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Spotlight on Wounded Hearts

WOUNDED HEARTS

By Caroline Warfield

Wounded bodies mend; wounded hearts take longer.Three warriors return from the Napoleonic wars with damaged bodies, ugly memories, and regrets to futures they are ill prepared to face. But love can heal the most damaged heart bringing with it hope for better days. Three ladies with strength and courage of their own are just what they need.

PREORDER for 99 cents. It reverts to retail after launch on November 8. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BBSGBL4R/

Candles in the Dark—Douglas Marsh came home to an unexpected inheritance, a factory he has no idea how to run. With many dependent on him, he does his best in spite of pain from his battered legs. He has no time for self-pity especially after he meets a woman on the streets with far bigger problems.

Lord Ethan’s Courage—Lord Ethan Alcott left his right hand and his soul in Spain. He lives on the streets during the worst winter in decades, wishing for death, ashamed to go home. But a stubborn lady and her equally determined brother won’t give up on him.

The Tender Flood—Zach Newell manages well enough with a prosthetic leg. He even drives a carriage for his uncle, but he’s desperately lonely, missing the comradery of the army. In the midst of the storm of the century he meets the woman who makes his heart sing, one too far above his touch. If he won’t approach, she will have to.

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Not just Bow Street — the other police offices

There’s a bit of a fashion for Bow Street runners in Regency romance. I thought I’d have one myself, come to arrest my hero on a false charge of murder. Except when I looked into it, I found out they weren’t necessarily from Bow Street, and they weren’t called runners.

Bow Street Magistrate’s Court was the prototype, of course. Henry Fielding and his brother established the Runners. (They preferred to be called Principal Officers, since they thought ‘runners’ made them sound like servants.)

The model was successful, and in 1792, more than forty years after Fielding started his experiment, the government passed the Middlesex Justices Act. This established seven more police offices. Each had three paid magistrates and up to six paid officers or constables.

So in Westminster, there were Bow Street, Great Marlborough Street, and Queen’s Square. I picked Great Marlborough Street, which was closest to the townhouse where my hero was staying. Police offices in the rest of London were Worship Street in Shorditch, Lambeth Street in Whitchapel, Union Hall in Southwark, and also Shadwell and Hatton Garden. In 1798, the Thames Police Office (the river police) was opened in Wapping. There had been a couple of changes by the time of my story, in 1813, but good to know!

My hero’s powerful friends payed for him to have a private room instead of being in the police cells, where he countered two attempts to murder him. Corruption was a significant issue with some police offices, so a bribe to look the other way was not unlikely. He appeared before the three magistrates in a preliminary hearing a few days after he was arrested, and the case was dismissed when the person he was meant to have murdered stood up in court, alive and well. Other cases heard that day might have received an immediate judgement and penalty for a minor crime, or been bound over to appear at a full court hearing before a judge and possibly a jury.

They were different times, but already shifting in a direction that is more familiar to us today.

Note: when the Great Marlborough police office closed in 1839, as the Metropolitan Police took over all policing duties, the building continued in service as a Magistrate’s Court. A case against John Lennon for exhibiting sexually explicit material was heard in this court in the 1970s. It is now a boutique hotel, and the courtroom itself is an Asian Fusion restaurant.

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The virgin hero on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from The Flavour of Our Deeds (Book 5 in The Golden Redepennings). My hero has been resisting the heroine for six years. She is a lady born, daughter and sister of an earl, wealthy and beautiful, with the world at her feet. He is base born, a commoner, a working man, too old for her, and in danger. She has finally got him to concede that he loves her, and wants to marry her. Some time. When the danger is over. In this scene, she demands that he thinks again.

In the next moment she was in his arms, and he was kissing her. “You will be the death of me, stubborn female,” he muttered against her lips, before covering her mouth again, one hand on her lower back pressing her against him, the other gently cradling the back of her head as he ravaged her with his lips and his tongue. This time, he was the one to draw back. “We have to stop.” His body belied his words. He was flushed and trembling, and the thin layers of their robes had not in the least disguised his arousal.

“Must we?” Kitty wondered, “If we are to marry within the week?” She had a theoretical knowledge of what came next. His kisses left her eager to put theory into practice.

She thought he would deny them both because she was young and innocent, and he would be taking advantage of her. What he said instead was unexpected.

