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Spotlight on To Wed a Proper Lady

I’ve done a cautious prerelease of the first novel in the series The Children of the Mountain King. To Wed a Proper Lady is out on 15 April, and you can preorder now. But you can already buy it at Smashwords or from my SELZ bookshop. The prequel novella about the mountain king and his queen is now free in the same two digital shops, and when the price change filters out to Apple and Barnes & Noble, I hope to convince Amazon to make it free there, too.

Here are some of the early reviews.

A very well written story with wonderful characters. The pace is very good & drew me in from start to finish. I loved both James & Sophia, although they fell hard & fast for each other at first sight it then took some time for them to realise their feelings were reciprocated. The secondary characters also had depth, we met some new & some from other books, there’s one character whose story I’m impatiently waiting for! An engrossing, captivating read, which I didn’t want to end.

This story grabbed me on the first page when James Winderfield accompanies his father who returns home after thirty-five years in the mountains of the east, summoned by his dying father. After decades as The Mountain King, the elder Winderfield faces a step down to the title of English duke, and the challenge of shepherding his children, whose mother is a Persian princess, into the life of the ton with the respect they deserve and their innate dignity intact. The family bond, loyalty, and affection radiate from every page. James, as his father’s oldest accepts—if he doesn’t precisely embrace— a courtesy title as next in line, and can handle English society, but he detests his one large challenge. Both his vile grandfather and his loving father expect him to marry a proper English lady, a prospect distasteful for its implication his blood isn’t blue enough and a sense he’s being set out to stud for family purposes. What he wants is a loving marriage like his parents enjoyed. His journey held my heart from start to finish.

This was such a good read! I loved the characters of Jamie and Sophia. James was handsome, charming and honourable. Sophia was caring, not only for her family but also for various charities that she helped. When James first met Sophia, he felt he had met his soulmate. Although Sophia felt the same, she had her doubts, given that she was always overlooked when compared with her sister. I liked that Jamie saw Sophia for herself. They both had a strong love for their immediate families. There is also an old enmity that causes problems and the mystery as to who is trying to cause Jamie and his family harm. This was a very engaging read and I look forward to reading more in this series. Although this can be read as a standalone, I would say that the previous novella would give the background story to their life abroad. I received a copy via Booksprout and have voluntarily reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own. However, I did preorder my own copy.

I really liked this skillfully crafted story. New to English society, James is confronted by prejudice and mistrust as he looks for a suitable bride with the hope of a love match. Suspense is added by the dealings of the Duke of Haverford, who has taken upon himself to cause trouble for the Winderfield family, not just in encouraging his sycophants to cut the family, but he also raises doubts regarding the Winderfield children’s legitimacy.
As can be expected in this genre there is a happy end. The journey there was very interesting and entertaining. Now to wait for the next installment.

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Virtual historic tours

If you can’t go to the wonderful historic sites that we write about, you can still visit. Here are some links to get you started.

Heritage virtual tours: 360 virtual tours of incredible heritage sites, including British Royal Palaces; the Royal Opera House; historic buildings and castles like Wrest Park and Bovey Castle, as well as renowned distilleries such as Remy Martin and The Balvenie; galleries, museums and their exhibits, such as unique historic aircraft.

Virtual tours, panorama, and models from the BBC History division

The Louvre, where you can check out virtual tours of the Egyptian antiquities collection, remains of the Louvre’s moat and the Galerie d’Apollon

The Sistine chapel, with its incredible art.

Some of the most walkable sections of the Great Wall of China

The British Museum, the world’s oldest national public museum.

And more:

  • https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wildlife/countryside/g32000722/virtual-uk-landmark-tours/
  • https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/attractions/london-virtual-tours-attractions-landmarks-coronavirus-lockdown-a4401481.html
  • https://www.history.com/news/10-best-virtual-museums-tours-history-from-home
  • https://www.travelandleisure.com/culture-design/architecture-design/google-arts-culture-app-europe-castles
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Self doubts on WIP Wednesday

Often — perhaps mostly — one of the major barriers my characters face in finding happiness is their own opinion of themselves. Is it the same for you? If so, how about sharing an excerpt where your character experiences self-doubt. Mine is from To Mend the Broken Hearted, the second novel in The Children of the Mountain King. My heroine is explaining her family to my hero.

