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The Development of Democracy: Part 1—the Ancient World

The Regency era I write about was on the cusp of major changes in democracy, as it was for industrialisation, criminal justice and law enforcement, the class system, global politics, scientific discovery, medicine, transportation, and many other aspects of how people lived. They had not yet achieved anything like a representative democracy in the modern sense of the term—that is, that government comprises people who have been elected by citizens to represent them. Indeed, apart from a lot of talking during the early years of the French revolution (universal male suffrage was proclaimed in France in 1789, but cancelled after one election), few countries adopted the idea till the second half of the nineteenth century. Extending the vote to women took even longer.

I’ve been giving my characters forward-thinking views on political reform, because I can’t quite bear to make a hero or a heroine out of someone who admires the system they had back then. That, in turn, has led me to look at just what that system was and how and why it changed.

At the same time, the British Commonwealth, of which New Zealand is part, has been celebrating the 70th Jubilee of one of the longest reigning monarchs the world has ever had. Some are using the opportunity to ask whether monarchy as an institution has met its use by date. It seems to me the difference between monarchy and republic is not nearly as significant as the question about who makes the decision about who makes and enforces the rules by which a society was governed.

Today, I want to lay a foundation to the discussion by looking back to the ancient world.

Democracy came first

Studies of hunter-gatherer societies today show them to be hierarchical but egalitarian. Despite differences in climate, culture and history, their government structures are similar across the globe. They operate in kinship groups, with wider connections according to exchange information, goods, and non-related mates.

Those with the most skill and experience become the informal leaders of the group, so who was in charge would depend on the task being performed. Every adult member of the band involved in a task has right to express an opinion, so there might be a split across gender lines, with women discussing women’s activities, and men discussing men’s activities.

Co-operation was key for human societies before settled agriculture, and every member of the band mattered to its survival.

Priest-kings and citizens assemblies

With the development of wide-spread agriculture, two forms of government emerged. One was autocratic. The other was at least proto-democratic.

Priest-kings with ultimate authority very likely came with wide-spread agriculture. A central authority needed to organise the large-scale activities that agriculture bought. Secure places to store grain and soldiers to protect it from inside larceny or outside invasion. Irrigation works to take water to the fields and road works to bring the grain to storage. Someone had to be in charge. Religion, military power, and political power combined to concentrate the power in the hands of a single elite.

Such a system ran the risk that an incompetent leader and his cronies might believe their own public relations rather than their advisors. History is cluttered with societal-collapses because of poor decision-making from the top. At best, the priest-king would lose his place through assassination, coup, or revolution. I am still tickled by the pragmatic approach of ancient Chinese political philosophy. The Emperor ruled by the mandate of Heaven. That mandate could be removed. How did the Emperor know the mandate had been removed? Someone succeeded in deposing him.

On the other hand, not all such kings ruled with absolute power. We have evidence of citizens’ assemblies as early as four and a half thousand years ago. In Syria-Mesopotamia at the time, many towns and cities–and even countrysides–had citizens’ assemblies who might rule alone on local issues. On wider state issues, similar groups advised the ruler or even had the right to ratify major decisions taken by the ruler.

We know this because documents include the titles ‘Chief of the Assembly’ and ‘Herald of the Assembly’. The myth of Gilgamesh says that the hero was unable to go to war without the approval of the people.

“… having failed to obtain the approval of the council elders, he then went to the council of young men.”

We have no idea who decided the membership of the citizens assemblies, or how much influence they had. (Certainly, Gilgamesh just moved on to ask someone else in order to get his way.) But it was, at least, a starting point.

Greece and Rome

The city states of Greece borrowed their popular assemblies from Syria-Mesopotamia. In Athens, between 508 and 260 before the common era, male citizens met every 10 days to debate and decide laws. Athenian women, slaves, and resident aliens did not get to vote.

The Greeks called this demokratia—a form rule by the people. Apparently, women were not people, a view shared by the entire Western world until suprisingly recently.

That aside, the Greeks also introduced trial before elected juries, public vetting of officials, freedom to speak in public, voting by lot, and the ability to expel people from the assembly by popular vote. All important elements of later democracies.

The Greek political systems ended as other have, throughout history. By invasion. Repeated invasions made Greece part of the Roman Empire,

Rome followed the same principle of assemblies from 509 BCE until the Roman Republic ended in 27 BCE with the appointment of the first Roman Emperor.