“I am a bastard, Kitty. Got by my father on the pretty daughter of his gamekeeper. My only memory of my mother—or memories, because I think it happened many times—is of her crying after one of his visits.”

Kitty didn’t see the relevance. “You are not your father, Luke. And I am not your mother.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I made a promise to my grandfather, Kitty. When he lay dying, he begged me not to be like my father—careless with women and ruled by my pri— my lust.”

Still not relevant, Kitty thought, but Luke hadn’t finished.

“I promised that I would wait until marriage to experience physical intimacy with a woman, and would be faithful to my wedding vows once I’d made them. I swore it on the family bible.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Wait. Did that mean he had never...?

Luke was looking into some mental landscape—the past perhaps? “I’ve never found it hard to keep that promise, because I have seen so much misery arising from the behaviour my grandfather decried. My mother, and so many other woman. Even the ones who were eager risked being left broken hearted. Or they gave themselves to a man who died before he could put a ring on their finger, and his good intentions didn’t protect them or their baby from the consequences.”

He was right, of course. Kitty had seen it herself. Indeed, if not for Anne’s masquerade as a widow, she would have lived it, at least by association.

“Then along came you, Kitty. I have always struggled to resist you, and with each kiss it becomes harder and harder.” He chuckled suddenly, and his voice dropped to a low growl that vibrated in the places that ached for him most. “In more ways than one.” She caught the salacious reference, and her face heated. She licked her lips, which had gone suddenly dry.

Luke gulped and looked away. “Help me keep my promise, Kitty,” he begged.

Botheration. An appeal to her honour. “Yes, of course.” She turned her back on him to straighten the robe he had brushed aside during their kiss, drawing it closed high up her chest and belting it firmly. “Thank you for explaining.”

Luke had tidied himself while she was rearranging her robe. He offered her another brandy, but she refused. “If I must be good, another would be a bad idea,” she said. She returned to her chair, more determined than ever. “Luke, will you marry me and take me to Cumberland with you?” A special license was sounding more and more appealing.

Luke sat, too, smiling at her. “Are you going to argue with me for the rest of our lives together, heart of my heart?” His tone was one of enquiry rather than criticism.

“Only when you are wrong,” she retorted, then amended the statement. “No, for sometimes I might be wrong, but believe myself to be right, as when I saw no reason why you should not bed me, tonight. When you explained, I changed my mind. I would hope, Luke, that we can disagree in a civilized manner, discuss things, and reach agreement.”

“I beg you not to speak of bedding, my love,” he groaned.

“A special license?” she suggested, hopefully.

“A common license. In the morning, I shall speak with Rede, and with Uncle Baldwin about waiting a few days longer. Now go to bed, Kitty. You have won.”

Kitty widened her eyes. “I have won? That is not reaching agreement, Luke.”

“I misspoke. We have both won. You are correct that it is not my right to decide to keep you from my life in order to protect you from a threat that might not even exist. But Kitty, if you are in immediate peril and we do not have time for a discussion, I want your promise that you will obey me in that moment. We can talk it over when we are safe.”

That was fair, and quite a large concession. “I promise, Luke, unless you are the one in danger and I can do something to save you.”

Luke heaved a sigh. “I imagine that we will have many more vigorous discussions in our future, my love.”

Kitty blew him a kiss as she made her way to the door. “But imagine the fun we will have making up!” she told him, then slipped out the door, closing it behind her, delighted with her exit line.

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Tea with Rilla

The scandalous Miss Fernhill was a delightful young lady. Initially, when the duchess’s daughter-in-law and her sister had brought Miss Fernhill into Eleanor’s pleasant parlour, she had been clearly nervous and very formal. But she quickly relaxed as her future sisters-in-law chatted cheerfully with Eleanor, being careful to include her in the conversation.

Last time Sophie and Felicity had been here together, they had been very worried about their brother, the Earl of Hythe. He had a list of what he required in a wife, and his sisters worried that he had not made any allowance for love. “Besides, Aunt Eleanor,” Felicity had said, “a woman who matches every item on the list will never loosen dear Hythe up. He needs someone to make him laugh, someone to tease him a little, someone fun.”

Amaryllis Fernhill might not have checked off every item on Hythe’s list, but his sisters clearly thought she was just perfect. Even if she had jilted her previous groom at the altar and disappeared for three years. Hythe had ignored these facts; definite evidence he was making a love match. And Miss Fernhill, or Rilla, as Hythe’s sisters called her, was totally besotted with Hythe, as was evident in the way her eyes shone whenever she mentioned him, which was often.

