A Twist Upon a Regency Tale

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Acts of Daring on WIP Wednesday

In my current work-in-progress, my heroine is fighting a court battle to get back custody of her children from the brother of her late husband. Discovering that the brother’s wife intends to hide them away in the country, my hero hatches a plan.

Thank goodness they were in time. The drivers were not yet in their seats. Men in Frogmore livery lounged against a nearby wall. Lance had been afraid that the detour to his bank might delay them too long, but money was essential to the plan.

“Take the rig a few doors down,” Lance told the groom as he dismounted. “We don’t want Mrs Frogmore coming out and seeing it.”

“You won’t leave me out, though, my lord?” the groom asked, and drove along with Lance’s reassurance.

The other three men approached the loungers. “How would some of you like the rest of the day off and all of you like a month’s pay for keeping your mouth shut?” Lance asked.

It took a bit of negotiation, and more money than he had initially offered, but in the end Lance and his men were dressed in Frogmore livery and one of the grooms relieved of duty for the day was on his way to Lance’s stable with Lance’s cattle and phaeton.

They were just in time. The word came from the house that they were to drive to the front steps to pick up their passengers.

Lance’s groom, with Lance alongside, drove the second carriage after the first. Hal and the valet took the footmen’s seat at the rear. As his informants had predicted, Mrs Frogmore and her dresser climbed aboard the first carriage, and it trundled away.

The nursery party waited for the second. They pulled up the steps. Hal and the valet leapt down to assist the passengers to board: first the nursemaid with the baby, then the sour governess, and then the two little girls.

They took off after the first carriage, their driver using every opportunity to let the other carriage get ahead—stopping to give way to people, other vehicles, and horses, and keeping their team into a slow walk.

Thankfully, the first carriage took the Windsor Road. It was the logical direction, given that young Baron Frogmore owned a secondary estate just out of Swindon. Lance had hoped Mrs Frogmore wouldn’t risk taking the children north to the principal Frogmore estate, not just because it was obvious, but because a journey of several days would give pursuers time to catch up.

This road would suit Lance’s plans very well. He had been thinking about where to hide the children until after the custody hearing made it safe to put them in their mother’s hands. Not with any of the Verseys or their closest friends. Percy certainly had the power to refuse to release them, but Lance didn’t know how his theft of the children would influence the custody hearing.

It was best if Percy, Lady Frogmore, and Mr Forsythe knew nothing about it. Then they could swear on oath that they had not been involved. It was possible that Mrs Frogmore would not know they were missing until she arrived at her destination this evening. That would be even better, for it would take at least ten hours to get the message back to London. The custody case could be over before anyone heard that the coach with the children had been hijacked.

However, just in case, Lance planned to take them to someone whose independence would not be questioned.

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Weddings on WIP Wednesday

I’ve somehow managed to find myself writing three weddings in three different works-in-progress all in the same month. Here’s the first one.

Pauline had never believed this day would come. The morning had passed in a flurry of excitement, with Tante Marie, the modiste, and two of the maids fussing over her, and Jane and Mrs Thorne providing a running commentary.

Pauline kept expecting someone to stop her, and tell her it was all a mistake. But here she was, walking towards John and the altar on Noncle Pierre’s arm, in a gown of the softest silk in a warm buttery cream, carrying a huge golden yellow bunch of Noncle Pierre’s prize roses, and wearing John’s gifts around her neck, in her ears, and on her wrist.

It was real. There he was, smiling at her, his eyes warm and welcoming. She fought against submitting to the fantasy. This was not a love match. He had been very clear. He liked her. He desired her. He wanted her as a mother for Jane. She should not expect anything more.

As she moved towards him down the aisle, she balled up those sensible thoughts and locked them away in the deepest recesses of her brain. Today was a dream. She was wedding the man she loved, and she was going to enjoy every moment. When she reached his side and Noncle Pierre released her into his hands she gave herself over to the fantasy.