In the Roman Republic, the patricians—the wealthy aristocracy—were initially the only people who could vote and hold offices. The assembly they elected was called the Senate, and it was an advisory body to those assemblies that actually made the rules. However, over 200 years, the plebians gained the right to elect their own kind to the Concilium Plebis, which regulated the plebians.

Several other assemblies made the laws for specific parts of Roman society. All of them were strongly influenced by the Senate.

Under the emperors, power shifted from representative democracy to imperial authority. Even so, the assemblies continued their governing roles, though the Emperor became the final authority.

Throughout that time, to be elected or appointed to one of the assemblies, a person needed to be male, free, and a citizen of Rome.

Next week, the long gestation of Western democracy

Sources

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Hunter-Gatherers_and_Play

https://www.google.co.nz/books/edition/Sumer_and_the_Sumerians/eX8y3yW04n4C? pg 30

https://doi.org/10.2307/595104

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/romes-transition-republic-empire

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Amnesia on WIP Wednesday

Today’s excerpt is from the story I’ve just written for my next newsletter, which I’ll be putting out in the next few days. It uses the amnesia trope, and is set in the same part of the UK, and a few months after, the storm in the Bluestocking Belles collection Storm & Shelter. Indeed, the storm in question sets off the events of the story, and the seaside village of Fenwick-on-Sea comes in for an honourable mention.

All day, Abbey had been following a cart across the field and the rickyard and back, one of three men using pitchforks to lift the hay from the windrows into the cart and then from the cart onto whatever rick was being built. It was one of the skills he had discovered when he was well enough to be put to work. It was exhausting work, but still gave him time — too much time — to think about his dreams.

Were the dreams about his past life? He did not know. He did know he always woke feeling as if he had left something undone and time was running out.

He could no more remember what task he was neglecting than he could remember his own identity.

His ability to build a hay rick was a clue, he supposed. He could plough and scythe, too. And milk a cow. And groom and ride a horse.

He could also read and write. He spoke — or so they told him — like a gentleman. His mind was stuffed with all sorts of knowledge that the farmhands around here found surprising. It was something of a game for them, to ask him a question out of the blue. Name the kings of England. He could do that, yes, and recite the dates, too. He knew the dates of key events in English history. He could finish the verse of popular song if someone called out the first line. He could do it for poetry too, as the local squire discovered.

The squire suggested he might have been the son of a wealthy farmer, sent away to school but still accustomed to helping out on the land.

Abbey wondered why he could access so many facts and skills, but not know who he was, where he was from, or how he arrived on the beach at Dunwich more than half drowned, with a broken arm and a great bleeding wound on his head.

There had been a great storm that had swept all of that coast, cutting Dunwich off from the roads inland and to villages north and south. At a guess, he had been washed overboard from a ship, or had been aboard one of several that had foundered. Nobody knew. The squire made enquiries when he took Abbey into Ipswich to be examined by a doctor. He even sent letters to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

No one had reported losing a man of Abbey’s description and name. If Abbey was his name. It had been the first word on his lips when he recovered consciousness, or so they told him. It didn’t feel as if it fitted, but he had no other name to offer.

The doctor said his memories might come back a few at a time, or all at once, or never. Abbey, still shaky on his legs from his long recovery and with no clues to his own identity, accepted the squire’s offer to return to Dunwich.

He worked on getting fit. He worked on any task he was given as a return for the care and kindness he had been shown. He bludgeoned his mind for the least hint about his past, but all he gained was a headache.

The dreams had started six weeks ago. At first, occasionally but now, every night. They faded as he woke leaving an impression of warm brown eyes, of someone calling for him to come home. Each night, the sense of urgency increased. He had something he needed to do. Quickly, before it was too late.

He had no idea what it was or why it was important.

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Tea with Lady Clairmont

Serafina Montague, Countess of Clairmont accepted the cup of tea handed to her by the duchess’s companion, and smiled her thanks. While Her Grace was preparing the tea for the four of them, she kept up a light patter of social conversation, and Seffie responded in kind. She might not know London society, but at her estate and in the nearby villages, she was the grand lady, and it was her job to put people at ease.

All the time, she was wondering how to ask for the information she wanted. She was sure the duchess would know. Her Grace reportedly knew everyone who was anyone. But would she tell Seffie the same thing as Lord and Lady Barrington, the only people Seffie knew in the whole of London? “You should not even know that such events exist, Lady Clairmont. Or such men. Nothing good can come of giving you the address. Wait at Clairmont House. Better yet, go home to Clairhaven. No doubt the earl will return when he is ready.”

