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Spotlight on Before I Found You

I have followed Miranda de Courtenay’s quest for a title since she first appeared in her sister Grace’s story, in the Bluestocking Belles collection Holly & Hopeful Hearts. I wondered how Sherry Ewing was going to redeem her, for she was, beyond question, a brat. But Sherry did it, in this lovely story, where Miranda at last faces the reality that she has been seeking the wrong goal. I adore the man who taught her to want more, and I love the woman Miranda becomes. Read this book!

Before I Found You

A de Courtenay Novella (Book Three)

By Sherry Ewing

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?

Released on 21 April. Preorder now through Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/4XDrva

Excerpt

She was not sure what to expect. Being outside alone with a man she did not know was a bold move. If she needed reinforcements, she could easily call out for help, but that would hardly do her reputation any good. It had barely recovered from her last scheme. Society’s memory was short, remembering scandals only until something new came along for them to gossip about—or until something happened to remind them. She couldn’t afford to give them new fodder to chew on.

She could not resist. Miranda took the remaining few steps until she stood next to him, and he rose to his full height, his hair tousled by the evening breeze. She suppressed the urge to push back the lock of hair across his brow that refused to stay in place. Oh my, but the man was tall!

Miranda did not even realize she offered him her hand until he leaned down and kissed the air between her knuckles. His fingers were warm even through the silk of her gloves. How would they feel if her hand was bare? Good heavens! What was coming over her?

“Mademoiselle,” he whispered in a husky French accent, causing goose bumps to rise on her arms. His voice was utterly divine!

“Miranda,” she said offering only her first name. It was hardly appropriate, but she did not wish to see his disinterest when he learned she was a “Miss” and not a “Lady”.

Although it might not matter. Many gentlemen present this evening were on the lookout for a well-dowered heiress to enrich their estate. The man before her could be one of them. Even though she could not attach “lady” to her name, she was still wealthy in her own right… or would be when she finally wed.

Love had nothing to do with what really mattered in life—marriage to a husband within the nobility, one with enough wealth to keep her and her children in luxury. Not for her a boring life as a country matron, with nothing to do or to talk about beyond counting sheets and breeding children. She wanted a glittering life as a Society hostess! It would be an adventure. Or so she had always thought, and she would not allow her heart to rule her head.

She bit her bottom lip before she realized she had done so. The man before her could not know it was an automatic reaction when she was worried. She watched his brow arch in surprise before a grin turned up at the corner of his lips.

“Jasper,” he finally replied in return, examining her reaction to his touch. “The evening has become brighter now that you have joined me for a breath of fresh air. Look how the stars above beam in approval that they may gaze down upon you.”

Miranda’s lips twitched at the compliment. Very nice, though she sensed that he used this phrase often. She realized he still held her fingertips and she reluctantly pulled them away before waving her hand towards the crowd inside.

About Sherry Ewing:

Sherry Ewing picked up her first historical romance when she was a teenager and has been hooked ever since. A bestselling author, she writes historical and time travel romances to awaken the soul one heart at a time. When not writing, she can be found in the San Francisco area at her day job as an Information Technology Specialist. You can learn more about Sherry and her books on her website where a new adventure awaits you on every page!

 

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Meet the hero and heroine of Love in Its Season

Meet Gwenillan Hughes

Gwen Hughes, is too tall and too independent to suit the bachelors of Reabridge. She has helped in her father’s farriery from the time she could toddle, and since her brother left for the wars and her father faded into second childhood, she has been the farrier.

She loves her work and is proud of the family business, but she is also tired. It’s the busiest time of the year for a farrier, when the big houses are preparing for the hunting season and the farms around Reabridge are bringing in the harvest. On top of that, she has a house to manage, meals to prepare, and an increasingly dependent father to look after.

The retired soldier who offers to help out with her father is a God-send, especially when he takes over the housework and cooking, as well. He says his motive is simply that he is at a loose end, and he enjoys helping people. Can Gwen dare to hope that she means more to him than that?

Meet Jack Wrath

After twenty-five years in the cavalry, Jack Wrath has resigned his commission and come home to England. Or not home. An orphan who enlisted when he was fourteen, he doesn’t have a home, and he is only in Reabridge because he brought his doctor home. After all the man saved him from losing all use of his arm after he took a bullet to the shoulder. Besides, someone had to make sure the poor beggar made it home.

Meeting Gwen Hughes strikes him all of a heap. There’s no point in courting her. She is far too good for an unemployed orphan of dubious origins. But he knows something about looking after dazed old men. He can help to make her life easier.

So he volunteers his services. He can help her through this busy season, but every day he loses more and more of his heart to this brave, clever, magnificent woman. When she finally sends him away, he will leave the best part of himself behind. Can he dare hope she will allow him to stay?

