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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 2

The garden of Creydon House, 1777

Lady Eleanor Creydon traced the words in the water that puddled on the stone rim of the fountain. “Lady James Winderfield.” Her lips curved in a tremulous smile. The man she loved was asking her father for her hand, and would soon come to ask her.

“I have made an appointment to meet your father tomorrow,” he had whispered in her ear last night as they promenaded down the centre of the double line of dancers. Then, as they passed one another, a few moments later, “You know what I want to ask him, my darling.”

She circled the girl at the head of the ladies’ line, barely aware of the other people in the room, conscious only of James and the words that set her heart thumping. Only years of practice kept her moving gracefully back around to meet James again, her arm stretched high, her hand ready for his brief clasp and her ears for another burst of whispered words.

“It is what you want?”

Looking up, she nodded, and the anxiety cleared from his eyes as they met hers. How could he be unsure of her? She had no further opportunity to reassure him. They had to part and dance down the outside of their respective lines, and the music drew to a close before they could speak again.

Her mother had been waiting, and hurried her away. The Earl of Farnmouth, her father, had decided it was time to leave the ball.

Eleanor had lain awake in the night, thinking that tomorrow would never come, but at last the sun had come up, and the interminable morning had passed.

James was with her father now, shut in the earl’s study. Soon, surely, the earl would send him out into the garden. The answer would be yes, of course. As the daughter of an earl, she knew her worth, but James was third son of a duke; a duke, furthermore who was a friend of her father.

Eleanor cast a glance at the house and frowned slightly. Her father would say yes. Of course, he would. Only last week, he had interrupted her dinner with her mother to announce that he expected a very eligible offer for Eleanor’s hand. “I am pleased with your daughter, countess,” he had told her mother. “Betrothed only two months after her debut. You are to be congratulated, madam.”

He had not spoken to Eleanor, but he seldom did, nor had he given a name. Who could it be but James? James was her most ardent suitor. Indeed, since the rapscallion son of the Duke of Winshire had made her the object of his devotion, the rest of her court had fallen away. They had been callow boys, in any case, standing up with her because of childhood friendship or because she had become fashionable.

James was a man, not a boy — twenty-four years to her seventeen. He was unbelievably handsome, charming, clever, funny, and dearer to her than anyone she had ever known, even her older sister. And he had chosen her! She clapped her hands and spun in a circle, unable to contain her delight.

Soon he would come. She composed herself on the stone bench opposite the path by which he would enter the garden. How would he propose? On one knee? Sitting beside her? The thought had her up on her feet again, too excited to stay still, peering down the path.

“Eleanor!” It was a hiss just a hairsbreadth above a whisper.

She spun around. James had come from the other direction. Well, no matter. She hurried towards him; her hands outstretched. He scowled, his eyes blazing in a white face. “James? What is the matter?”

He clasped her hands and pulled her after him into the shadows of the yew walk, where he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her hair. “Eleanor, I love you. I love you more than life itself. You believe me, do you not?”

Eleanor pulled away, but only enough to peer into his eyes. “James? What did my father say?”

James groaned.

“James, you are frightening me. Did he say we must wait?”

“Eleanor, he says that he has given your hand to the Duke of Haverford,” James blurted.

Eleanor’s breath stopped, and the blood surged in her ears as her heart pounded. Her sight grew dark at the edges, and the enormous yew hedges swayed towards her as if to batter her into the ground. By force of will, she fought off her faintness. “But… but he is old,” she stammered, “and a wicked libertine, and cold as ice.” She stamped her foot. “I don’t want him, James. I love you. I love you, James.”

“Shush, my love,” James begged. “We must be quiet. Farnmouth told me I could not see you again, but I had to, Eleanor. I’ll find a way. I promise. You love me, and I love you. I will ask my father to help. He is friends with yours. Surely Winshire can persuade the earl.”

“Yes!” Eleanor’s heart gave another enormous thump, this time with relief. “We will be together?” she asked.

“We will marry,” James promised. He bent his head and his lips touched hers. It was a gentle, reverent salute, but Eleanor pressed closer and the kiss changed, James’s lips still soft, but questing, moving, devouring. His tongue pressed the seam of her mouth and swept inside when she gasped. Again, the darkness hovered, but this time it was a welcoming warmth, a giving and taking of sensation, a merging of selves so that Eleanor no longer knew who sighed and who moaned, or how long they stayed intertwined.