She brooded over her tea, while her face grew stiff from holding a pleasant expression. She had waited long enough. She wanted to see her husband, and if she had to follow him to a notorious house party, then she would do so. If the duchess would tell her were to go.

When everyone was served, the duchess gave her the cue she needed. “I understand your husband has returned to England, Lady Clairmont. You must be pleased.”

“I have not yet seen my husband, Your Grace,” she said. “I hope I will be pleased once we have met.” She took a deep breath. “I would like your help with that, if you would be so kind.”

The duchess raised interrogatory eyebrows. “In what way?” she asked.

“I need to know the address of a man called Seddon. All I know about him is that he is holding a house party. My husband is at that house party. I plan to go and talk to him.”

The eyebrows lifted still further. “Seddon is not an uncommon name,” she commented, her tone bland.

“I have been told that this Mr Seddon’s house parties are…” she paused, trying to find the right word.

Her Grace completed the sentence for her. “Notorious? If that is the Mr Seddon you are looking for, Lady Clairmont, you must be very careful.”

“I will be careful, but I am not going to wait any longer for Clairmont to find it convenient to remember that I exist.” The sympathy in the duchess’s eyes drew the truth from her. “I have been exchanging letters with Clairmont for twelve years, Your Grace. On paper he seems to be a man I like, but the stories about him do not give me confidence that I will ever have a true marriage. I will, however, have a child, if I can. And for that, I must meet the man. And…” she trailed off, waving a hand to signify the more intimate things she would have to do in order for a child to be a possibility.

The duchess nodded. “Very well. I think I know who can tell me whether the Mr Seddon I am thinking of is currently having one of his house parties, and perhaps even whether Lord Clairmont is in attendance. We shall talk further about how to make sure you are safe at such a house party once I have the information you need.”

Seffie sat back in her chair and took another sip of her tea. She did not yet feel triumph. But she had taken another step towards it.

The Truant Lord Clairmont

Lady Clairmont goes to a scandalous house party to retrieve her truant husband after his return to England from a nine-year absence. What she discovers is unexpected.

A short story in Sunflower Season

SUNFLOWER SEASON is a charity collection featuring stories (some never-been-published and some old favorites) by over 70 — that’s right — SEVENTY of your favorite Historical Romance authors. ALL royalties will be donated to humanitarian relief in Ukraine. This set will be released on June 7, 2022 and will only be available for a limited time. Preorder now and enjoy a summer of historical romance!

Featuring novellas, stories and novels by Sabrina Jeffries, Christi Caldwell, Amalie Howard, Virginia Heath, Caroline Lee, Golden Angel, Bree Wolf, Lori Ann Bailey, Nicole Locke, Natasha Blackthorne, Royaline Sing, Lenora Bell, Sabrina Jeffries, Amy Quinton, Janna MacGregor, Annabelle Anders, Rachel Ann Smith, Eva Devon, Sandra Sookoo, Tabetha Waite, Diana Bold, Sadie Bosque, Cheryl Bolen, Erica Monroe, Kate Bateman, Cara Maxwell, Tracy Sumner, Jenna Jaxon, Jane Charles, Eliza Knight, Mariah Stone, Robyn DeHart, Wendy LaCapra, Hildie McQueen, Madeline Martin, Amy Rose Bennett, Ava Bond, Kristin Vayden, Piper Huguley, Fenna Edgewood, Kathryn Le Veque, Caroline Linden, Nancy Yeager, Dawn Brower, Celeste Barclay, Lauren Royal, Michele Pollock Dalton, Glynnis Campbell, Rose Pearson, Erica Ridley, Sydney Jane Baily, Deb Marlowe, Rebecca Paula, Amanda Mariel, Christine Sterling, Ava Stone, Lauren Smith, Sawyer Quinn, Caroline Warfield, Jessica A Clements, Jude Knight, Anna St. Claire, Tamara Gill, Gina Conkle, Charlie Lane, Terri Brisbin, Bronwen Evans, Emmanuelle de Maupassant, Merry Farmer, Tammy Andresen, Cecelia Mecca, Meredith Bond, Christine Donovan, Lana Williams, Carrie Lomax, Eve Pendle, Bethany Bennett, Bianca Blythe, Maggie Dallen, Samara Parish, Anna Campbell and more????