His question, when it came, was not what she expected. “And your mother? Did she not come to England with you?”

Mami. The queen of their small kingdom and the heart of their family. Sometimes, Ruth could barely remember her face, and then a word or a sound or a smell would bring a memory and it was as if she had just stepped into another room.

“She died twelve years ago,” she told Ashbury. After a moment, she added, “I sometimes wonder if my father might have stayed in Para Daisa Vada had she lived. She always insisted she would not come to England and that Father should not, either. The old duke sent for Father when his second son died and it seemed likely my remaining uncle would have only the one heir and him sickly. He wanted Father to repudiate us all and go home alone.”

“Your father refused.” Ashbury didn’t phrase it as a question, but Ruth nodded anyway.

“After that, though, he kept telling us that we might one day have to come to England, especially Jamie, who might well inherit an English dukedom rather than Father’s kaganate — kingdom, I suppose you would say.”

Father and Mami had argued over Father’s sense of duty, though even as a child, she had understood that their bond was far too deep for any surface sound and fury to do more than ruffle the surface. Almost certainly, if Mami had lived, she would have come to England with Father. She gave a short bark of laughter at the thought of her mother in England.

“If she had come, she would have withered the likes of Haverford with a single glance. My mother was a queen to her fingertips, a warrior of great skill, and harem-raised by my great grandmother, who was an adviser to kings. Father says that Nano was the best politician he ever met, and Mami was nearly her equal.”

“She raised a strong daughter,” Ashbury observed.

At his admiring tone, Ruth’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away. “You should meet Rebecca, my older sister. She led her own guard squad by the time she was eighteen. She can outshoot and outride most of the men. When a rival kagan held her hostage, she escaped and kidnapped his son, and they fell in love, wed, and now command the forces of my brother, Matthew, who remained to take over Father’s kingdom. Rebecca inherited a full measure of Mami’s warrior talents, and Rachel, my eldest sister, the queenly ones. Her husband came to learn statecraft from my father, and took Rachel home to Georgia to rule beside him as his wife.”

Four sisters, and three of them exceptional. Rosemary, was a paragon of the womanly arts. She was an exquisite dancer, her paintings and poems were beautiful, and she navigated the fickle politics of the women’s side of the house with ease and tact, so that even the most difficult of females liked her. In the more mixed society of England, she applied the same skills to the gentlemen they met. In fact, even the old duke, their grandfather, made a pet of her, and he hated everyone.

And then there was Ruth. Awkward in company, impatient with polite nothings, always wearing a mask behind which she felt uncertain and out of place. Mami called her ‘my little scholar’,  and certainly as a child she was happiest with her books, though she dutifully took the same training in warrior craft and household management skills as the other girls.

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Tea with the children

Eleanor smiled at the family gathered in her favourite sitting room. Matilda was pouring the tea, and Frances was carefully carrying each cup to the person for whom it had been prepared. Jessica was sitting on the arm of Aldridge’s chair, regaling him with stories about the New Year’s Charity Ball he had missed when he left the house party early. Cedrica sat quietly, as usual, but the distracted smile and the glow of happiness were new, and her thoughts were clearly on her French chef, whom she was to marry in a private ceremony in the Haverford House chapel in just a couple of weeks.

Only Jon was missing. A month ago, he had sailed from Margate in Aldridge’s private yacht, and just this morning, a package had been delivered by a weary sailor, with a report from Aldridge’s captain for the marquis, and a brief note from Jon for his mother. “Married. Safe. More news later.” Which raised more questions than it answered, not least of which was why he’d not had time to write more. Brief though it was, it set her heart at ease as much as it could be, when he was deep in war-torn Northern Europe. Not as war torn as it was when he set out, while Napoleon’s army was retreating in the face of the severe northern winter. Thank goodness that somehow, through the battle-scarred and frozen country, the messenger had managed to get this note back to Aldridge’s captain, anchored of the coast of Latvia to wait for word.