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Cover reveal Under the Harvest Moon

As the village of Reabridge in Cheshire prepares for the first Harvest Festival following Waterloo, families are overjoyed to welcome back their loved ones from the war.
But excitement quickly turns to mystery when mere weeks before the festival, an orphaned child turns up in the town—a toddler born near Toulouse to an English mother who left clues that tie her to Reabridge.

With two prominent families feuding for generations and the central event of the Harvest Moon festival looming, tensions rise, and secrets begin to surface.

Nine award winning and bestselling authors have combined their talents to create this engaging and enchanting collection of interrelated tales. Under the Harvest Moon promises an unforgettable read for fans of Regency romance.

Love in Its Season by Jude Knight

The Battle of Waterloo lost Jack Wrath the use of one arm and ended his career in the cavalry. With nothing better to do and nowhere else to go, he sees his doctor home to Reabridge—and stays because of Gwen, the female farrier he rescues from a lustful lord. After all his years of wandering, Gwen’s cottage feels like home.

Gwen Hughes is taller and stronger than many men, and runs her own business. Perhaps she intimidates the men of the town, but that is fine with her. She doesn’t have time for courtship. She’d be a fool to refuse Jack’s offer to help her father, who is in his second childhood, and even more of a fool to read too much into his kindness.

Under the harvest moon, two people who believe romance has passed them finally reach their season for love.

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Cover reveal coming this weekend

The next Bluestocking Belles collection is finished and going through the editing process, and we’re ready to tell you about it and show you the cover.

We’re revealing the cover for the first time at the Belles Brigade regular Saturday brunch, at 1pm EDT this weekend. Please join us, if you can, to find out about Under the Harvest Moon.

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In-laws on WIP Wednesday

[From Chaos Come Again, which just squeaks in, it is not yet published, but won’t be a work-in-progress by this time next week]

The Earl of Ruthford and Lady Patricia both hugged Dorothea when she and Lion said their farewells. They had come as far as the foyer, but would not go out to the carriage.

“Look after my boy,” the earl begged, when Lion hurried outside to make sure all was ready. “Despite the way I treated him, he’s made himself into the finest man I know, but he has scars, Dorothea. He has scars—some I put there myself. He will be a great earl with you beside him.”

“I know nothing about being a countess,” Dorothea protested.

“You know how to love him,” said the earl. “That is the best thing an earl—any man—can have. A woman who loves him and believes in him. He will step into my shoes sooner than he would like, but I am not worried for him. Not now that he has you.”

She kissed the old man’s cheek with tears in her eyes.

She turned to Lady Patricia. Aunt Patricia. The old lady had asked Dorothea to address her in more intimate terms yesterday afternoon, as they went through the still room putting together a medicine chest for Dorothea to take with her.

Aunt Patricia enfolded Dorothea in her arms. “You are a dear girl, Dorothea. Be certain I will look after Persham Abbey for you until you come home to be its mistress.”

“I don’t wish to take over from you, Aunt Patricia,” Dorothea objected, honestly. In fact, she was terrified at the prospect.

“I am more than ready to hand over the reins, my dear,” Aunt Patricia insisted. “I am so pleased Lion married you. You are good for Lion and you will be good for the family and our people. Come home while I am still fit to help you make your place here, if you can. You have made a good start, Dorothea. Never doubt it.”

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Tea with an interviewer

(I wrote this for Caroline Warfield’s blog back in 2015. I thought it was time to dig it out again. Enjoy!)

Eleanor Grenford, Duchess of Haverford, seldom consents to an interview. Though she lives, perforce, in the public eye—as wife to one of the most powerful men in England and mother to two of England’s most notable rakes—she carefully guards her private life.

She agreed to answer our questions only after being assured that this interviewer is from the future and from real life, not the fictional world she inhabits.

Born Eleanor Creydon, eldest daughter of the Earl of Farnmouth, she is related by birth or marriage to most of the noble houses of England and many in the wider United Kingdom and Europe. She married the Duke of Haverford before she attained the 18th anniversary of her nativity, and has since become one of the ton’s leading hostesses.

She has a supporting (but important) role in many of Jude’s books.

  1. What are you most proud of about your life?

“My two sons,” says the duchess, without hesitation. “Aldridge—the Marquis of Aldridge, my elder son and Haverford’s heir—is responsible and caring. And Jonathan, too. They are, I cannot deny, a little careless. But they are not heartless, dear. I’ve always thought that being heartless is the defining feature of a true rake.

“They take responsibility for their by-blows, which is so important in a gentleman, do you not agree? And neither of them has ever turned a mistress off without providing for her, or at least not since they were very young.