Again, ALL proceeds will be donated to Ukrainian relief efforts. We are not affiliated with any charities but are only doing what we can to provide help for the innocent people who’ve lost so much as a result of this senseless tragedy.

Preorder at your favourite retailer. https://books2read.com/Sunflower-Season-For-Ukraine

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First kiss on WIP Wednesday

An excerpt from the book I’m currently preparing for beta reading, One Perfect Dance. Ash has just rescued Ginny.

She was still crying, but the angry storm was gone, fading into heart-wrenching sobs that twisted Ash’s gut even more than the initial outburst. “There now, Ginny” Ash said. “Let it out, dearest. You’re safe now, my love.”

She turned her face up at that, drawing back so that her tear-drenched eyes could meet his. “Am I, Elijah?”

“Yes, of course. He has gone, and I won’t let him near you again.”

She thumped his chest softly, an action so reminiscent of the child Ginny that he had to repress a smile. “Not that,” she scolded. “The other.”

He retraced his words in his mind. “My love?” At her tiny nod, he repeated, “My love.”

She raised her eyebrows in question, the imperious gesture only slightly marred by the shuddering breath of a leftover sob.

“I love you, Ginny. Did you not know?”

She thumped him again, another gentle reprimand. “You never said,” she grumbled. “You never even tried to kiss me.” The last two words were disrupted by a hiccup, but he understood them well enough.

“I am abjectly sorry, Ginny,” Ash told her, managing to keep his voice suitably solemn while his heart was attempting to break out of his chest and into hers. She has been waiting for my kisses! Missing them, even. “I have never courted anyone before. I am clearly not very good at it.”

She hiccupped again as she put up a hand to cradle Ash’s cheek. “I am sorry to be so cross, Elijah. I hate hiccups. I hate crying, and it always give me the hiccups.” She proved it with another shuddering hiccup.

“Have a sip of brandy, beloved,” he suggested, and he picked up one of the glasses and held it to her lips. “It might help. And if it doesn’t, perhaps a kiss will cure them.”

Ash was very aware that she had not returned his declaration of love. However, she wanted his kisses. He would start there and hope for the best.

Ginny took the glass from his hand and had another sip, followed by another hiccup.

“It will have to be the kiss, then,” he suggested. He lowered his head to hers, slowly, giving her plenty of time to turn him away. Instead, she lifted her face to bridge the gap, her mouth reaching inexpertly for his.

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Tea with Antiquities

Professor Malcolm Marr waited with some trepidation while the elegant lady in front of him unpacked the box he had brought with him.

He was merely carrying out a commission, he reminded himself, and had followed his client’s instructions to the letter, so whether she liked the result or not, it was not his responsibility.

Still, he found himself anxious not to disappoint the Duchess of Winshire. She was a good and kind person, as well as a powerful one, and he knew the present was for her new husband. A love token. He might not have experienced romantic love himself, but he had seen it in others. He respected the notion.

She had moved aside the wood shavings and the strips of paper, and was lifting out the first item. “Oh! It is beautiful!”

“Chinese, Your Grace,” he explained. “From the Tang dynasty. More than a thousand years old. ” It stood four square on a small marble stand, its neck arched and its bobbed tail proud. The colours were still as bright as the day it was fired.

“How magnificent,” said Her Grace.

The second piece bore signs that it, too, had once been brightly painted, but now—except in the cracks, it was the white of the marble from which it had been carved. Another horse, this one caught forever in a trot, its mane and tail flowing in the wind of its silent passage. “Greek, ma’am, in the Hellenistic style, so just of two thousand years old.”

“Beautiful,” the duchess breathed. “Professor Marr, these are perfect.”

Her smile took years off her age and reminded Mal that she had once been the reigning beauty of her time. “Nothing from Egypt? I know that is your specialist area.”

“Nothing on the market at the moment, Your Grace.”

“You have done very well, my dear. Now drink your tea and I shall drink mine while gloating over these two wonderful statuettes. My husband will be as thrilled as I am.”

She turned the full force of her smile onto the two pieces, and Mal let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He had not made a mistake. He hated seeing the lovely remnants of the past in the hands of people who would not appreciate them, but that didn’t apply here.

He felt obliged to point out, however, that such horses were not rare, as such things go. “There are many such items available if one knows where to look, Your Grace.”

“As you do. You are not going to tell me that they are turned out in great quantity by a little workshop in East Wapping, I hope.”

He laughed at that. “No, Your Grace. They are genuine. They are also unique, in that every piece that is found is a little different from every other.”