Eleanor smiled to herself. A love match. If one wanted to guide Society’s opinion in favour of a couple, a love match was a very good place to start.

The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill is one of the stories in Chasing the Tale: Volume II, to be published next month. Hythe and Rilla meet and fall in love over a chessboard in The Husband Gamble, in The Wedding Wager, now on KU.

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Hackneys and Hansom Cabs

It’s amazing what you can find down a rabbit hole! I went looking for public conveyances in 1826 in Paris, and discovered the light two-wheeled carriage, pulled by one horse, called the cabriolet de place. It looked very familiar, so I sent my heroine home in one, and did some more digging.

In the 17th, 18th and early 19th century, the way to get around London (if you had the fare and didn’t have a coach of your own) was a Hackney Coach. These were generally old carriages that had once belonged to private owners. Drawn by a pair of horses, they could carry several passengers. But they were known to be dirty and smelly, since they went everywhere with all sorts of passengers.

The owners of these hackney coaches–there were 300 licences in Central London–had a monopoly on private transport in that area. When a carriage maker called David Davies decided to introduce the French innovation under the shortened name cab, the syndicate of hackney coach owners objected.

However, two gentlemen managed to get nine licenses, and the cabs proved to be very popular. The tarrif was reasonable, and the young and more daring were delighted to give the new, lighter, and more agile form of transportation a go. Apparently the cab drivers delighted in passing their heavier and more cumbersome rivals!

Despite the opposition, 1831 saw 150 licenses for cabbies, and in1832, all restrictions were lifted.

The picture above shows the hansom cab, the first of which was designed in 1834 by Mr Joseph Hansom, with the passengers mounting in front. Later innovators moved the cabbie to the back and added a window in the door, leaving Hansom’s design behind, but his name lingered on.

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The Preface on WIP Wednesday

This is a long one–2,500 words. I’ve written a preface for Perchance to Dream, and I don’t know if it is good, bad, or indifferent. If you can bear to read it, let me know your opinion in the comments.

John Forsythe placed a tender kiss on the cheek of his baby daughter, then passed her to her nursemaid, gently, so as not to wake her. “You have worn her out, my lord,” the nursemaid whispered, smiling.

John returned the smile. His hour and a half outside with his little girl had cemented the decision he’d been coming to for weeks. In a few days, she would reach her first birthday. It was time for John and Tina Jane’s mother to resolve their difficulties. Yes, their marriage had begun in lies and continued in discord, but surely they could build on their joint love for their daughter and build a real marriage? John was going to find his wife and ask her to try.

He had collected Tina Jane from the nursery after her breakfast and carried her with him on his rounds of the stable, the dairy, the barn and the poultry yards. He couldn’t say who enjoyed it more—him or the baby girl, who loved the animals, the bustle, and being with her father.

The name had been the cause of one of their fights. Augusta had wanted to name her baby Phillippa Augustina, uniting her own name with that of Philip Spindler, the treacherous rat who had impregnated her then abandoned her to marry the bride who was his family’s choice.

John had first been flabbergasted at her sheer effrontery at wanting to name the child born in their marriage after her former lover, then furious. Augusta reacted to his unequivocal ‘no’ with a six-week-long sulk. She had shut herself in her room and had refused to talk to him. She had not even visited the baby.

As he searched the house for his wife, John’s mind continued to revisit the sorrowful memories. The saddest part was that it had been six weeks of bliss. None of her tantrums or weeping jags or other dramatics. Jane could get on with the work of the estate, and spend all his spare time with the baby. He had fallen in love with the wee mite from the moment she had been placed in his arms on the day she was born, and had tumbled more deeply every hour he spent with her.

In the end, he had given Augustina Jane her first name as an overture of peace to his wife.

After all, however it came about, however he and Augusta felt about it, they were married. It had, to a degree, worked. Augusta emerged from her room, resumed her place at the dinner table, accompanied him to social events in the neighbourhood and did her best to behave well in public.

She even began to show an interest in the baby, or at least in having Tina Jane’s nursemaid trail behind Augusta with the little girl dressed in a gown made from scraps of fabric left over from whatever Augusta was wearing. “Do we not make a picture, Lord John?” she would simper.