“Sadly, the example set by His Grace their father was not positive in this respect. I flatter myself that I have been of some influence in helping them to understand that they have a duty to be kind to those less fortunate and less powerful than themselves.”

  1. What are you most ashamed of in your life?

The duchess does not answer immediately. She seems to be turning over several possibilities. “I neglected him, you know. I neglected Aldridge. When he was born, I left him to his servants. I thought that was normal, and Haverford… he was very angry when I suggested I should stay at the castle instead of going to London for the season.

“Why; even his name… Haverford insisted everyone call him by his title. But I could have called him ‘Anthony’ in private, could I not?

“Dear Aldridge had no-one but his staff. I was seldom at Margate, and when I was… His Grace thought it my duty to spend my time with him. I saw Aldridge once a day, brought to me clean and quiet of an evening before his bedtime.

“I had no idea what I had done until Jonathan was born. He timed his birth for the end of the season, and His Grace left for his usual round of house parties, so I could do as I wished. I wished to be in the nursery with my sons.

“After that, I found ways to bring them to London with me, and to spend time with them at play as often as several times a week! Even so, I did not dare go against the duke’s orders, and I call my son by his title to this day. Everyone does. Poor dear boy.”

  1. What impression do you make on people when they first meet you?

“People don’t see me, my dear. They see the Duchess of Haverford. I cannot blame them, of course. I am at pains to project the image of ‘duchess’. I have cultivated it my entire adult life. Why! If people truly saw me, they would be very surprised, I think.”

  1. Do you think you have turned out the way your parents expected?

“My parents expected me to marry well and to present my husband with heirs. Had I married beneath their expectations, I daresay I would never have seen them again. I cannot say, dear, that such an outcome would have been entirely a bad thing.”

  1. What is the worst thing that has happened in your life? What did you learn from it?

“I could say losing James, or I could say marrying Haverford, but it is all of a piece. I cannot tell you where the one ends and the other starts. I gave my heart to James, but he was a second son. My father gave my hand to Haverford.

“And by ‘hand’ I mean the rest of me, dear. Imagine a sheltered seventeen-year-old, innocent but for a stolen kiss with the man she hoped to wed. And instead of that man, I spent my wedding night in the hands of a hardened roué with no patience… He is two decades my senior, dear. Thirteen years older than James.

“I believe my sons are known for their skills. (I speak of bed sports, dear, and do not blush for it, for at our age we should scorn to be coy, and this article will be published, you have assured me, some two hundred years in my future.) If Haverford has such skills, and the rumour is not just flattery aimed at money to be made from his patronage, he did not feel inclined to waste it on a mere wife.”

  1. How do you feel about your life right now? What, if anything, would you like to change?

“I am fortunate. I live in luxury. I have my sons (or, at least, I have Aldridge close by and regular letters from Jonathan, who is on the Tour, dear). I have the little girls, too—Haverford’s by-blows, but I love them dearly. I can give them an education, respectability, a little dowry… I do these things, too, for my poorer godchildren, and I love nothing better than to present one of my goddaughters for her Season.

“I enjoy entertaining—balls, musical evenings, garden parties and picnics in London, and house parties at our other estates. My entertainments are famous. I have promised to be honest with you, so I will say ‘not without reason’.” The duchess laughs, her eyes for a moment showing glints of the self-deprecating humour that is part of her elder son’s attraction.

“And, dear, I have come to an accommodation with Haverford. He leaves me to live my own life, while he carries on with his. Between you and me, my dear, my life is pleasanter without him in it.”

  1. What have you always wanted to do but have not done? Why?

“I have always wondered what my life might have been like had I defied my father and eloped with James. He came to me, you know, after the duel; after his own father exiled him. I turned him away. And then, six months later we heard he was dead. I didn’t care what happened to me after that, so I gave in to my father’s demands and married Haverford.

“It wasn’t true, as it turned out. He arrived back in London not long ago, with a great band of wild children. I could have been their mother, had I been brave enough to go with him.

“But there. Had I married James, I would not have Aldridge and Jonathan. Perhaps all is as it should be.

“You asked what I have always wanted to do? I want to see James again; to talk to him, just the two of us. Haverford… he and James do not speak. We Grenfords do not acknowledge the Winderfields and they do not acknowledge us. If people are inviting James or his offspring to their social gathering, they do not invite us. If us, then not him. We do not meet.

“But Society is surprisingly small. One day… one day…”

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Backlist spotlight on A Baron for Becky

A fallen woman, she dreams of landing on her feet, until unexpected news threatens disaster

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.

This was the book that introduced the Marquis of Aldridge to my readers.