Aldridge looked up from his conversation with Jessica and gifted her with the warm smile he saved only for the women of his family. “Jon has landed on his feet again, Mama,” he told her. He shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “I don’t know how he always manages to do that!”

***

Jon’s hasty trip from Margate is mentioned in To Wed a Proper Lady, which also introduces Cedrica and features the house party. His story is all planned out, but has to wait till I have finished The Children of the Mountain King series, of which To Wed a Proper Lady is the first novel. It’s on preorder and will be published 15 April. Aldridge’s story is novel 3 in the series. All going well, you’ll have it in July or August. Cedrica’s part in the house party, and her romance with her French chef, is in the novella A Suitable Husband.

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Spotlight on To Enchant a Highland Earl

Congratulations to Collette Cameron on her new release.

Sparks fly whenever they meet…not the sensual kind.

Pick up book 5 in the best selling Heart of a Scot Series today! Read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

She knows precisely what she wants…
And it’s not the obstinate Highlander, Broden McGregor. Even if the handsome brute did recently inherit an earldom and a sizable fortune and now must wed to produce an heir. So why doesn’t Kendra object when the womanizing libertine boldly steals a kiss? And why does his promise of more sensual encounters thrill, rather than infuriate?

Fate turned his life upside down…
Not only did Broden inherit a title he never anticipated, someone wants him dead. At great peril to herself, Kendra saves his life, and the stunning lass he once regarded as his nemesis, becomes something more. But as his best friend’s adored sister, she’s off-limits. Besides, Kendra is prickly, opinionated, and holds him in contempt, though he has no idea why.

Antagonism transforms into sizzling desire…
Neither can deny nor resist the passion between them as secrets, temptations, and long-hidden love are revealed. But at what cost?

 

If you enjoy reading Highlander love stories brimming with mystery and suspense, a dash of humor, and gripping emotion, then you’ll adore Collette Cameron’s mesmerizing HEART OF A SCOT Series. Buy TO ENCHANT A HIGHLAND EARL and settle into your favorite reading nook for a rousing Highland adventure you can’t put down.

Though this book can easily be read as a stand-alone, most readers prefer to read the series in order.

HEART OF A SCOT:
To Love a Highland Laird
To Redeem a Highland Rake
To Seduce a Highland Scoundrel
To Woo a Highland Warrior
A Christmas Kiss for the Highlander
To Enchant a Highland Earl

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0859MCHYF

Goodreads – http://bit.ly/2TkeKva

BookBub – http://bit.ly/2PvuSZV

Excerpt

Now, as he guided Kendra down the passageway, her honeyed heat, mere inches away, beckoned him. As did her perfume, light and tempting with a promise of spring. Fully aware, he flirted with danger and perhaps risked a slap, as well, he bent his neck and inhaled deeply.

Her womanly scent tunneled through him, an intoxicating elixir of femininity and Kendra.

She glanced up, curiosity rather than censure in her amused gaze. A winsome smile played around the edges of her soft, plump lips. “Are ye sniffin’ me, Broden?”

He chuckled as they turned the corner leading to the top of the stairs. No sense in denying the obvious. “Aye, I am. Ye always smell amazin’.”

His superior height gave him a delicious view of the tantalizing hills and valleys her bodice revealed. He was a lecher for taking advantage of it but, damn his eyes, if he could haul his attention away from the lush display.

Desperate for a distraction, he said, “Yer fragrance contains lemon?”

Those winged eyebrows of hers that so often pulled together in annoyance and scorn when in his presence, shied skyward, as a smile just this side of teasing, curved her mouth.

“Are we truly havin’ a discussion about my perfume?” A giggle escaped her, and she clapped a palm over her mouth.

He adored her laugh but was rarely gifted the chance to hear it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m no’ laughin’ at ye. It just seems so ludicrous when a week ago, I wouldna have believed ye even aware I wore perfume.”