“Where is Lady John?” he asked each servant that he met, but she must be restless today, for she was not in any of the rooms to which he was sent. Lord and Lady John. She insisted on the ridiculous title rather than his preferred use of the military title he had earned fighting Napoleon’s armies, and retained as a part time soldier in the local militia.

Again, it seemed a small price to pay for a relative degree of marital peace.

“She is very young,” he reminded himself. Only nineteen when he met her, and much younger in her years. Her parents had alternatively ignored her and given in to her many whims. She had always been able to get anything she wanted, merely by having a tantrum.

Even John, though she had not wanted John himself. Only a fool with an estate and noble connections who could be trapped into marrying her without asking too many questions. An older man she could manipulate as she had manipulated her parents.

She had been disappointed to discover that the worn-out soldier she’d conspired to trap had a will stronger than her own, and would not bend to her pleading or her histrionics.

Though he gave way to her in minor things, all the sulking in the world had not convinced him to allow her to redecorate the house that had been fully refurbished eighteen months ago before they moved into it, or to take her to London for the Season where they would inevitably meet Spindler and his wife, or to fire Thorne, his manservant, who had been with him since Salamanca in the Peninsular Wars, because Thorne had come across her beating the nursemaid with a riding crop, and had taken the crop off her.

John, appealed to by both Augusta and his manservant, discovered that the nursemaid’s crime had been to argue that Tina Jane should not go out visiting with Augusta on a cold and blustery day, since the poor little girl had the sniffles.

John had been coldly furious. “Miss Embrow was right to protest, Augusta. Taking our daughter out in this weather when she is already ill would have been foolish.”

“But Lord John,” Augusta protested, “it was not her place to question my instructions.”

“It is her place to put the welfare of the baby first. But even if she was wrong, you should not have beaten her. I will not have any in my household subjected to such violence. You will never raise a hand or any other implement to a servant again.”

She had been cowed by his anger, perhaps, for she slunk away and treated him to a week-long sulk, after which she emerged to demand that Thorne be dismissed for laying hands on her when he took the crop off her.

John’s refusal earned him the silent treatment for a further two weeks.

Still, she had not persisted, so perhaps she was learning. She was, after all, nearly twenty-one and had become a mother. She might be maturing. He’d seen a firm hand and kindness transform many a wild young man into a steady officer.

Indeed, for the last few days, she had been smiling, sometimes even at John. She had even spent an hour in the nursery yesterday, ignoring Miss Embrow as she had since the incident, but playing pat-a-cake and peep-a-boo with the baby.

Where on earth could the woman be? She was not in the house, and she was hardly one to spend hours in the garden. He checked with the stables, and discovered that she’d ridden out, and refused to take a groom with her.

John was worried. Augusta was not the most accomplished of riders. Perhaps she has fallen. He ordered his own horse saddled and rode off in the direction the grooms indicated.

The path split, with one branch entering his woods, and the other joining the lane that led out to the village road. John rode a short way along the lane, but he could not see Augusta or a horse, so he returned to the woods. Perhaps she felt the need of the shade.

The path led to a clearing where the woodcutter had a cottage that he used, but this was not the season for harvesting or planting or clearing undergrowth. So why were two horses tied up at the side of the cottage, and why was smoke rising from the chimney?

John stopped just inside the trees to examine the scene. He couldn’t be sure, as it was in the shade and partly obscured by the larger of the two horses, but he thought the smaller one was Augusta’s mare. He was still processing the implications of that when the cottage door opened and two people came out. One was Augusta. The other he could identify by the man’s white-blonde hair. It was Spindler. The swine bent to give John’s wife a tender kiss.

John nudged his horse into a walk. Spindler looked up at the clop of hooves, started, and ran for his own horse. John resisted the urge to give chase as Splindler threw himself into the saddle and kicked the beast into a gallop. After all, what would he do with the man if he caught him?

Rearranging the dirty dog’s pretty face would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t solve the problem of his marriage.

Augusta looked up at him without a hint of remorse or concern, trying but failing to compose her face into a serious expression. But a beaming smile of absolute delight kept breaking through. “Lord John, don’t be cross. We didn’t do anything, honestly. And he brought such good news.”

He didn’t trust himself to speak to her. He dismounted, tied his horse beside hers, and walked past her into the cottage. Didn’t do anything? The blankets had been thrown from the bed and the room reeked of sex.