“They are perfect,” she repeated. “You must not fret, Professor.” She changed the subject. “Now. I understand you are off to York. A public lecture, is it?”

“One for the York Antiquarian Society, Ma’am. I am taking in their full schedule of lectures while I am there.”

“You have a relative in York, I believe.”

“A godmother. Rose St Aubyn. I’ll be staying with her while I’m in York.”

“Oh!” The duchess sounded surprised, but she changed the subject, asking him about recent work, and they passed another thirty minutes in pleasant conversation before he took his leave.

Eleanor looked at the door as it closed behind the esteemed scholar. Perhaps she should have told him that Rose St Aubyn was away, and that the house was soon to be occupied by the daughters of the deceased Earl of Seahaven. But Eleanor remembered the eldest from her brief London season. Fiercely intelligent. Deeply interested in ancient civilisations. That had been years ago, of course, but Lady Elizabeth had not ‘taken’, and nor had she married since.

Perhaps the professor and the bluestocking might suit? Stranger things had happened. And if the young man thought to stay in the house the young lady occupied, they would certainly meet.

Malcolm Kentigern Marr is the hero of Rue Allyn’s “The Butler and the Bluestocking”, a story in Desperate Daughters. And he certainly does meet the lovely Lady Elizabeth.  Now published by still only 99 cents. Price goes up to $5.99 after 23 May.

 

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Spotlight on “A Countess to Remember” in Desperate Daughters

A Countess to Remember: By Sherry Ewing

Sometimes love finds you when you least expect it…

Patience, the young Dowager Countess of Seahaven cares for a bevy of stepdaughters, and a Season for each to find husbands seems out of reach. There’s been no chance for romance herself but fate intervenes in the form of Richard, Viscount Cranfield, in York for his sister’s Season. Will Patience allow herself time for love?

And 8 other great stories.

Excerpt

Patience smiled at the girls while her toddler came and plopped herself on her lap. She gave brief introductions to the stepdaughters Richard had yet to meet before she continued. “As you can see, we can be a somewhat rambunctious group, and it was too nice a day to leave the younger children at home.”

Richard nodded. “No reason why they shouldn’t enjoy the outing. With the weather particularly warm for April, an al fresco party is just the thing.” Were they chatting about the weather again, and this time initiated by him? He almost groaned aloud. Surely, he could think of another topic of witty conversation to amuse her besides the weather.

Milton excused himself to speak to the other young ladies on the next blanket giving Richard a small amount of privacy to have Patience all to himself.

“You look particularly lovely today, Lady Seahaven.”

“Thank you, Lord Cranfield,” she said bouncing the child on her lap.

Complementing her came as easily as taking his next breath, and her blush only enhanced her beauty. Dressed in a white gown, the square cut of her garment just rising above her breasts was decorated in tiny embroidered rosebuds, and he wondered if she had taken the time to sew them herself. Not that it mattered if she could sew or not… He was generally more interested in getting a woman out of her gown than into it. But the dress became her along with her matching bonnet. Was he becoming some sort of dandy? Thinking of the intricate detail of a gown would be more in line with something his friend George would consider and talk about. God forbid if Richard was becoming more like him!

As he continued to watch Patience with her daughter, Richard had a vision of his own child held in the arms of the countess. Given their kiss the other night, he knew his feelings were reciprocated no matter that they had only just met. Could this possibly be the start of something that could last a lifetime? Only time would tell. If anything, they had a friendship that was blooming right before his very eyes, and he had to admit he had missed her company since the ball. A smile came to his face as he remembered having the opportunity to have two dances with her. A waltz had kept her in his arms. A faster-paced dance kept their fingertips touching and laughter on their lips. At the time, he had wished he could have danced the night away with her. However, that would have caused a scandal.

He realized Patience was struggling to rise with a wiggly toddler balanced on her hip. Rushing over, Richard held onto her elbow until she finally stood on solid ground. She raised those glorious blue-grey eyes to him in obvious gratitude.

“My chivalrous knight coming to my rescue,” she quietly said, beaming up at him with those glorious eyes before continuing, “Will you perhaps show up next on a white steed?” Her twinkling eyes told him much, and he couldn’t resist the smile that turned up the corners of his mouth.

“If my lady so commands me, I will be more than happy to come to your rescue whenever you have need of me. I just so happen to have a white horse in my stables to await your pleasure.”