Oh, he was aware.

Too damned aware of everything about Kendra MacKay. That was the root of the problem. He couldn’t rid his consciousness of her. Even when he wasn’t with her.

“Never mind. It isna important.” Broden felt a sheer fool. He, who had his choice of any number of women, couldn’t hold an intelligent conversation with the only woman that mattered.

Her fingers tightened on his arm minutely, and she said, “If ye must ken, there is lemon in it. And camellia, along with the merest bit of juniper. That gives the fragrance a wee hint of mystery.”

“A bit of adventure and sweetness and mystery. And zest,” Broden murmured low, finding the conversation oddly arousing.

Did she dab the scent behind those delicate ears? Between her superbly ripe breasts? Inside her shapely elbows? Elsewhere?

Lord, help him.

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Work in progress on Wednesday?

I haven’t forgotten you, I promise. I have To Wed a Proper Lady nearly ready to put out to as an advance reader copy, and I expect it to publish on time on 15 April. I’m working on getting the back matter of Paradise Regained up to date, and then I’m going to make it permafree as an introduction to the Children of the Mountain King series, and I’m writing a Paradise Lost companion piece to give away in my April newsletter.

But, in other news, I’ve just got back from a family holiday in Bali, and I have two and half weeks to pack up my house for moving, and less time than that to find a place to move to.

So, apart from what I’ve just listed above, the writing is going on the back burner, and I’m not going to be much around on the blog or online. Wish me luck, folks! See you mid-April.

 

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First Kiss on WIP Wednesday

 

How about a first kiss post for this WIP Wednesday? I have one. It’s from To Wed a Proper Lady. Full disclosure. This seen hasn’t much changed since the novel was the novella The Bluestocking and the Barbarian.

Please share your own work-in-progress first kisses in the comments.

Sure enough, Sophia was alone in the room to which the doddery old butler directed James when he asked after the second parlour. He gave the room a quick and cursory scan before focusing his attention on the woman standing on a ladder and hanging garlands across the huge painting on the window wall. She leaned to her right to reach up to the carved pediment above the window, clutching at the draped maroon curtains to keep her balance.

James was across the room in seconds. “Careful,” he said, steadying the ladder.

Sophia looked down. “Lord Elfingham. What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for something useful to do, Lady Sophia. May I be of service?”

She examined his face and then nodded. “You are between Scylla and Charybdis, are you not?”

James laughed. “You have it exactly. On the one side, the ladies who think it worth the gamble to pull a possible future duke down into their watery vortex, and on the other, the multi-headed monster of innuendo and insult in the company of the gentlemen.”

“Neither ladies nor gentlemen by their behaviour,” his own lady said tartly. “Very well, Lord Elfingham, I will put you to work.” She put one hand on his shoulder to help herself from the ladder. “Bring the ladder, please. I have more garlands to hang.”

James lifted the ladder and followed obediently in her wake. “What are we doing, pray tell?”

“We are having a costume party tonight. You heard?”

James nodded. His wardrobe was limited to what he could carry in his saddlebags, but the duchess had ordered chests of costumes and fabric brought down from the attics, and he had found the means to replicate his festival clothes as a mountain prince, or at least close enough for the audience.

If they wanted a barbarian, he would give them a barbarian.

“We did not decorate in here on Christmas Eve, since we had so much else to do, so I am putting up Christmas decorations. See? The evergreen is a symbol of life in this most holy season. And the holly, have you heard the song about the holly?”

Sophia sang for him, in a light alto, all the verses his father had taught them when he was a tiny child. This European holly was not precisely the same as the holly he had grown up with, but it was similar. For the pleasure of hearing her voice, he kept his counsel.

She went on to explain the other Christmas customs, not just the foliage and ribbons and other materials used in the decorations, but the pudding that had been served at Christmas dinner, the Yule logs burning in various fireplaces around the house, and the boxes that the duchess had delivered the previous day to poor families around the district.