The whistling of a gardener brought them back to themselves. “I must go,” James told her. “Stay strong, my love. We are meant to be together, and I will find a way.”

“We are meant to be together,” she agreed.

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The wealth issue

Hall of Mirrors at Versaille, France, 17th century

I have a problem with writing about wealthy aristocrats or oligarchs.

Since the invention of agriculture, sumptuous living has depended on the poverty of others. Wealth inequality began when the first ruler of a city state set some of his people to work in the fields and some to bop on the head any field workers who might object to the assignment, while he and his favourites got looked after. Sure, they had the tough job of telling everyone else what to do, and of going out to fight other city states when one side or the other wanted to extend their power and their authority. Conspicuous consumption led to envy on the part of others and a lust for a share. But for the peasants in the field and the servants scrubbing the pots, who was on top made very little difference.

Those of us who grew up in middle-class enclaves in Western countries after the second world war tend to forget this reality. In the 1950s and 60s, the oligarchs of our nations were carrying on the practice of centuries, exporting the exploitation of workers to poorer countries where their misery was out of sight. And few of us moved among the poor of our own countries often enough and humbly enough to recognise that theories about self-inflicted poverty where lies to protect the rich.

In the 18th century, Adam Smith wrote:

‘Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.’

In France in that century, the five hundred poor had had enough. Conspicuous consumption led to envy on the part of others and a lust for a share. The excesses of the French Revolution were horrible. Innocent people died in their masses, and their wealth or lack of it, their guilt or innocence, didn’t make a shard of difference. I’m delighted that the United Kingdom, from which my family lines come, managed to avoid following the French path to the guillotine. At least some of the British leaders saw the danger and shared power in a way that didn’t happen in France. Also, the government suppressed any hint of revolution with a ruthless hand. And the English middle-class had power enough and wealth enough not to follow their poorer brethren into blood, fire, and gore.

It was a fairly close run thing, at times.

The Music Room, Brighton Pavilion, England, Regency era

The noble classes about whom most of us Regency authors write had huge inherited wealth, though the value of agriculture-based enterprise was waning, leading to brutal land grabs through the enclosure acts and the Highland clearances. Even those who behaved fairly to their tenants came to their wealth through dubious means.

‘It is very well known that in England (and the same will be found in other countries) the great landed estates, now held in descent, were plundered from the quiet inhabitants at the conquest. The possibility did not exist of acquiring such estates honestly… That they were not acquired by trade, by commerce, by manufactures, by agriculture or by any reputable employment is certain. How then were they acquired? Blush, aristocracy, to hear your origin, for your progenitors were Thieves…When they had committed the robbery, they endeavoured to lose the disgrace of it, by sinking their real names under fictious ones, which they called Titles. It is ever the practice of Felons to act in this manner.’ (Thomas Paine)

A new class of industrialists and merchants were growing fortunes on the backs of sugar and tea plantations staffed by slaves, factories and mines staffed by underpaid workers including children as young as five, and gunboat diplomacy around the globe. In the middle of the 19th century, John Stuart Mills wrote:

‘The social arrangements of modern Europe commenced from a distribution of property which was the result… of conquest and violence: …the system still retains many and large traces of its origins. The laws of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which the justification of private property rests. They have made property of things which never ought to be property, and absolute property where only a qualified property ought to exist. They have not held the balance fairly between human beings, but have heaped impediments upon some, to give advantage to others; they have purposely fostered inequalities, and prevented all from starting fair in the race.’

Mills believed (and so do I, for that matter) that there’s nothing wrong with owning stuff that you’ve acquired through your own personal efforts. But owning twenty or fifty or eighty times as much as the average Joe? While paying starvation wages? That can’t be right.

So I make my aristocrats supporters of philanthropic causes, and I send them into Parliament to fight for fairer laws. They wear expensive clothing and surround themselves with the expensive trappings of their status, but I try to make them thoughtful about such things. It’s a balance.

But it’s a hard one, especially as I watch the 21st century repeating the mistakes of the past eleven thousand years. We have our own Palaces of Versailles, our own Brighton Pavilions.

Manhattan Townhouse, 21st Century

The richest United States families have an average income of 80 times the income of the average worker, and every country of the world has its own oligarchs, who would rather spend money on security and protection that share what they’ve managed to acquire.