She was determined to memorise every moment, but afterwards, she mostly remembered John’s voice, strong and confident, vowing to love her above all others, placing a ring on her finger and then not releasing her hand, John sneaking glances at her throughout the ceremony, glances that hinted at his own wonder and delight as they bound themselves to one another for life.

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Tea with a knight on a quest

Lord Lancelot Versey was one of the Duchess of Winshire’s godchildren. That didn’t make him special. While the rumour she was godmother to half the ton was probably an exaggeration, she certainly had a vast army of godsons and goddaughters, each of whom she favoured with a personal note and a small gift on the anniversary of their christening.

Still, the relationship was close enough that Lance felt comfortable asking her for a favour. He would have approached her anyway, he hoped. He was on a quest to reestablish the reputation of a fair lady–not a damsel in distress, exactly, but a widow, and certainly in distress. Lance wanted the duchess’s help for his lady, and also an introduction to David Wakefield, the enquiry agent who was the duchess’s protege, and also the base-born son of her first husband, the Duke of Haverford.

He would, he decided, as he bowed over the duchess’s hand, took the seat she waved him to, and answered his comments about the weather, have to introduce the subject carefully. After all, the brother-in-law of his lady fair had spread dreadful rumours about her. If the duchess had heard them, she might dismiss him out of hand.

He would describe her situation without naming her. “Your Grace, I wondered if I might bring a lady I know to meet you. She has been woefully mistreated, and she needs your help.” That was a good start. Her Grace was known to be sympathetic to women in dreadful circumstances.

The duchess smiled and nodded. “Yes, Lancelot. You may certainly bring Lady Frogmore to me, and I will help however I can. I am very distressed that I did not seek her out when that dreadful man first started spreading his lies.”

Lance’s jaw dropped. There was only one explanation. Percy, his brother the Duke of Dellborough, had always claimed that the duchess was a witch, and he must be right. How else could she know exactly what he wanted?

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The Preface on WIP Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Descriptions on WIP Wednesday

When I write, I want you to see what I see in my mind’s eye, without belabouring the point. In my fourth novel for the A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, I’ve been describing the nursery to which my heroine and her charge are consigned.

The nursery at the Paris townhouse was ruthlessly clean and sparsely furnished with a random collection of unmatched items. Against one wall were two beds, made with fresh sheets, sported a continental style of comforter each. Between the windows stood a table with two chairs. The wall opposite the beds had fitted shelves, which stood empty. A circular rug, the colours faded except where someone had darned a couple of worn places, covered the centre of the wooden floor. And that was all, apart from Pauline’s and Jane’s bags, which a footman had deposited just inside the door.

No pictures or ornaments softened the room, which held no toys or books to read.

“It is not very nice, is it?” Jane murmured to Pauline.

The footman shut the door as he left, and she heard the tumblers of the lock fall as he locked it. Pauline felt the strain go out of her shoulders. She had been afraid they might be separated straight away, or that one of the maids might be assigned to stay with them. She was determined to escape tonight, and to take Jane with her.

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Tea with the real Lord Snowden

After their meeting, her husband James escorted Lord Snowden to the Duchess of Winshire’s private sitting room. She already had a pot of coffee sitting on the table before her, having discovered at his last visit that he preferred the beverage. She had also arranged The Teatime Tattler right where he would see it, open to the page that mentioned the excitement at a ball last night. The one where Lord Hungerford-Fox made nasty allegations about Lady Charmain, and Lord Snowden proposed. Although Rosemary, who had been present, said that it was not quite a proposal.

It would need to be, and Eleanor Winshire planned to tell the young man that, if he did not already know it.

“Black, was it not?” she asked him, as he took the seat she offered him, and fixed his gaze on the gossip rag.

“You have seen the article, then.” He took the cup from her hands.

“And, I surmise, so have you, Lord Snowden.” She would give him the opportunity to make up his own mind, having promised her son not to organise other people’s lives for them unless they sought her help. Though it was hard to resist. “My step-daughter tells me that the Tattler exaggerates. You spoke of possibilities. It was not a proposal.”