“Cedrica and I, and several of the other ladies, were her deputies,” Sophia explained. “It was wonderful to see the happy little faces of the children, James.”

James had stayed back from the hunt organised for the men in the hopes of spending time with Sophia, and had found out about the charity expedition too late to offer his services. “I am sorry that I missed it,” he said sincerely.

He noted one glaring omission in her descriptions. “Just a decoration,” she had told him, mendaciously, when he asked about the kissing boughs.

And now pretending to be ignorant of these English Christmas customs was about to pay off. One day, when she was safely his wife, he might admit to Sophia that he and the whole citadel had hung on his father’s tales of an English Christmas, that his mother and her maids had decorated high and low, and his father had led the troops out to find a fitting Yule log to carry home in triumph on Christmas Eve. A harder job in his dry mountains than in this green land.

But this was not the time for that story. Not when Sophia was relaxed and about to pass under a kissing bough that retained its full complement of mistletoe berries.

James suppressed a grin. “Look,” he said, at the opportune time, pointing up. “My kaka—my Papa—told me about these.”

She stopped, as he had intended, and with a single stride, he had reached her, wrapped her in his arms, and captured the lips that had been haunting his dreams this past three months.

And she kissed him back. For a moment… for one long glorious moment, while time stood still and the world ceased to exist, Sophia Belvoir kissed him back.

 

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Tea with the enemy

 

Today, I have an excerpt post, lifted from To Wed a Proper Lady, which is on pre-order and coming out in April. The younger James Winderfield, Lord Elfingham, meets the lady he desires in a bookshop, and is having tea with her when our duchess arrives. Who has she been having tea with? And what does it all mean?

“Would you join me for a pot of tea, Lady Sophia,” he asked. “I understand they make excellent tea cakes, here.” If she agreed, he could hide his most recalcitrant body part beneath a table, which would mean he could take off the overcoat that currently concealed the direction of his thoughts. He had dropped into the bookshop to spend a half hour between appointments. The one he’d just attended with the thief taker who was investigating the inn fire had given him a lot to think about, and he did not want to arrive at his father’s club before the earl got there, for fear he would be turned away.

He hadn’t planned to find Lady Sophia, but he wasn’t about miss the opportunity. He sent up another prayer, this one of thanks, when she agreed. He took the stack of books from her, and allowed her to lead the way to the room set aside for patrons to take refreshment.

“Oh, look,” his lady said, changing direction as they came through the arched doorway, “Cedrica is still here. Come, and I will introduce you.”

So much for a few minutes of private conversation to further his courtship. He found himself being presented to a Haverford scion whom he’d seen in the duchess’s company. Miss Grenford, a colourless little dab of a female, was some sort of cousin of the Duke of Haverford, and acted as companion and secretary to the duchess.

“I thought you and Aunt Eleanor had gone,” Lady Sophia said to her friend, after they had given their order to the maid.

“Her Grace sent me to have a cup of tea,” Miss Grenford explained. “She had a few things to tidy up, she said, and would be perhaps half an hour.”

Lady Sophia turned to James to explain. “We have been using a room here for a planning meeting, Lord Elfingham.”

“For a charitable benefit,” Miss Grenford added.

They were in the midst of telling him about the house party to be held at Christmas, when Cedrica stopped in mid-sentence and gave a tentative wave to someone behind him. James looked over his shoulder, and rose to his feet as the newcomer reached the table. Her Grace, the Duchess of Haverford was an elegant and still lovely woman who looked in no way old enough to have a son in his thirties.

“Lord Elfingham, is it not?” she said, inclining her head graciously.

James bowed. “It is an honour to finally meet you, Your Grace.”

Her Grace surprised James by directly addressing the barrier between them. “Let us hope for an end to the hostility between our families, Elfingham. My son speaks highly of you, and I would be pleased to know you, when it can be done without garnering the kind of attention we currently attract.”

The tea shop had hushed, all conversation stopping, all eyes on the Duchess of Haverford in pleasant conversation with the duke’s heir her husband planned to have declared a bastard.