Her laughter rang out, causing Richard’s heart to swell. “I really think I’m going to have to be careful around you, my lord. You continue to turn my head with such flattery,” she teased.

He leaned forward. “I would never tire of giving you the compliments you so deserve, my dearest lady,” he murmured for her ears alone, before stepping back as protocol dictated.

Before she could comment, the squirming toddler made it known she no longer wished to be held by her mother. Patience put her down and before she could grab hold of her hands, the young girl wobbled over to Richard and grabbed him around his legs. His eyes widened in surprise until the little crumb crawler with curly auburn hair raised her blue eyes up to him and spoke.

“Papa up!” she demanded holding up her tiny hands for him to take.

“Jane!” Patience moaned in embarrassment.

See the project page at the Bluestocking Belles’ website for more information.

Desperate Daughters was published on 17 May. You can still get it today and tomorrow at the preorder price of 99c. After that, the price goes up to $5.99.

 

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Comfort and kindness on WIP Wednesday

One of the most endearing things a hero can do is comfort his heroine after she has been hurt or frightened. How he does this tells us a lot about his character. Here is my Ash comforting Regina, who is reacting to being assaulted in her own drawing room by a suitor she thought to be harmless. (Ash has punched him, threatened him, and had him thrown out.)

In a moment, she was a warm fragrant bundle on Ash’s lap, her curves draped across his torso, her arms wrapped around him, her face tucked into his shoulder as she cried.

He patted her shoulder, murmuring comfort. “There now. You’re safe now, Ginny. He’s gone. He won’t bother you again. I have you, my darling. I have you.”

He had not seen Regina so discomposed since she was a child, grieving the loss of a kitten. He wished he’d hit Deffew harder. He’d thought he and Charles were in time, but if the swine’s violation had gone beyond what he’d seen, the dog would die for it, Regina’s opinion notwithstanding.

Charles poked his head around the door, his eyes widening in alarm when he saw the state of his mistress. Ash pointed to the brandy decanter he could see on a sideboard. “Two,” he mouthed, ceasing his patting to hold up two fingers then resuming again, barely breaking rhythm.

Charles nodded, and tiptoed to the decanter to pour two glasses of brandy, then tiptoed back across the room to place them on a side table next to Ash’s elbow, setting them down so carefully that they did not clink.

Ash briefly wondered whether the young man wanted to save Regina the embarrassment of knowing her emotional collapse had been witnessed, or whether he feared that she might expect him to do something about it if she knew he was there. Whichever it was, he faded back across the room and out of the door, pulling it shut behind him.

She was still crying, but the angry storm was gone, fading into heart-wrenching sobs that twisted Ash’s gut even more than the initial outburst. “There now, Ginny” Ash said. “Let it out, dearest. You’re safe now, my love.”

She turned her face up at that, drawing back so that her tear-drenched eyes could meet his. “Am I, Elijah?”

“Yes, of course. He has gone, and I won’t let him near you again.”

She thumped his chest softly, an action so reminiscent of the child Ginny that he had to repress a smile. “Not that,” she scolded. “The other.”

He retraced his words in his mind. “My love?” At her tiny nod, he repeated, “Are you my love?”

She raised her eyebrows in question, the imperious gesture only slightly marred by the shuddering breath of a leftover sob.

“I love you, Ginny. Did you not know?”

She thumped him again, another gentle reprimand. “You never said,” she grumbled. “You never even tried to kiss me.” The last two words were disrupted by a hiccup, but he understood them well enough.

“I am abjectly sorry, Ginny,” Ash told her, managing to keep his voice suitably solemn while his heart was attempting to break out of his chest and into hers. She has been waiting for my kisses! Missing them, even. “I have never courted anyone before. I am clearly not very good at it.”

She hiccupped again as she put up a hand to cradle Ash’s cheek. “I am sorry to be so cross, Elijah. I hate hiccups. I hate crying, and it always give me the hiccups.” She proved it with another hiccup.

“Have a sip of brandy, beloved,” he suggested, and he picked up one of the glasses and held it to her lips. “It might help. And if it doesn’t, perhaps a kiss will cure them.”

Ash was very aware that she had not returned his declaration of love. However, she wanted his kisses. He would start there and hope for the best.

Ginny took the glass from his hand and had another sip, followed by another hiccup.

“It will have to be the kiss, then,” he suggested.