“That is true, Your Grace, but will not, I think, make difference to Society. May I speak frankly?”

Eleanor inclined her head. “I wish you would.”

“I can think of no greater felicity than to have Marg– Lady Charmain as my wife, but until my cousin is in custody, I fear wedding her will make her a target for his murderous intentions.”

“I see your difficulty,” the duchess said, “but you can surely make certain that Lady Charmain is well guarded from a physical attack.”

Lord Snowden nodded. “I take your meaning. The attacks on her reputation and her character will be far harder to counter if we do not, in fact, become betrothed.”

“Married, I think,” Eleanor said, forgetting her resolution not to interfere. “If you do not marry soon, people will say that you have no intention of doing so; that you are just pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.”

The young man nodded. “Yes, I think so, too. But I wondered if I was just letting my own wishes guide my thinking. It will be over to Margaret, of course. I will tell her that I want to be married in truth, but she may refuse me.”

The duchess smiled. He really was an estimable young man, even if he was raised in a brothel. That rumour was out in Society, too, but people couldn’t quite believe it, since his manners and dress were just as they should be, and James had made it know that he was a friend and protege of the Duke and Duchess of Winshire and their family. Eleanor, too, had laughed at the rumour when it was repeated to her. “A brothel, my dear? Does he look it?” she had said, and the conversation had moved on to something else.

Lord Snowden had another question. “Should I get a special license, Your Grace? And do you know how one goes about that?”

“An ordinary license will be enough,” Eleanor told him. “You apply to the bishop of your diocese. You will be able to marry without posting the banns. Once you apply, you must wait for seven days, but that is to the good. You are not in desperate haste. But you also do not intend to share your private affairs with the public, by posting the banns. Indeed, most people who can afford it use an ordinary license. It is unexceptional.” She smiled at the young man. “In this case, unexceptional is a good thing.”

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This is a scene that doesn’t appear in Snowy and the Seven Doves, the third book in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale. I finished the meeting with the duke saying that Eleanor wants a word, then go straight to Margaret, who receives a message from Snowy asking if he can come around. Snowy and the Seven Doves went to the publisher today.

 

 

 

 

 

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Convenient marriages on WIP Wednesday

It’s a common trope in historical marriage. The couple marry for reasons other than love, but love comes to surprise them. That’s one of the tropes in Lady Beast’s Bridegroom. My hero has inherited a rundown estate. My heroine needs a husband to protect her from the dastardly schemes of the cousin who is her closest male relative.

Here’s my hero’s reaction to the idea.

The sense of something just out of reach followed Peter into the morning. His appointment with Richards was at noon. He waited to be announced, feeling as he had sometimes before a battle: as if something momentous marched inexorably towards him, bring a change for better or for worse.

After civil greetings, Richards got straight to the point. “I have an opportunity for you, my lord. It will allow you to pay the estate’s debts and leave money and to spare over to bring your lands back into full production. And you will also be able to do a great service for another person.”

“It sounds too good to be true,” Peter commented. “What is this service that brings such great rewards?”

His solicitor leaned forward a little, his eyes intent on Peter. “Another of my clients has commissioned me to find her a husband, Lord Ransome. Her need is urgent and imperative.”

An obvious reason for haste occurred. “Pregnant, is she? I’ve no wish to make someone else’s son my heir, Richards.”

“No, my lord. My client is a lady and a maiden. I am authorized to explain her reasons, but only if you agree to consider the marriage. The lady does not wish her identity to be known or her circumstances to be discussed except with the candidates for her hand.”

Peter’s brows twitched upwards. “Candidates? I am not the only person to whom you are putting this proposition?”

“The lady commissioned me to select candidates and send them to her for interview, Lord Ransome. She will make the final decision.” He nodded, firmly. “After all, she will live with the results.”