It just isn’t fair.

 

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The marriage business on WIP Wednesday

It is the nature of romance that a couple find love, within marriage or without, before the vows are exchanged or after. Of course, historical romance stretches the canvas. Throughout history, people have married for reasons other than love: security, family arrangements, the need for an heir, the desire for companionship and children. In my current work in progress, I have examples of several such approaches.

In my first excerpt, my sisters are discussing a marriage for companionship and children.

“It will have to be the right sort of person. And even if you find someone who will become father to your son and keep your secret, people will talk,” Charlotte warned.

Sarah shrugged. “As Uncle James says, people can talk all they like, but if they can’t prove anything, and if the leaders of Society accept him, the scandal will disappear.”

There would be difficulties. The chief among them, finding someone. The right person needed to be tolerant, supportive, respectful of women, understanding of a youthful mistake with consequences. She doubted she could find such a paragon in society, so she would have to look outside.

Even once she discovered suitable candidates, she would need to audition them very carefully. If they refused what she asked of them, she could not marry them. After that, their silence and their co-operation would be imperative.

“Darling, what of Nate?” Charlotte asked.

“I have to believe he is dead,” Sarah said. “He has been gone eight years, Charlotte. In all that time, he has never tried to contact me. If he is still alive, he doesn’t want me. Elfingham said he took money to leave me, and at first I thought he lied, but eight years, Charlotte!”

Charlotte nodded. She, more than anyone, knew that their brother had been unreliable. “Very well,” Charlotte said, settling herself back on her cushions and picking up her pen and the pad of paper on which she had been making notes. “Let us make a list.”

The father of the hero has made a marriage for an heir, and it hasn’t worked out for him.

“You need a wife, Bentham. Three sons, m’ brothers had between them and all of them single.” Nod. Nate could agree that his cousins had been single.

“You need to marry some well-behaved girl with wide hips,” Nate’s father insisted, “and bed her till you get a son on her.”

Nate’s father, Earl of Lechford thanks to the marital dereliction and deaths of his three nephews, was determined that the Lechford line would continue through what he insisted on calling ‘the fruit of my loins.’ He would have been happy to bypass his banished son, except the well-behaved girl he’d taken to wife once he inherited had produced three sickly daughters at twelve-month intervals, birthing the third with such difficulty she was unlikely to ever get with child again.

That left Nate, whom he reluctantly remembered and set about retrieving, setting the hospital where Nate worked into turmoil by searching for him under Nate’s honorary title as heir. To be fair, being called Bentham was better than ‘fruit of my loins’, as if Nate existed only by reference to his father. Mind you, that was certainly Lord Lechford’s view. His world had revolved around himself when he was merely the Reverend Miles Beauclair, third son of an earl and the vicar of three little villages on the ducal estate of one of the earl’s friends. His world view had not expanded when he came into his unexpected inheritance.

And in the third excerpt, we meet the sisters discussing their list, and why one man should not be on it.

“Aldridge probably is ready to set up his nursery,” Charlotte noted. The cross through Aldridge’s name had been the subject of some debate. The twins agreed that the duke’s terminal illness meant Aldridge must be in need of a bride, but otherwise disputed his suitability for Sarah.

Charlotte argued that Sarah was not seeking a love match, and that Aldridge met all her specifications for a husband.  “He would be a kind, courteous, and respectful husband, Sarah. He is not out for your money or your social position—he has more than enough of both. You get on well with his mother. And they have so much scandal of their own that they’re hardly likely to cavil at yours.”

Sarah countered with all of the marquis’s well-known character flaws, and then won the argument with a sneak attack. “Besides, while I do not want a husband who loves me, nor do I want one who has been dangling after my sister these past four years. He wants you, Charlotte, not me. Besides, even if I was prepared for the embarrassment of being married to a man who loves my sister, I doubt if Aldridge is going to accept such a substitution.”

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost episode 1

Paradise Lost is a collection of vignettes covering the life of my Duchess of Haverford from her debut and marriage to the return to London of the man she was not permitted to marry. I put it together for my newsletter subscribers. Some of the vignettes have been used here on Monday for Tea before; most haven’t.