Augusta had followed him, to stand in the door. “You must try to understand, Lord John. We have not been together for nearly two years.”

Nor had Augusta and John. Not once since they wed. John had been patient, thinking that she would accept their marriage in time. He had also been celibate, since he had long since promised himself that he would never cheat against his marriage vows, as both his parents had.

And she thought he should understand? “I do not understand, Augusta.” When Captain Forsythe spoke in that tight clipped voice, soldiers knew to stand to attention and keep quiet, for retribution was about to fall. “I don’t understand how you can stand there and expect me to countenance you and your lover meeting in secret, right here on my lands, less than a mile from the nursery where our daughter sleeps.”

Augusta was not one of his soldiers. “My daughter,” she insisted. “Mine and Phillip’s.”

A touch of panic spiked his fury. “Not according to the law,” he reminded himself. “She was born within our marriage. I have claimed her. Spindler has no rights here.”

At that, the smile blossomed again, though her eyes remained wary. “Not Spindler. Lord John, that is what he came to say! Kingston is dead! Phillip is free!”

The Duke of Kingston was Spindler’s grandfather, and in some ways the orchestrator of John’s misery. Spindler had been his pensioner, along with his mother and father. Disliking his grandson’s attachment to Augusta, who had only beauty to recommend her, being of modest family and wealth, he forced Spindler to make a choice. Poverty and Augusta. Riches and a bride of Kingston’s choosing. Either he did not care that the scoundrel had impregnated Augusta, or her condition did not become apparent until after her lover married the selected lady.

Kingston’s death was not a surprise. Even John, who took no notice of Society gossip, knew he had been failing since the apoplexy that followed the tragic deaths, months ago, of his heir and his heir’s son. Which made Spindler’s father the heir presumptive, and now the duke. Spindler’s father, who had never refused his son anything except his attention.

“He is not free,” he told Augusta. “Your lover is married and so are you. You both have a spouse and a child.”

She stared at him as if he was speaking in a foreign language. John didn’t want to look at her. He moved around the room, picking up a chair that had been knocked over, folding the blankets, pulling the underblanket off the mattress and throwing it into a heap by the door to take to the laundrymaid.

“We can be together,” Augusta insisted. “Tenby—he is Earl of Tenby now—does not have to please his grandfather ever again.”

John faced Augusta. She was clenching her fists and jutting her chin, ready to fight. “Augusta, talk sense. You are both married. Tenby lives in London. You live here, with me.” His voice dropped to a growl. “And you can be sure I will not turn a blind eye to you meeting your lover here or in London.”

He took a deep breath. She was not listening to him. Instead, her eyes were fixed on some mythical and impossible future that only she and Tenby could see.

“Augusta, we could make something of our marriage. Wouldn’t life be better if we were comfortable with one another? Would you not like more children?”

That caught her attention. “No!” she declared. “I don’t ever want to go through that again, getting lumpy and ugly. And then the pain! No, my lord, not even for Tenby. But he says he has his heir and that cow is pregnant again, so there might even be a spare. He will not ask it of me.”

John shook his head. It was like arguing with a river. You could talk all you liked, but it wasn’t going to stop flowing in the direction it had chosen. “You and Tenby cannot wed,” he pointed out. “You are both married to other people.”

At that, she crossed the room, laid a hand on his arm, and looked up at him pleadingly. “Yes, but we could live together. Tenby says that if I move in with  him, you can easily sue him for stealing me away (though I was always his, so that part I do not understand), and then petition the church for a legal separation. You get to keep Augustina, and you will not have to pay for clothes and the like for me ever again. And I get Tenby.”

“You will be cast out of Society,” John warned. He would, too. Not so much because he would be blamed, but because he would be laughed at. People might pity a cuckold, but they did not admire him. Still, he could live without Society.

“We can live in Paris, Tenby says,” Augusta said, airily, “where they understand these things. It is the best plan, my lord. Everyone gets what they want.”

“What of Lady Tenby? What does she want?”

If John had hoped to appeal to Augusta’s sympathy for another woman, he would have been disappointed. She shrugged. “She gets to call herself Marchioness and live at Spindler Palace with her sons. I don’t care about her. It is me that Tenby loves.”

“My answer is no. Your plan is foolish, Augusta. You and Tenby owe it to your children to make the best of your marriages. Come. We shall return to the house. I shall write to Tenby and tell him that if he approaches you again, he will regret it.”