“She, and her chosen groom,” Peter pointed out. “I wish the lady well, Richards, but I am not minded to sell myself in such a way.” He’d not sunk that low. Not yet.

Richards set his jaw, examining the blotter on his desk as if it contained some secret he could interpret if he stared for long enough. “You will forgive me, my lord, if I point out that your other choices are untenable. You have cut your outgoings to the bone, and yet you will still not have sufficient money to pay the mortgages when they fall due, let alone the other more pressing debts.”

Peter protested, “You advised me not to let staff go nor to begin selling off everything that is not entailed!”

Richards nodded. “I advised you not to frighten your creditors by behaving as if you were insolvent. You and I needed time to come to terms with what might be done. But, my lord, you are insolvent. I must change my advice. If you will not consider an advantageous marriage, then you must make haste to sell whatever you can.”

“It won’t be enough!”

“No, my lord.” Richards sat back in his seat, his hands in front of him on the desk, keeping his gaze steady.

Peter shivered, though the day was not cold. He had sunk lower than he knew, if a convenient marriage was his only option. “I daresay I could find an heiress on my own.” He had a little time, surely? The mortgages were not due until next quarter day, and Richards could continue to put his creditors off a little longer.

The solicitor tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, my lord. A wealthy merchant’s daughter, perhaps.”

Peter sighed. “You think I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. Very well, Richards. I will consider your lady. Tell me why I should agree to be one of the supplicants for her favor.” He wrinkled his nose at the thought of being interviewed by the would-be bride, like a footman or a groom anxious to win a position.

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What I’ve been up to and what is coming.

I’ve just completely revised my Works in Progress page, with a list of the books I plan to publish between now and January 2024. There are fifteen. (At least. In the last six months, I’ve written 270,000 words of the 700,000 word total I’ll need to reach the target, and I have until the end of October 2023 to write the last of the remaining 430,000, so I should be able to squeeze in another book or two.)  Take a look and let me know what you think. Is there something you’re waiting for that isn’t on there? Is there anything you’re particularly anxious to see?

I’m currently writing Perchance to Dream and The Flavours of Our Deeds, revising Snowy and the Seven Blossoms and Zara’s Locket, and thinking about The Talons of the Lyon and the Bluestocking Belles ‘Box set for 2023. Perchance and Snowy belong to A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, the same series as the beautiful cover above, Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.  See the new A Twist Upon a Regency Tale page for the titles, covers, and blurbs of all four books. The Flavours of Our Deeds is the next book in The Golden Redepennings series. And Zara’s Locket will be in the Belles’ 2022 Holiday box set.

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Preconceptions on WIP Wednesday

What a delight to turn a character’s preconceptions around. Here’s my John Forsythe, invaded by unwanted guests and suspicious of their motives.

The rain was even heavier the next day. John’s unwelcome guests would not be moving on. He did not have to see them; he trusted the Thornes for that. Nonetheless, their presence in his house and on his land distracted his attention, so that he failed to lose himself in his work, concern about what the she devil might be up to coming between him and the total concentration he needed to ensure that every part of the machine was placed just exactly where it belonged.

This particular automaton would have over five thousand precisely-made parts, so the potential for disaster was a very real. He covered the work and moved to another bench where a simpler piece, a children’s toy in the form of a monkey drummer, was waiting for spots of paint where the metal pieces had been joined together with pins, so they could move.

Painting was more mindless than constructing a clockwork engine, which had the disadvantage of that he had time to wonder what game Miss Turner was playing. Presumably, she—and probably her sister—were done up in their best gowns, all primped and pretty, and ready to charm him. He was almost tempted to go and see the show.

Mrs Thorne insisted both ladies and their three servants would remain in their quarters. John snorted his disbelief. Mrs Thorne did not know ladies of the ton the way that John did.

He finished touching up the monkey drummer and set it aside to dry. According to the workshop clock, Mrs Thorne would be putting together a meal about now. The visitors were making extra work for her. He could help lighten her load by going over to the other tower and fetching his own food.