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Building in Regency England

Looking for information about building in the Regency era, I came across this marvellous site, which contains the written material from five years of Heritage Open Weekends by The Regency Town House. Everything you ever wanted to know about building at that time in the Brighton-Howe area. For example:

In the Regency, there was no tubular metal scaffolding of the type we now commonly see used on building sites. Instead, the bricklayers’ scaffold was constructed of various seasoned and unseasoned wooden poles of mixed lengths, each of which was lashed together with rope made of hemp or jute fibre. The differently sized poles used in the construction of scaffold were referred to as ‘standards’, ‘ledgers’ and ‘putlogs’, names that have passed down into common usage to describe the different lengths of metal tube used in the construction of scaffold today.

Standards were upright poles of 30 to 50 feet in length, to which the shorter ledgers were lashed, horizontally, to span the length of the building. These types of pole were cut from timber such as Baltic pine and yellow fir, the bark of which was frequently removed before use.

 

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History on WIP Wednesday

One of the first things I do when planning a story is find out what was happening in the world at the time of the story. In 1815, few events could have been more significant to a retired soldier than the Battle of Waterloo. It was obvious to me that my epilogue for Chaos Come Again had to touch on the arrival of the news from Belgium.

By the next day, rumours that battle had been joined were swirling around London. Lion went out in the morning to see what he could find out, but no one knew anything concrete.

“I don’t know how many people I spoke to who are convinced the Corsican monster is even now on his way to England having massacred the largest army the allied forces have ever put into a single field,” he told Dorothea, disgusted. “You will be pleased to know that I punched none of their stupid faces.”

By that evening, the rumour was that there had been a great battle, a retreat, and a defeat. It was now the twentieth of June. The more credible reports suggested the French had crossed the northern border of France some five days ago, and engaged the Prussians, who had fallen back.

“Not a defeat,” Lion scoffed, and the veterans among their friends agreed. “A fighting retreat until they can gather their numbers. If the Prussians were the only troops involved, it wasn’t the main battle.”

As Lion and Dorothea drove back to their townhouse, the streets were thronged with people waiting for official news.

The following morning, several of the London newspapers claimed that a bloody battle had been fought and won. But they provided no detail and ascribed the news to a gentleman who had arrived in London from Brussels. And a couple of them even said there may have been not a victory, but a defeat.

The couple kept themselves busy, but dread and hope mingled as they waited. “Even if the battle is over,” Lion pointed out, “that doesn’t mean the war is won.”

Lady Sutton and her mother-in-law, the Duchess of Winshire, were holding a ball that night. Lion and Dorothea decided to go, rather than sit around their townhouse and fret about the outcome of the battle. “We will dance and talk with our friends, even as we pray for our comrades,” Dorothea said.

It was close to midnight when the Duke of Winshire suddenly halted the orchestra, and called out in a battlefield roar, “Listen! Outside! Do you hear?”

In the silence, the shouts of a crowd carried clearly through the French doors that were open all along one side of the ballroom. As one, the ball-goers surged for those doors, the closest reaching the terrace first and joining the shouting. “Victory! Hurrah!”

The orchestra struck up again, this time to the tune, God Save the King. Lion could feel tears prick his eyes. It was over, then.

 

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Tea with Lady Patricia

“Milk and sugar, is it not, Patricia?” Eleanor asked her guest.

It had been years since Eleanor, Duchess of Haverford, had seen her godmother, Lady Patricia Strathford-Bowles. The elderly lady had been chatelaine for her brother, the Earl of Ruthford, for more than twenty years. Ever since his failing health precluded him from making the long trip from his family seat in County Durham to London and the House of Lords, Eleanor and Patricia had kept in touch by letter.

A letter had already informed Eleanor about the family crisis that had brought Patricia south without her brother. Her brother’s announcement that his supposedly illegitimate grandson was, in fact, born the heir the Ruthford title was a topic of discussion at all levels of Society, and the earl’s concealment of his son’s marriage until all other possible heirs had died was drawing much comment. Society was divided between those indignant on behalf of the overlooked heir, and those who thought his tainted blood reason enough to pass him over.

Furthermore, the newly announced heir had married suddenly and in suspicious circumstances. Eleanor and her allies had been doing their level best to put a romantic gloss on the wedding, but others were working just as hard to make the young wife appear a grasping witch, and the heir a lustful fool.

The heir and his wife, Lord and Lady Harcourt, were not known to Society, and not present to make friends of their own. Lord Harcourt, a colonel in the cavalry, was leading his men in Spain, and his wife was with him.

“I am here to represent the family,” Lady Patricia said. “I believe we may need to address the poisonous lies about my great nephew and his wife at the source. Will you help me to confront the Westinghouse family, Eleanor?”

Lord Harcourt, also known as Lionel O’Toole, and Dorothea, his wife, have their story told in Chaos Come Again.