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Chapter One

Haverford House, London, March 1812

The Duke of Haverford slammed the door on his way out, but it wasn’t his temper that left his duchess trembling in her chair, her limbs so weak she could do nothing but sit, her chest hurting as she tried to force shallow breaths in and out. She had grown so used to his tantrums that she barely noticed.

“Your Grace?” Her secretary held out a hand as if to touch her then drew it back. The poor girl — a distant cousin just arrived from Berkshire — was as white as parchment. “Your Grace? Can I get you something? Can I pour you a pot of tea?”

Brandy would be welcome. A slight touch of amusement at Millicent’s reaction to such a request helped soothe Eleanor’s perturbation. “I should like to be alone, Millicent,” she managed to say. A lifetime of pretending to be calm and dignified through grief, anger, fear, and desperate sorrow came to her rescue. “Can you please send a note to Lady Carew to ask her to hold me excused today? Ask her if tomorrow afternoon would be acceptable.”

Once the girl left the room, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder, Eleanor stood and crossed to her desk, stopping before the mantel when her reflection caught her eye. If Millicent had been pale, Eleanor was worse — so white that dark patches showed under her eyes, eyes in which the pupil had almost swamped the iris.

It was the shock. Perhaps she would have that cup of tea before she fetched the box.

She poured it, and then added a spoonful of sugar. Two spoonfuls. She normally took her tea unsweetened, with just a slice of lemon, but hot sweet tea was effective in cases of shock, was it not?

With the cup set on the table by the chair, she spent a few minutes moving panels of wood in her escritoire, until the secret compartment at the back opened. It was large enough to contain boxes of various sizes, several small stacks of paper tied with ribbon into a bundle, and a dozen cloth bags.

She had to move some of the contents out of the way to reach what she wanted. The first of the boxes to be hidden in what she called her memory cabinet. She hadn’t taken this one out since the afternoon of the day Grace and Georgie had told her — oh, some 15 years ago — that James still lived.

James had returned to England.

Haverford could shout as much as he liked about Winshire’s heir being an imposter, about all the world knowing that the youngest son of the family had died in Persia three decades ago and more. But Eleanor had known almost as soon as Winshire’s daughter and daughter-in-law knew that James still lived. Of course, he would come home now, when Winshire’s other heirs had died. She should have expected it. Why had she not expected it?

Words from Haverford’s rant came back to her as she sipped her tea and looked through the few treasures she had kept all these years, sacred to the memory of their doomed courtship. Winshire says the man is his son. The ribbon she wore in her hair the first time they danced. He lies, of course. A dried rose from a bouquet he had sent her. The man has a pack of half-breeds that he claims are his children. Several notes and two precious letters, including the one in which he asked her to elope. Barbarians as Dukes of Winshire? Over my dead body! A handkerchief he’d given her to dry her eyes when she cried while telling him that they must wait; that her father would come around. Better to see the title in the hands of that idiot Wesley Winderfield than handed over to some cloth head.

She had kept several brief notes about nothing in particular. ‘I saw these and thought of you’, on a card with a bouquet of sweet spring flowers. ‘Save me a dance at the Mitford’s tonight?’ ‘I saw you in the Park. You rode like a goddess.’ They did not have to be signed. They were all from James, and short because they had been passed to her in secret.

She cradled the rose, fragile and faded. I remember.

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Reporting Society gossip and scandal in the Regency era

When we first set up the Bluestocking Belles website, we had the idea to turn our blog into a gossip sheet, where we and other authors could spread gossip about characters from historical romances. The Teatime Tattler has now been going for six years, and this year it (or rather an unknown correspondent) plays a starring roll in our box set, Storm & Shelter.

In truth, as far as researchers can tell, newspapers totally devoted to scandal and gossip were a feature of 18th Century publishing, and reappeared in the 1820s. But in the Regency era, the antics of the upper classes were far more likely to be outed in cartoons posted in the windows of print shops, or in pamphlets devoted to a single story. Society news, and even scandal, does appear in the newspapers we have from those times, but in a column in amongst the war news, shipping news, reports on politics, weather reports, advertisements for everything under the sun, and all the rest.

That said, hundreds of papers came and went during the late Georgian period, from the end of the 18th Century to the ascension of Queen Victoria, so who knows?

Interested to know more?

Contest: Identify the Teatime Tattler Reporter

Guess the identity of the reporter snooping on the people trapped in the Queen’s Barque and the good people of Fenwick on Sea. You’ll find clues in the eight charming novellas in the collection Storm & Shelter.

