wooed by every nobleman in Great Britain. Yes, and Europe, too!”

That made Cherry laugh. “Her father swears that he will turn Catholic, just so that he can lock her up in a convent when she turns fifteen.”

Eleanor dropped a kiss on the little girl’s petal soft skin. “Do not you worry, Sally. Mama and Grandmama will make Papa behave.”

Just like clockwork

When I was a child, we used to go every December to Wellington to see the windows at Kircaldy and Stains, the big department store, where each window contained a different animated scene, which we had to follow in order, as they told a story. It was a different story each year, and to me as a child, they were beautiful, exciting, and an important part of Christmas. More recently, I took my grandchildren to see the same windows in the same shop. (My children did not grow up in Wellingon.)

The department store closed in 2016 after 152 years, but some of the automata live on at the Wellington Museum.

I’ve had simpler automata as toys. A monkey that played a drum when wound up. A ballerina that danced when a jewelery case was opened. Automata have always fascinated me.

Perhaps that’s why I have made the hero of the book I’ve just sent to beta the creator of clockwork automata. They were a sensation when they first appeared in the 17th century, and remained popular with wealthy collected and intrigued patrons throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. And, as I’ve just indicated, into the 20th, though from the Victorian age on, they tended to be powered rather than clockwork.

The history of mechanical figures goes back into legend and through various accounts of the last 2,500 years. Stories of moving statues, mechanical men, and automated birds who sang pop up in accounts from Ancient Greece and Biblical Judea, Persian and China, the Ottoman Empire, and other places. But we are concerned with Europe in the 18th and 19th century, where they were a sensation with wealthy collectors and influential patrons. Many even went on tour. The History of the Automaton Mechanical Miracles describes three by Pierre Jaquet-Drois, built between 1768 and 1774:

Each figure is 28 inches tall and performs a range of realistic actions. The draughtsman draws four different pictures, including a portrait of Vaucanson’s royal patron, Louis XV. The musician plays upon an organ, while the writer — made of more than 6,000 separate components — can be programmed to pen any message of 40 characters or fewer, making him in the eyes of many the true progenitor of the modern computerised android.

The three automata toured Europe for many decades, advertising the firm that built them, which prospered.

France remained a centre for automata building, moving to powered automata in the second half of the 19th century. Germany and Switzerland also had their great makers.

Clocktower automata like the one in my book are also know as glockenspiel, though the name refers to the instrument that makes the sound rather that the figures. As my hero says, it is made of bells or small pieces of metal struck be hammers. Not the one in Stratford in New Zealand, which is a town not far from where I’m writing this blog post. The town website says:

Since 1999, the clock tower has been entertaining passersby with a short Shakespearean performance four times a day.

Following the striking of the tower bells at 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., carved figures of Romeo and Juliet emerge from doors within the tower. As they do so, a recording begins of some of the most famous lines from the Balcony Scene, backed by some suitably Elizabethan music. Six different figures emerge in total (three of Romeo and three of Juliet) during the five-minute mechanized performance, with the last set standing hand in hand. The music plays throughout, with various lines from the play.

The music, along with the lines from the play, is piped out from a modern(ish) sound system. It is not played using a traditional carillon system of bells as found in more authentic towers of this type.

First meeting on WIP Wednesday

First meeting in the book, that is. They first met a decade earlier, and the picture he formed of her was not positive. When she turns up at his house seeking refuge, he suspects her of ulterior motives, and is certain she must be causing trouble. After fretting about it all morning, he goes to find them, sure they won’t have stayed in their room, as his housekeeper assured him they would.

He heard nothing in the house. No voices, no movement. Down the main central passage he went, from one end of the main wing to the other, and then up the branch passage that led to the other tower.

When he reached the other end of the main wing, he knew he had been right. The visitors had not stayed put. He could hear them downstairs in Mrs. Thorne’s kitchen, laughing and talking. What on earth were ladies like that doing in the kitchen? Making a nuisance of themselves, he’d be bound.

He wasn’t going to be kept out of his own kitchen by a pair of Society ladies. And if they were bothering Mrs. Thorne, they could simply get back to their rooms, and so he would tell them.

He walked down the servants’ stairs to the kitchen, which was in the lowest level of the main wing of the house. It and its associated store rooms were the only part of the main wing in regular use, though Mrs. Thorne had women from the village up several times a year to give the whole place a good clean.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he was struck dumb by the sight of a pretty young lady in a simple day gown slicing a loaf of bread, while an older one whom he recognized as Miss Turner was helping Jane to sprinkle powdered sugar over the top of a cake.

That was the most startling part of the scene, though all of those currently in the kitchen were busy. Another strange female, presumably the maid, was buttering the slices as Lady Vivienne cut them, and a large lean man had stopped setting the empty end of the table with crockery and cutlery to eye him suspiciously.

Jane looked up from the cake and flung up her hands, scattering sugar all over Miss Turner. “Papa!”

Mrs. Thorpe twisted her hands in her apron and eyed him warily. “Captain, sir.”