That was not the end of it, of course. Augusta was convinced that she was the female half of a romance for the ages: a Helen of Troy, an Isolde, a Guinevere, an Eloise, a Juliet. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of her happy ending. She blocked John’s every attempt at a reconciliation, raised the option of a legal separation at every opportunity heedless of who else might be listening, and in the end forced his hand by running away to France with Tenby.

By then, it was almost a relief to see the end of what would have been a total disaster from the beginning, except it had given John his little Jane. When Lady Tenby died shortly after the church courts had granted their legal separation, John barely argued at all about taking a case to the House of Lords for a full divorce.

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Tea with Nia and Tony

The Duchess of Haverford adored all her grandchildren, acknowledged and secret, official and unofficial, those descended from her and those born to her wards, her step-children and others she regarded as her own, though not by blood.

Nia and Tony Wakefield were special, and she was thrilled to have them to herself for the afternoon. With one year between them in age, they had become close since Tony was added to the Wakefield family. Between them, they took care of all the younger ones, sometimes leading them into mischief but always protecting them from danger.

They bickered like brother and sister, too. They were currently arguing about who should have the last strawberry tart, each topping the other with claims about their worthiness for the privilege.

“I read five stories to the littlies last night at bedtime,” Nia said.

Tony scoffed. “Which you thoroughly enjoyed. I took William to the chamber pot ten times this morning.”

Of course, every single child was special in his or her own way. But Antonia Wakefield, who had been born Antonia Virtue, was the first child of her elder son, her darling Anthony. Or at least the first she knew about. Long after Eleanor’s wild boy had lost sight of the lover who refused to be his mistress, Eleanor kept an eye on her and her daughter, offering the mother work to help her keep her pride and independence while making ends meet.

Then Nia’s mother Prue married David Wakefield, base-born half brother to Eleanor’s two sons, and one of her favourite protégés. At long last, Eleanor could claim a grandmother’s role in the dear child’s life.

Tony was the first child of her younger son, whose marriage had taken him to the other side of Europe, where he was raising a large family in a tiny grand duchy that his wife ruled. Tony was not only special in his own right. He was the sole representative in England of the offspring of her beloved Jonathan.

“There is a solution, my dears,” she told the pair. “I could send for more strawberry tarts.”

They looked at one another and laughed. “An efficient suggestion, Aunt Eleanor,” Tony agreed. He winked. “If slightly less fun.”

He had a thread of the wicked, had Tony. He had been raised in a country village until his mother died, but he had come to London to find his father with little information to identify the man, and had spent several years on the street until Anthony’s wife found him in a maths class she was teaching in a ragged school.

Recognising that he was the image of his uncle in a portrait of Anthony at the same age, she had made sure to introduce them, and before long Tony had his choice of families: Anthony, his Uncle Haverford; Jonathan, his father; David Wakefield and his wife Prue, mother to Mia.

Tony chose the Wakefields, explaining that he knew nothing about being a prince’s son or a duke’s, but David and Prue were enquiry agents, and he figured that was something he could grow up to do.

“If it is not too much trouble, Your Grace, more strawberry tarts would be delightful,” said Nia, who was sometimes rather too proper for a girl of fourteen. Prue said that Tony was good for her, teasing her into mischief or temper, depending on the occasion.

“For you, my darlings,” Eleanor said, “nothing is too much trouble.”

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Coming soon

I’m sending my newsletter this coming week. I’m just waiting on pre-order links from Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Nook for next month’s publication of short stories, Chasing the Tale: Volume II. It’s up on Amazon now. Read more about Chasing the Tale: Volume II  and the stories in it on my book page.

I’ve finished writing the newsletter short story, The Lady in a White Gown, so that’s already to go. Thank you to the subscriber that sent me a painting to use as a jump off point.

The newsletter will also have news about books from author friends, and early notice of a box set from the Bluestocking Belles for Christmas. So if you’re a subscriber, watch your inbox.

Here’s the intro to The Lady in a White Gown.

Victoria glared at the white gown that hung on the dressing screen, ready for its starring role at tomorrow’s wedding. Her wedding. If, in fact, it happened.