All correct answers will be entered for the prizes listed below. The winners will be selected at random. Open internationally.

  • Grand prize: $100 gift card
  • Second: a made-to-order story by Jude Knight and Caroline Warfield
  • Third: winner’s choice of an electronic copy of any of the earlier Bluestocking Belles’ collections.

The contest closes on 23rd April at midnight New York time, and prizes will be drawn on 24th April.

Go to the Belles’ website for more information.

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Lessons from the Albatross

I used to live on the same peninsula as this breeding colony of royal albatrosses, (I lived nearly 20 kilometres away at the city end). What amazing birds they are. Pairs return to the place of their choice every two years to lay a single egg and take turns in keeping the egg warm and in feeding the fledgling. It’s a long process. Up to two and a half months from laying the egg to hatching, a further eight to nine months before the juvenile bird takes flight. The young birds will be gone for six years, flying up to 1800 kilometres in 24 hours, never touching land in all that time.

When they do come back to a breeding colony, it’ll be several years before they are ready to breed. They spend a couple of years socialising in groups, in a dance like form of communication. Over time, they’ll show a preference for one partner, and the dance will  become unique to each couple. They don’t stay together when at sea, but every two years, they go home, reconnect, mate, hatch out an egg, and raise a chick. For life. Only if one of the pair dies will they choose another mate.

Albatrosses have traditionally been regarded as harbingers of storm, but also good luck, a guide out of the storm to shelter. Another reason why they’re a good symbol for the Bluestocking Belles’ latest project, Storm & Shelter, which took flight yesterday. Like the albatross, it was around two and a half months in the egg, from signing the group contract to delivery of story for first beta in mid August (unlike the albatross, it has eight parents, including Grace Burrowes, Alina K. Field and Mary Lancaster, who joined us for the project).

Like the albatross — it took a lot of hard work on the part of its parents, and substantial practice, before it took flight eight to nine months after hatching. Yesterday, in fact. It is currently soaring, far from land, to the rarified levels of the book market.

It’s doing well. It has dozens of reviews, has scored well on Amazon for weeks, even edging up to #1 a few days ago, won a Crowned Heart for Excellence from InDTale Magazine, and is on a couple of Listopia lists at Goodreads. It looks like we might just miss lists like the top ten on USA Today or Publisher Weekly (unless we pick up quite a few hundred sales in the next few days, particularly on Apple and Barnes & Noble). But our little fledgling has spread its wings and is on its way. It’s out of our hands, now. It’s over to you, its readers.

Fly, little albatross.

When a storm blows off the North Sea and slams into the village of Fenwick on Sea, the villagers prepare for the inevitable: shipwreck, flood, land slips, and stranded travelers. The Queen’s Barque Inn quickly fills with the injured, the devious, and the lonely—lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers all trapped together. Intrigue crackles through the village, and passion lights up the hotel.

One storm, eight authors, eight heartwarming novellas.

Buy Links:

Amazon US: https://amzn.to/3kgRmLG

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3lZYHja

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/storm-shelter-bluestocking-belles/1137958115?

Kobo: https://bit.ly/3o0z977

Google books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Grace_Burrowes_Storm_and_Shelter?id=TNMhEAAAQBAJ

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/b5k2pO

 

International:

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Some People Have Dirty Minds!

The Vicar’s Illicit Liaison, The Teatime Tattler April 1815

Dear Reader, The village of Fenwick has been shaken to its core by the discovery that its revered curate, Mr. S., has feet—nay, entire limbs—of clay. First, he allowed his nephew, a bold impertinent boy, to insult our own beloved Mrs. F. Second, as noted in a previous report, he spent much time alone with a female visitor to the village. But now he has taken up with another female, a visitor’s maid. Said maid has been staying all day at the presbytery, purportedly nursing Mr. S.’s wards through the influenza. Today, she sunk so far in depravity as to stay overnight on the pretext that Mr. S. is now ill. This is unlikely to end well.

“Will ye ‘ave anuvver glass, Piety, my dove?” her husband asked. Piety Withers held out her glass.

“Don’t mind if I do, Withers,” she agreed, ignoring the frowning looks Mrs Brewster was casting at poor Withers. The innkeeper’s wife had said, when handing over the wages that Piety had earned, “Now don’t let your husband get his hands on this money, Mrs Withers.”