John heard her, but couldn’t tear his eyes off Miss Turner, who was nothing like the besom of his imagination. She wasn’t even much like her former self except in general appearance, somewhat modified by the passage of time. The haughty female who had been bosom friends with his former betrothed wore her discontent on her face and looked down her nose at the world.

This older version of the woman he had met years ago was altogether softer. More rounded, for a start. Eight years ago, she had been slender to the point of gaunt. The extra weight was distributed in all the right places, too, which he shouldn’t be noticing.

Nor was she dressed in the height of fashion. In fact, he was fairly certain he had seen the dress under the capacious apron that had caught most of the sugar. If he was right, and it was one of Mrs. Thorne’s, she certainly didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

She was laughing as she dusted sugar off her nose and cheeks. When she darted out a tongue to taste her own lips, he tore his eyes away, embarrassed by his reaction.

“Papa, did you come to have some of my cake? Miss Turner and I made it our own selves!”

There was only one possible answer. “I would love some cake you made, Jane of mine.” For his darling girl’s sake, and not because he was at all interested, he added, “Will you introduce me to our guests?”

Jane went to jump down from the chair she was standing on and realized two things in swift succession. First, that she was still holding the sieve of powdered sugar. Two, as she turned to hand it to Miss Turner, that the lady was had been soundly dusted.

“Oh dear,” Jane said. “I threw sugar on you.”

“These things happen,” Miss Turner said, with a twinkle in her eye. “You were excited to see your Papa.” She took the sieve and held out the other hand to help Jane jump to the floor.

Jane grabbed John by the hand and pulled him towards the table. “Lady Vivienne and Miss Turner, may I present my Papa, Captain Forsythe?”

Tea with Arial

 

This is an excerpt post from Lady Beast’s Bridegroom, now on preorder on Amazon, and out on 16 February. My heroine Arial has been the victim of a scurrilous caricature campaign. Then our Duchess throws the weight of her approval behind Arial and her husband. (This is not a scene in which they have tea, but I like to imagine that she invited Arial to visit shortly after.) The scene begins with Peter showing Arial the caricatures.

Arial raised her eyebrows at the pictures and blushed at the indecent ones. She was inclined, though, to be optimistic about their likely impact. “They have gone too far, Peter.” She raised one of the worst and put it down again. “Our friends will be as indignant as you are, but even those who are mere acquaintances will recognize these as outrageous rubbish. The viciousness of the lies may work in our favor by garnering us the sympathy of Society’s leaders. After all, if people can be made outcasts on the basis of provable fictions, nobody is safe.”

Peter shook his head, doubtful. However, on the drive through Hyde Park and at the theater that evening, many people approached with invitations, compliments on Arial’s gown or her mask, and even outright statements of support. Even one of the patronesses of hallowed Almack’s sought them out to assure Arial that she would be sent tickets.

Then the Duchess of Winshire, one of society’s most influential matrons, cast the weight of her reputation on their side. She had one of her stepsons escort her to the Ransomes’ theater box, where she reminded Peter that she had known his mother. She further claimed to have kissed Arial when she was a baby. She took a seat next to Arial, in full view of the rest of the theater, chatting for several minutes.

When she stood to leave, she said, “You are doing the right thing, my dear Lady Ransome. Facing down these ridiculous calumnies is your best option. It is unpleasant, I know, and takes courage, but I and my friends have seen that you have plenty of courage and are of good character, besides.”

She held out her hand to Peter. “You have found yourself a treasure, Lord Ransome. Young ladies who are beautiful on the outside are common enough in Society. Young ladies who are brave, wise, and honorable are much rarer—and my friend Cordelia Deerhaven assures me your wife is all three.”

Peter bowed and mimed a kiss above the back of the duchess’s hand. “I am fully sensible of how fortunate I am, Your Grace. My wife is a delight to my eyes as well as a true friend and partner.”

“Good answer,” the duchess replied. “Come along, Drew. Your father will wonder what is keeping us.”

 

Spotlight on Three Ships and The Beau of Christmas Past in Belles & Beaux

Three Ships: Elizabeth Ellen Carter

Laura Winter lives on a tidal island that is home to a lighthouse. On a late November day, a violent storm brings not only the handsome Lieutenant Michael Renten but also a clutch of pirates bent on wreaking mischief.

My comments: As always, Elizabeth has given us an adventure with heart-stopping danger and great rewards at the end. I love her wry humour, and very much enjoyed Whiskey the cat, but the stars of the show were our heroine Laura and the brave lieutenant. Bravo!

The Beau of Christmas Past: Cerise DeLand

Years ago, Alyssa and Gabriel were caught enjoying a Christmas kiss, which broke Alyssa’s betrothal to another man, and caused the pair to be exiled, far from their families and one another. Home for Christmas, will they find the past something to be overcome? Or fulfilled?

My comments: Cerise has a unique take on a common trope. He feels guilty for the kiss that ruined her life. She has quite a different take on what happens. I thoroughly enjoyed this story about two likeable people separated by interfering family.