It was not the gown that offended. In truth, she had thought it lovely three weeks ago, when the modiste had sketched it, and it was even more beautiful in reality. She had not chosen the colour. Her mother remembered the story her dear friend Lady Benfield had told about Lord Carney’s demand to be introduced to the lady in the white gown. At a ball where at least thirty of the young ladies wore white, he had seen only Victoria, and Mother found that very sweet.

“This gown shall remind him of that night,” she proclaimed. “It shall be so romantic. Besides, the Queen, for whom you were named, wore white when she was wed, and look what a happy marriage that was, poor dear lady.”

Victoria thought that wearing gowns she had chosen herself would be one of the many benefits of becoming a married woman, but she knew that saying so would merely send her mother into another lecture about behaviour unbecoming in a viscountess.

Mother was delighted that Victoria was marrying a viscount. To Victoria, Lord Carney’s title was a disincentive, but one he had overcome with his attentive charm. Until the betrothal was announced, at which point, he had disappeared entirely, though he’d claimed he would only be gone a day or two.

She sent the gown another scowl. She had argued for a coloured sash and trim. The palest of pale blues, the colour her mother had chosen, did not, in Victoria’s opinion, qualify as a colour. She was wearing a gown she did not choose to please a man she did not know.

Perhaps Lord Carney would not arrive back in London in time for the ceremony. Perhaps he had been in London all along, and had only pretended to have business at his estate. Perhaps she would be left at the altar!

Perhaps, if she was, it was for the best.

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Terrorism and democracy

Edward I was nearly killed by an Assassin during Lord Edward’s Crusade, most likely sent by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, in order to remove his opposition to a 10-year truce with the Christian states at Jerusalem. He narrowly survived poisoning from the blade of the Assassin. – Gustave Doré, 19th Century

I’ve noticed an unsettling trend recently in democratic societies around the world. People who are unable to convince the majority to support them are turning to disruption to make their point. Tipping out milk in supermarkets to object to the farming of animals for food. Stopping traffic during the rush hour to make a case for trains, or the removal of mask mandates, or preferential treatment for a particular occupation, or any of a dozen causes.

In a tyranny, when free speech is suppressed and people cannot assemble to make their case, such reactions may be the route to social change. In a democracy, where peaceful protest is permitted and those of like mind can organise to convince others, there are more productive ways to change society. And if your efforts are not succeeding, perhaps it is because the majority do not agree with you. That’s democracy, too.

Protest marches and the like often cause some disruption as a byproduct. But those I’ve detailed above seem to have been organised and intended to cause maximum inconvenience. The fact that so many organisers are clear that they’re going to repeat their actions over and over until they get what they want borders on standover tactics and blackmail. They have three fundamental things in common with terrorism. First, they want to bring about change by coersion or intimidation. Second, they seek to achieve this by inconveniencing (in the case of activism) or attacking (in case of terrorism) the wider public–ordinary people who are merely going about their business. Third, they claim that their actions are required to protect or advance a moral principle, whether religious or secular.

Let’s define terrorism as the systematic threat or use of violence against innocent people to intimidate a political group into accepting the demands of the terrorist. Pouring milk on a supermarket floor is a long way from bombing a kindergarten. But it feels to me as if it is on the continuum.

Historian trace terrorism back a long way, to the terrorist campaigns of the Zealots against the Romans in Judea, and to those of the Shi-ite Muslim sect, the hashashin, against Sunni Muslims and medieval Christendom. More recently the Reign of Terror was an example of the use of terror to achieve governmental ends–Robespierre and his colleagues used it after revolutionaries seized power in the French Revolution to maintain power and supress political rivals.

And so we come to more modern times, when terrorism is practiced by authoritarian governments against their citizens and against the citizens of territories they invade, as well as by pressure groups who want to force political, social, religious and economic change.

Alexander Ulyanov, who tried assassinate Czar Alexander III in the 1880s, summed it up as: “is the only form of defense to which a minority, strong only in terms
of its spiritual strength and in its knowledge of the rightness of its beliefs, can resort against the physical strength of the majority.” Admittedly, that wasn’t a democracy by any means. But taking the words at their face value, they are plain wrong. In a democracy, where everyone has a right to a voice and a vote, a minority who do not agree with the beliefs of the majority has no place trying to intimidate the government into giving the minority beliefs preference over those of the majority.

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Dialogue on WIP Wednesday

Dialogue should tell us about character, move along the plot, feed us bits of backstory, or all three. I shared this bit in a Facebook chat the other day. What do you think? It’s from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 in The Golden Redepennings.