James returned the duchess’s smile. “I will look forward to that, Your Grace.” He bowed. “Miss Grenford, Lady Sophia, thank you for the pleasure of your company.”

As he turned away, he heard the great lady say to her companion, “Cedrica, dear, would you be kind enough to tell one of the footmen to call the carriage, and the others that they can collect our papers and desks, and return them to the house?” The little lady bobbed a curtsey and hurried off on the errand. Looking back over his shoulder, James saw the duchess take a chair and engage Lady Sophia in conversation.

It must be nearly time for his appointment with his father. He should be preparing in his mind his report on the thief taker’s findings; not going over every word his lady had said, trying to invest it with a richer, and more favourable, meaning.

If he headed out the side door, through the hall that led to the meeting rooms upstairs, he’d avoid the need to thread through the warren of shelves in the book rooms between him and the front door.

In the hall, he cast a glance each way, then stopped. His father was standing to one side on the stairs as footmen in Haverford livery passed him with boxes. He noticed James, and for a moment his face was shuttered. Then he continued down the stairs, pulling on his gloves as he came.

“Have you been shopping, Jamie?” he asked, his voice betraying nothing but casual interest.

James’s curiosity was a blazing fire, but he matched the earl’s calm tone. If Father wanted him to know what he was doing in this place and with whom, Father would tell him.

“Looking, merely. It seems a popular place.” He smiled, remembering Lady Sophia’s errand. “I might return to look for Twelfth Night gifts.”

“In October?” The earl shot him a sharp look. “You are well organised indeed, my son.”

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Dastardly villains on WIP Wednesday

 

I do love a dastardly villain, and I quite like what I’ve done with Weasel Winderfield, one of the villains in my To Wed a Proper Lady. How about you. Do you have an excerpt about a villain that you’d like to share? Pop it in the comments.

Mine is at the tail end of a duel, brought about because my villain called my hero’s mother an oriental whore. He’s back in the next book, too, still causing trouble. In fact, I’ve just realised that he had a part to play in the backstory of book four, when he seduced the woman who was quickly married off to my hero’s father as his second wife.

“Good shooting, brother,” James said, clapping Drew on the shoulder.

“Idiot would have been fine if he hadn’t moved,” Drew grumbled. Weasel had shot before the final count and missed. When Drew had taken his turn, he had announced his intention of removing Weasel’s watch fob from the chain that drooped across his waist, and ordered the man to stand still.

At the other end of the field, Weasel was carrying on as if death were imminent. His second, the Marquis of Aldridge, after a brief examination, sent the Winderfield men a thumbs up before leaving Weasel to the ministrations of the doctor. Aldridge was now giving orders to the servants by the carriage that had brought him and Weasel to the duelling grounds.

“Breakfast?” James suggested.

“Good idea,” Drew said. “Let’s collect Yousef and…”

As if his name had conjured him up, their father’s lieutenant appeared from the trees and stalked towards them. Something about his posture brought James to full alert, and Drew sensed it too, stiffening beside him.

“Trouble?” James asked, as soon as Yousef was close enough.

“An assassin in the woods, armed with a pistol like these.” He gestured to the gun that Drew had replaced in its case until he had time to clean it. “You were not meant to walk from this field, Andraos Bey.”

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Tea with an ally

Hollystone Hall, July 1790

Thomas Oliver Fitz-Grenford watched his hostess as she poured his tea. Even after his very public split with the duke, he had retained his friendship with the servants at the main Haverford properties, but they had been able to tell him little about her health or her state of mind. Only the bare facts. That she had been sick. That on her recovery, she had argued with the duke. That she had then packed her bags and retreated to this lesser estate, the one place in the vast Haverford holdings that belonged to Her Grace and not His Grace. No doubt she would tell him soon why she sent for him.

“There, Tolly. Milk and no sugar. Is that not correct?”