Mrs Brewster could keep her nose out of Piety’s business. It made Withers happy to have cash in his pocket. Dear man. So what if he could never hold down a job or retain possession of as much as a farthing? He was fond of Piety in his way, and never raised a hand to her, unlike some husbands she could name.

Why, look how he had insisted on buying her a drink as soon as she handed over the carefully counted coins that she’d deemed sufficient to content him? He’d praised her for her industry, assured her that all of his friends were jealous of him for having such a lovely wife, and invited her to celebrate their good fortune at the Queen’s Barque Inn. Little did he know that she’d kept at least two-thirds of the windfall and hidden it where he’d never find it. Not that she felt guilty. He’d soon drink or gamble the rest away.

“I’ve a bit of a worry, darlin’ Piety,” Withers declared, wrenching her from the sad direction of her thoughts. She donned an expression of interest and waited to be told what concerned him.

“This business with the vicar and the skirt from London,” he said. “Young Alice was readin’ a bit from the London papers this afternoon, she was. Says that there maid Conroy is havin’ it off with vicar.” Withers shook his head. “Should ye be workin’ there, darlin’?”

Piety’s eyes flashed. “That is just not true, Withers. Miss Conroy has been looking after the vicar while he was sick, and anyone who says different is making things up and has a nasty mind.”

“But it was printed in the paper, my dove.” Withers didn’t read, and was inclined to invest anything in print with the same reverence owed to Holy Scripture.

Piety snorted. “The Teatime Tattler, I suppose. Someone here in this village has been sending gossip and scandal to that terrible paper, and if I find out who it is, I shall pull their ears for them, and so I will. Making such trouble for that dear lady. Mr Somerville, too, after he worked himself into his own fever running around in the rain seeing to the sick. They should be ashamed!” She shook her fist.

Withers nodded. “If you say so, my dove. But ye’ll not be stayin’ there after dark.” He nodded again, firmly, satisfied that the problem was solved by his decree. “Shall I walk ye home before I go out fishin’ wiv Billy and Si, Piety, darlin’?”

Piety downed the last of her cider and stood up. Fishing, my left foot. If the boat left the dock, she’d be surprised, and certainly she did not expect the cronies to bring home anything more than their empty flasks and a headache each. Still, she gave Withers a peck on the cheek. He was, after all, not the world’s worst husband.

Who is the snooping reporter?

As told in Storm & Shelter in eight original novellas, refugees—the injured, the devious, and the lonely, lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers—all sheltered at the Queen’s Barque Inn. Now concern is buzzing in Fenwick on Sea and across these United Kingdoms, as scurrilous gossip about the goings on during the recent storm spread through the reports in that scandal rag, The Teatime Tattler. Who is the snoop?

You can help

Correctly identify the reporter and be entered to win a $100 gift card and other great prizes. There are details and instructions for entering here: https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/storm-shelter/wanted-the-snooping-teatime-tattler-reporter/

Clues

There are clues in every story in Storm & Shelter. Find more clues by following on to each stop in our Snooping Reporter Blog Hop. The next stop features Grace Burrowes’ pony, who has a strong opinion about the identity of the reporter. https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/storm-shelter/wanted-the-snooping-teatime-tattler-reporter/who-has-been-telling-tales/ 

Local prize

Comment on this post to go in the draw for winners’ choice of any Jude Knight ebook.

About the book

When a storm blows off the North Sea and slams into the village of Fenwick on Sea, the villagers prepare for the inevitable: shipwreck, flood, land slips, and stranded travelers. The Queen’s Barque Inn quickly fills with the injured, the devious, and the lonely—lords, ladies, and simple folk; spies, pirates, and smugglers all trapped together. Intrigue crackles through the village, and passion lights up the hotel.

One storm, eight authors, eight heartwarming novellas.

Buy it for 99 cents until April 17

https://books2read.com/u/38Rr8w

International Buy Links:

Amazon AU |BR |CA |DE |ES |FR |IN |IT |JP |MX |NL |UK

Angus & Robertson

 

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Tea with her own thoughts

(This excerpt post comes from Paradise Lost, a selection of vignettes from the life of the Duchess of Haverford that I put together for my newsletter subscribers. The assassination attempt mentioned below happened in To Wed a Proper Lady.)