My lord, if the case goes against me, would you take Paul and protect him? I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“Consider it done,” Chirbury interrupted. “If things go badly, I will take him into my family. But we shall endeavour to ensure that they don’t, for my sister will be upset if they hang you by the neck until dead, Lucian Ogilvy. Speaking of which, what are your intentions towards my sister?”

Typical Chirbury. A soothing remark then a sneak attack. Two, in fact. Luke forced back the visceral reaction at the thought of his hanging, and tried to deflect the second jab. “Your sister?”

Chirbury raised a single eyebrow. “You thought I might possibly mean my sister Meg or my sister Lady Bexley?”

Luke stopped jousting. “I cannot have intentions towards Lady Catherine.”

The other eyebrow lifted. “Cannot. Not will not, or do not.” The earl’s tone was contemplative. “Perhaps you mean should not? My question is why not? You travelled for a week introducing her as your wife. Some would say you owe her a proposal.” He pulled out one of the chairs at the table, turned it around, and straddled it so he could rest his forearms on the back. “Take a seat, man.”

Who knew that words could knife a man in the chest and, at the same time, lift him to the stars? Luke sat in the other chair without thinking about what he was doing. “Chirbury, with due respect, I am the bastard son of an earl and a gamekeeper, I’m twelve years older than her, and to cap it all off, I’ve been arrested for murder. What do I have to offer her?”

Chirbury shrugged with his eyebrows. “What she wants, apparently. So Kitty says, and my countess agrees, so it must be true.”

Luke gaped at Chirbury. “Lady Chirbury thinks Kitty and I should marry?” He had forgotten to call her Lady Catherine.

“Not what I said,” Chirbury pointed out. “My lady thinks that Kitty wants to be your wife, and that she—that Kitty doesn’t care about your birth, your age, or the false accusations against you.”

Kitty cared. Luke knew that. But Chirbury would never let her make such a mistake, and if Chirbury would, Luke wouldn’t. “She is too young to know her own mind,” he said, arguing with himself even as he said the words. She was twenty-three, almost twenty-four. Her family’s trials had matured her early, and—except for her feelings about him—he would trust her judgement and her instincts ahead of those of most people he knew. The earl in front of him included.

Chirbury shrugged. “She was young six years ago when she set her heart on you. Anne and I told her that it was an infatuation. That she was reacting to the trauma of Selby’s assault and then the kidnapping. That she fixed on you because you helped to rescue her, and because she knew so few other unmarried men.”

“All true,” Luke agreed, though reluctantly.

Chirbury shook his head. “Demonstrably not. She has been courted by a broad selection of English gentlemen, Luke. I’ve no wish to dwell on the number of suitors I’ve turned away. I passed on to her anyone I thought she had even the slightest interest in, if they were honest and respectable. More than a score over the years, and she refused them all.”

Luke, was it? They’d never been on first name terms, though that was more on Luke’s side than Chirbury’s. The earl had asked him years ago to call him by his nickname, Rede. Given that he lusted for the man’s sister-in-law, Luke thought such familiarity a mistake. He had to remember that he was not a fit mate for Kitty. But Chirbury apparently thought differently.

“Are you telling me that you would permit Kitty to marry me?” he asked, though it came out as more of a challenge.

“It is Kitty’s decision. And yours, of course. My countess and I would not oppose the match, and she could still marry you if we did. She is three years past the age of needing our consent. You are twelve years older than her, and that age difference mattered when she was not quite eighteen. To us, at least, though even larger age gaps are common. Now? She is an adult, and to my mind, uncommonly mature for her age. You are base born, you tell me, but you are the acknowledged son of a baron and the guardian of another.”

He shrugged. “Yes, some will believe she has married down, but not people whose opinion she cares for. Which leaves us with your current situation. That, of course, needs to be resolved. However, we are ahead of ourselves, my friend. I still need to hear what your intentions are towards my sister.”

Luke groaned. Heaven was his for the grasping, except a hangman’s noose dangled between him and it. “I cannot deny that I love her, Rede. Marrying her would be the greatest privilege I can imagine. Also, if I win my freedom and prove my innocence, I have my own estate. It is not much compared to Longford, but I can afford to take a wife. If I can prove my innocent. My uncle is determined to see me hang.”

“Whereas I am determined that you shall not,” Rede replied.