 

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Tea with music

What the musicians at an event were given for refreshments varied by country, Jack had found. In Austria and in some parts of Italy, they were treated as honoured guests, welcome to eat the same supper as their audience, and even to mingle if they so desired. In other places, they might be served lukewarm tea or a light ale with, if they were lucky a slice of bread. At times, they even needed to forage for themselves, or bring their own meal and a flask of something.

Tonight’s soiree in Paris was proving to be exceptional, much to Jack’s surprise. When he was hired to perform, he expected to be ignored most of the evening. Tonight’s hostesses were a pair of English duchesses. The English, he had discovered in Vienna, tended to regard musicians as hired help, and his growing reputation as a composer made no difference to that assessment.

He thought the audience would be more focused on conversation than on music, and that he’d need the brioche in the bag he had tucked into his music satchel. He was wrong on both counts.

He had been introduced by the elder of the two duchesses, Her Grace of Winshire, who had instructed everyone to sit and listen. Which they did. They were both attentive and appreciative, and the first hour and a half flew by.

Then, when the younger duchess, a daughter-in-law of the Duchess of Winshire, announced supper, the elder led a team of servants over with supper for the orchestra, and carried Jack off to a table for two, where a tempting array of food was laid out for his selection.

He ordered ale from the waiting servant, since he never drank anything stronger when he was performing. The duchess’s preferences must already be known, for someone brought her a service of tea.

“You must be wondering why I have taken you to one side like this, John Sutton,” Her Grace said, after the ale was served and the servants retreated.

If the lady had been twenty years younger, Jack would have assumed a seduction attempt, but as it was, all he could do was incline his head in agreement.

“You are John Sutton, known as Jack, the musical second son of Baron Allbury.” She stated it as a fact. Jack could not have answered anyway. His mouth was open as he wondered how she knew.

“It is my job, Jack. May I call you Jack?” He nodded, and she continued, “I have been a duchess since I was in my teens. Knowing the peerage and all their connections is part of my obligation to my position. I was not personally acquainted with your father, but I knew your mother, a little, and a cousin of hers told me about your split from the baron, and its cause. In my opinion, having heard your music, the world would be a poorer place if you had obeyed Lord Allbury.”

Jack’s lips twitched into a smile, but he sobered, thinking of his father.

“The former Lord Allbury, that is. I am sorry for your loss, Jack. Father and brother. That is a hard blow.”

Jack rather liked this duchess. He’d known other English ladies who would be congratulating him on inheriting a barony. Not that he wanted it. Her Grace, though, started with condolences. “Thank you,” he said.

“Will you be going home?”  she asked, then gave a short laugh. “Your eyes say ‘not the old besom’s’ business’, and you are quite right.”

The twinkle in her eyes soothed his irritation and he answered her. “I have not made up my mind, Your Grace.”

“Going home is not committing yourself to accepting the burdens of the title, Jack. Why not go and have a look. Perhaps a last goodbye. Perhaps not.” She rose. “Now. I shall let you have the rest of your supper in peace.”

Jack Sutton is the hero of Mary Lancaster’s Concerto”, a story in Desperate Daughters. On preorder now. Only 99c until publication. Price goes up to $5.99 after 23 May.

 

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Spotlight on “Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match” on Desperate Daughters

Lady Twisden’s Picture Perfect Match by Alina K. Field

After years of putting up with her late husband’s rowdy friends, Honoria, Lady Twisden has escaped to York where she can paint, investigate antiquities, and enjoy freedom. Then her stepson appears with a long-lost relation in tow. Promised York’s marriage mart and the hospitality of his cousin’s doddering stepmother, Major August Kellborn is shocked to find that his fetching hostess is the one woman who stirs his heart.

And 8 other great stories.

Excerpt

Major August Kellborn, late of his Majesty’s army, beat back an impulse to seize young Sir Westcott Twisden by the neckcloth and shake him.

He’d had long experience beating back that sort of urge with the young nodcocks he’d shaped into officers. He could do so now as well.

Gus paced to the window and looked out a sparkling clean pane onto the narrow street. Their traveling chaise wasn’t visible, but Sir Sancho stood unaccompanied, busily watering a lamppost.

Gus had been in his cups the day he’d met Twisden at a horse market in Brampton, else he wouldn’t have allowed the young pup the informality of his first name, respectable though Wes was. The malaise of his first long winter’s sojourn at Whitlaw Grange, his new estate near what was once the Debatable Land, had made him more sociable than was his wont.