The Grenford heir, the Marquis of Aldridge, had come up with the shortened form of his name. ‘Uncle Tolly’ had been a favourite of the little boy when he had been the duke’s steward and secretary, perhaps because he found time to talk to the child. His Grace had no interest in or patience for children, and the duchess had suffered a succession of miscarriages before successfully carrying her second son, Lord Jonathan, to term. Also, His Grace had decreed that his heir have his own extensive suite, staffed by his own personal servants, and that the duchess was neither to visit nor to interfere in Aldridge’s care.

Tolly took the cup. “Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.”

She smiled. “We are brother and sister, Tolly. Will you call me ‘Eleanor’?”

Tolly’s face heated. His relationship to the duke was not precisely a secret, but he had never been acknowledged. The father they shared had brought the son of a favourite mistress to be raised on the estate, and had even kept on his half-brother’s tutor to train Tolly in the skills he would need to serve the duchy. Still, he had not been encouraged to show any familiarity, and the duke liked Tolly no more than Tolly liked the duke. “His Grace…”

The duchess’s eyes flashed and she scowled. “I do not mean to concern myself ever again with the opinions of His Grace, except as I must for my safety and that of my children and the servants. Will you not call me by my name, Tolly, when we are not in company? Will you be my friend? For I stand in great need of one.”

He could see that for himself. She had always been slender, but was now gaunt, with dark shadows under her eyes.

The sickness had confined her to her rooms, with everyone, even the children, refused entry. Only the doctor came, so Tolly had been told. Before that, she had very low after Jonathan’s birth, as she had after the birth of Aldridge. Birth seemed to take some woman like that, as if being married to Haverford wasn’t depressing enough.

He felt a wave of compassion for the poor lady, and leaned forward to pat her hand. “I will always stand your friend, Eleanor,” he told her.

“Good, for I need your help. Can you find me information with which to blackmail Haverford?”

Tolly blinked. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t that.

“Blackmail?” he stuttered in response. “Is he… Has he…” Tolly struggled with a kaleidoscope of mental images. Haverford beating Eleanor. Haverford berating Eleanor. Worse.

Eleanor pursed her lips as if considering how much to tell him, then nodded decisively. “I shall be frank, Tolly. You shall not be shocked, for you know the duke even better than I do, in some ways. He gave me a loathsome disease he picked up from one of his intimate companions. I am recovered, the doctor says. He tells me that many people remain well for their lifetimes, but that continuing to allow Haverford in my bed will make it more certain that the disease will eventually kill me. It may also kill or deform any further children we have.”

Tolly was reduced to stammering again. “I am sorry, Eleanor. Are you safe from him here? How can I help you?”

Eleanor waved off his questions. “I need to broker a truce with him, Tolly, for he has the power to keep my children from me. I wish to live apart, but in the same house. Will you find me the ammunition to bend him to my will?”

Tolly sat back. He had always admired Haverford’s wife; always seen the strength of spirit with which she bore the trials of her marriage. The willingness to fight the duke was new, and he admired her more than ever. It would not be easy. The Duke of Haverford was one of the most powerful men in the country. He feared little and was embarrassed by nothing. Still… “I think I may be able to help, Eleanor. I have a couple of ideas.”

Eleanor’s smile broadened. “I have in mind to be a proper mother to my children; one who spends time with them as real mothers do, and also to do good for others with my position and my wealth. I can build a good life, Tolly, if I can just keep Haverford at arms’ length.”

Tolly narrowed his eyes as he thought. “Entertainments,” he said. “Eleanor, build alliances with the other great ladies of the ton and become a formidable hostess. You have it in you. If you have the support of the ladies, Haverford will have to think twice about acting against you.”

Her eyes lit up. “And if I host his political cronies and support his public life he will have far less objection to my removing myself from his private one.”

“You will have to fight him for influence over Aldridge,” Tolly warned.

“I know,” Eleanor agreed. “But I have an advantage there, my friend. I have never bullied or beaten my son.” She lifted her cup as if it was filled with port or brandy rather than tea. “To my freedom, Tolly.”

He grinned and returned the salute. “To your freedom.”