He knew it was an excuse, even as he said it. So was his rationale that going through the house would help him avoid the rain. He unlocked the door that separated the tower from the main wing of the manor, locking it carefully behind him.

He could be honest with himself. He wanted to see the visitors, to prove to himself they were not staying where they had been put, that they were swanning around in fine clothing expecting his overworked servants to wait on them.

Perhaps not Lady Violet. He had met her years ago in London, when she and Rose, her sister, ran away from her manipulative self-centred harridan of a mother to beg refuge with Peter. She had been a sweet child. But eight years on, she was no doubt on the marriage market like all the other young women of her class, and lacked a thought in her head beyond marriage and clothing.

by

Tea with Lady Ransome

The young Lady Ransome would do very well indeed, Eleanor thought. She had taken a social liability–the terrible burn scars from the fire that had nearly taken her life when she was a child–and turned it into an intriguing asset.

The half mask that covered one side of her face from the mouth up could have been merely a reminder that, under it, she was disfigured. Indeed, if Eleanor’s information was correct, she had until recently worn plain white masks that had precisely that effect.

However, she had taken to matching her masks to her gowns, with startling effect. Painted in matching or complementary colours and trimmed with ribbons, jewels, and lace, her masked no longer looked like one side of a skull. Instead, they were glamorous accessories that drew attention, not so much to the mask, as to the lady herself. The side of her face that showed was not traditionally pretty, but it was beautiful. Full of character and charm. Her figure was more lush than currently fashionable, but fashion was foolish at best. Her generous curves, audaciously enhanced the gowns she wore, suited her and clearly pleased her husband, if one could judge from his stern eye on the gentlemen who now flocked to compliment her.

She also had excellent manners, neither too forward nor too reserved. During their half hour visit, their conversation had been wide ranging, and she had shown herself well able to hold her own in the group of young ladies Eleanor had gathered to meet her.

“Another cup, Lady Ransome?” Eleanor asked.

“No thank you, your grace,” the younger woman replied. “It has been very pleasant, but it is time for me to take my leave. Thank you so much for inviting me here today.” She cast a smile around the group, who chorused their farewells.

“I am leaving, too, Aunt Eleanor,” said Sarah, Lady Lechton, one of Eleanor’s goddaughters and niece to Eleanor’s husband. “I shall walk you out, Lady Ransome, and ask you a million questions about this salve you mentioned. I am certain my husband shall be interested.”

Eleanor was delighted. Lady Ransome needed friends in Society, and Sarah had the contacts to make sure she found them.

***

In Lady Beast’s Bridegroom, which will be out early next year, I have a scene in which Eleanor, now the Duchess of Winshire, throws her social weight behind my heroine, Arial, Viscountess Ransome. I imagine the following scene from that story came before the afternoon tea I envisage above.

Then the Duchess of Winshire, one of society’s most influential matrons, cast the weight of her reputation on their side. She had one of her stepsons escort her to the Ransomes’ theatre box, where she reminded Peter that she had known his mother. She further claimed to have kissed Arial when she was a baby. She took a seat next to Arial, in full view of the rest of the theatre, chatting for several minutes. When she stood to leave, she said, “You are doing the right thing, my dear Lady Ransome. Facing down these ridiculous calumnies is your best option. It is unpleasant, I know, and takes courage, but I and my friends have seen that you have plenty of courage and are of good character, besides.”

She held out her hand to Peter. “You have found yourself a treasure, Lord Ransome. Young ladies who are beautiful on the outside are common enough in Society. Young ladies who are brave, wise, and honorable are much rarer—and my friend Cordelia Deerhaven assures me your wife is all three.”

Peter bowed and mimed a kiss above the back of the duchess’s hand. “I am fully sensible of how fortunate I am, Your Grace. My wife is a delight to my eyes as well as a true friend and partner.”

“Good answer,” the duchess replied. “Come along, Drew. Your father will wonder what is keeping us.”