Still, he’d found the friendly lad more sensible than most his age, and the family connection had intrigued him. His late mother had written frequently about the Twisdens, the jovial late baronet and his amiable wife. He knew of their mutual ancestor, Sir Ebenezer Twisden as well, and so, he’d jumped at the chance to visit Twisden Hall. His very resemblance to the old warrior was astonishing, and Gus had been impressed with the well-run estate. Much of it the late baronet’s sensible widow’s doing, Gus’s valet had learned.

And so, when Wes proposed visiting his stepmother and attending the York races and then sweetened the deal with the notion of a marriage mart—it had been a very long, lonely winter—Gus agreed to this sojourn in York.

He turned back to his young erstwhile host. “Practically doddering, you said.”

Wes looked up from pouring spirits from a flask into a tumbler. “What?” His blue-eyed innocence was genuine. Wes saw his stepmother as an ancient, when she could scarcely be much beyond thirty. He ought to have paid more attention to his mother’s descriptions of the Twisdens.

“I cannot stay under your stepmother’s roof, Wes.”

“Whyever not?”

“She is not by any means doddering. She’s a widow, and one young enough that even with you here some of the time…” Wes had planned to depart for several days to visit his Grandmother in Harrogate. “The presence of a single man in her household might stir gossip.”

“She’s three and thirty and is known to be very proper. Plus…” He glanced back at the closed door and lowered his voice. “Though she’s clever and good, she’s plain.”

Gus gazed back at the now empty street. Perhaps plain was the right word to describe each of Lady Twisden’s entirely unremarkable features. But taken as a whole, he would call her appearance amiable, moving, and in fact… pretty. The spark in her eyes when she spotted him, the color rising in her cheeks, those had stirred him as well.

See the project page at the Bluestocking Belles’ website for more information.

Desperate Daughters is on preorder for publication on 17 May. Order now to get the preorder price of 99c

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Men in love on WIP Wednesday

My hero wanders in the rain, thinking about his beloved.

Ash walked through the streets of London in something of a daze. Hackman followed along in the curricle, shaking his head at his employer’s unaccountable decision to walk through the drizzling rain, but making no comment.

All of his intimate encounters had been, at root, transactional, though he had been fond of each of his mistresses and, he hoped, they with him. They said so, in any case. Being with Regina was so different that he was utterly at sea.

Their first kiss had rocked his world. It had begun as a yearning caress and become a carnal meeting of lips, teeth, and tongue. He had kissed before, and with women who were far more experienced in receiving and giving pleasure. This was Ginny and that made all the difference.

He had, somehow, managed to keep that encounter to a meeting of mouths. Her innocence helped. She followed his lead, but she initiated nothing. It was, as he’d thought at the time, as if she had never been kissed as a lover kissed.

Unlikely as it seemed, he was even more certain now that his first impression was right. She was a quick learner, though. As soon as their lips met tonight, his self-control almost escaped its leash. He managed to retain enough consciousness to keep his caresses within bounds; to slowly introduce her to the feel of his hand on her breasts, to kisses that crept every closer before he had one of her lovely nipples in his mouth.

Her fragrance, her soft skin, her moans of pleasure, the arch of her back as she lifted towards him, all tempted him to take it further, but he managed to resist. When she gave herself to him, and he was almost sure that she would, it would be a free choice, not one coerced through seduction.

A choice of forever, for he could bear no less. To bed her without promises was to risk destruction. Already, it was too late for him to walk away without a broken heart, but he still did not know if she wanted him for a lover or for a husband.

You may tell William you are courting me, she had said. But did she mean to accept him when he asked her to marry him? If she allowed him the honour of full intimacy and then refused his proposal, he did not know if he could survive it.

Holding to his honour by a thread, he had reversed his progress, gentling his caresses, kissing back up to her lips, invading her mouth one more time with the rhythm of coitus, and then retreating to closed mouth kisses and a final hug.

Hackman drew up beside him. “Sir, you are walking the wrong way.”

Ash realised that the drizzle had turned to a serious downpour. Hackman must have decided he had had enough, and he was right about Ash’s direction, too. He was further away from Artie’s townhouse than he had been when he started.

“Let me drive,” he said, and leapt up into the driver’s seat of the curricle, taking the reins from the servant.

The wise thing would have been to take the fastest route home, but he could not resist driving back past Ginny’s townhouse.

Hackman cast him a worried look when he made the turn. Ash couldn’t possibly subject the poor man a prolonged loiter outside the building while he mooned beneath his love’s lit window. But he wanted to.