Eleanor had withdrawn to her private sitting room, driven there by His Grace’s shouting. Her son, the Marquis of Aldridge, was as angry as she had ever seen him, his face white and rigid and his eyes blazing, but he kept his voice low; had even warned the duke about shouting.

“Let us not entertain the servants, Your Grace, with evidence of your villainy.”

Unsurprisingly, the duke had taken exception to the cutting words and had shouted even louder.

Could it be true? Had Haverford paid an assassin to kill the sons of the man he insisted as seeing as his rival? An assassin who had been caught before he could carry out his wicked commission.

His Grace’s jealousy made no sense. Yes, James was back in England, but what did that matter to Haverford?

He had been furious when James and his family attended their first ball, and beside himself with rage when Society refused to accept that the prodigal returned was an imposter. She expected him to continue to attack the new Earl of Sutton with words. Even his petition to the House of Lords to have James’s marriage declared invalid and his children base-born was typical of Haverford. But to pay for an assassin?

He had failed. She would hold onto that. And Aldridge was more than capable of holding his own.

As she sat there with her tea tray, sheltering from the anger of her menfolk, she gave thanks that her son had not been ruined by his father’s dictates over how he should be raised. She had been able to mitigate some of the damage, but more than that, his younger brother Jonathan and his older half-brother David had been his salvation, giving him the confidence that he was loved and the awareness that he was not the centre of the entire world.

Aldridge’s fundamentally loving nature helped, too. He was a rake, but not in his father’s mould. Rather, he loved and respected women, even if he did treat them according to the stupid conventions applied to aristocratic males. And he was a good son.

Putting down her tea, she fetched a little box of keepsakes from her hidden cupboard. The fan her long dead brother had given her before her first ball. A small bundle of musical scores, that recalled pleasant evenings in her all too brief Season. Aldridge’s cloth rabbit. She had retrieved it when Haverford had ordered it destroyed, saying his son was a future duke and should not be coddled. Aldridge had been eight months’ old. Anthony George Bartholomew Philip Grenford, his full name was, but he had been born heir to his father, and therefore Marquis of Aldridge, and by Haverford’s decree no one, not even Eleanor, called him by anything but his title.

Even so, the cloth rabbit had not been the first time she secretly defied her husband. She had been sneaking up to the nursery since Aldridge was born, despite the duke’s proclamation that ladies of her rank had their babies presented to them once a day, washed, sweetly smelling and well behaved, and handing the infants back to their attendants if any of those conditions failed or after thirty minutes, whichever came first.

by

Spotlight on Storm & Shelter (and a contest with a great prize)

I thought I’d share a couple of early reviews with you, to celebrate the coming release of this book on Tuesday.

InD’Tale Magazine gave us a Crowned Heart of excellence, saying, in part.

Set in the fictional village of Fenwick on Sea, “Storm & Shelter” is a superb and varied collection bound to impress a variety of Regency fans. The collection’s theme focuses on those from a higher station in life falling in love with those from a lower station. And it works, no matter the plot or trope. [https://indtale.com/reviews/historical/storm-shelter]

Flippin’ Pages Reviews says:

I will say one thing that relates to all of the stories I read in this book – they are all remarkably well filled out and that is a difficult thing to do in so few pages. [https://flippinpages.blog/2021/03/30/storm-shelter-by-bluestocking-belles/]

And some other comments picked at random from the reviews on GoodReads:

A great anthology of novellas from some of my favourite writers has kept me entertained and reading long into the night!

Leave it to the Bluestocking Belles to come up with another fabulous collection

I enjoyed every one of these stories and found that they all tie into each other in a wonderful way that will have you reading long into the night to get the stories finished.

This is one of the best anthologies I’ve read for having the stories go together, even having characters from one author’s story being a side character in another author’s story. Very enjoyable!

And last but not least, this comment:

Nice touch at the beginning of each story is a snippet from a reporter at the inn . Some of the people forced to seek shelter in the storm. Following the reporter’s remarks is the blurb – which I absolutely love when that is at beginning. We never find out who the reporter is.

But wait! You can find out who the reporter is! The clues are there in the stories, and if you put them together and get the right person, you can enter a draw to win some fabulous prizes. Details on the contest page on the Bluestocking Belles ‘website.