Belles & Beaux

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First look at a character on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from Zara’s Locket, my story in Belles & Beaux, which is being published tomorrow. It squeaks in as a work-in-progress on a technicality, being finished but not yet distributed to readers. But meet my heroine, anyway.

Someone had trashed the small windowless room the Strickland household provided for the comfort of their governesses.

At first, Zahrah was inclined to blame her charges. The three children currently consigned to her care were hell-spawn—encouraged in their defiant disobedience by parents who chose to believe them angels, and to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

However, even their most strenuous efforts to chase her away had resulted in nothing worse than frogs in her shoes, mud puddles in her bed, and a bucket of slops balanced on a door. And their behavior had improved since she began telling them stories at bedtime on any day in which they had all three attended their lessons and displayed the manners they had formerly trotted out only with their parents and their older brothers and sisters.

At the moment, with Christmas approaching, she had an extra carrot to offer them. The Strickland family did not decorate for Christmas, but Zahrah had asked and received permission to decorate the nursery and schoolroom, and the children were looking forward to it, and so was Zahrah. It would make up for not being with those she loved for the festival.

Zahrah sorted her way through the mess. Her mirror broken. Ink thrown onto a watercolor she had tacked to the wall. Her clothes not just tossed around, but ripped apart. Worse still, pages torn from her few personal books and other pages defaced with splotches of ink.

This was not the children. They lacked the strength for such destruction. And they didn’t, she was certain, hide this degree of spite.

It could have been a servant, she supposed. They were stand-offish and unpleasant, but none hated her, or had cause to.

The wooden box her brother had made to give her on her last birthday lay in pieces, its contents gone, or hidden in the clutter, perhaps. The bits and pieces were mostly worthless to someone else. Cheap pieces of jeweler suitable for a governess, most of them with happy memories of the person who gave them to her, or the occasion on which she bought them. The latest letter from her mother, set aside for a rereading. A button that she had not yet had time to sew on a cuff.

And her locket. That was the one item she hated to lose. Her father had commissioned it for her sixteenth birthday, and she had worn it daily ever since. She had only taken it off because the catch had been broken in the scuffle with Gerard Strickland.

The oldest Strickland son had been brooding for the past two weeks, ever since his ambush on her had resulted in a threat to his person, backed up by the knife she always carried. Yes, and he had been muttering threats when none of the other Stricklands were around to hear.

She had taken no notice. What could he do, after all?

Well. Now she knew.

For more about the stories in Belles & Beaux, and for preorder links, see the project page on the Bluestocking Belles website.

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Tea with Simon

Simon Marshall was nervous. He had drawn several designs to show the Duke and Duchess of Winshire, and now he was to present them. They were ordering a signet ring to mark the sixteenth birthday of the duke’s nephew, and Simon had made hundreds, perhaps thousands, or rings, many of them signets. The status of the clients, however, made this one of his most important jobs ever.

Not as important as the locket the duke’s dearest friend had commissioned for another sixteenth birthday some eight years ago. That locket, rescued from a thief, had reunited him with Zara, his darling wife of just a few months.

Zara stood somewhat in the relation of a godchild to the duke, and had assured him that the august couple were very nice. He knew that. He had met them at his wedding and again when they summoned him to Winshire House to commission the ring.

She also said his designs were magnificent. She was prejudiced in his favour, and thought everything he made to be beautiful. They were acceptable. Any one of them would work to make both an attractive ring and a clear and identifiable impression in wax—a mark that signified Elias, Lord Bentham, the youth who would receive the ring.

He held the courtesy title of viscount, as heir to the Earl of Lechton, would one day succeed to his father’s title and wear the ring that now graced the earl’s finger. “Long may that day be in coming,” the duchess had said. “In the meanwhile, my husband’s family has formed the habit of gifting their sons a signet ring when they turn sixteen.”

“A tradition,” the duke added, giving his wife a look full of affection, “that we will in future extend to daughters, at my duchess’s behest.”

Simon had asked a few questions about the Lechton coat of arms and the young recipient’s interests.

Dozens of drawings had been narrowed down to three designs. One contained the elements of the Lechton heraldic symbols that came from the Bentham title: a sword and a stylised fish. One was a representation of a star cluster, since Bentham had a passion for astrology. And one combined the two: a star crossed by a sword.

As the butler announced him, he took a deep breath and stepped into a pretty parlour, tastefully furnished, where the duke and duchess greeted him with warm smiles.

The duchess invited him to sit. The duke asked after his wife. The duchess poured him a cup of tea. Simon found himself relaxing.

Then the duke gestured to the folder Simon had put on the table before him. “Your designs?” His Grace asked. “Would you like to explain them to us, Mr Marshall?”

“No, Your Grace,” Simon said, then blushed at the look of surprise on the duke’s face and explained. “I believe, Your Grace, that if they need to be explained, they are not good enough.”

The duke nodded, and the duchess smiled. “That makes perfect sense, Mr Marshall. My husband and I shall look at what you have brought us, then, while you serve yourself one of Fournier’s little cakes and enjoy it with your tea.”

Simon Marshall is the hero of Zara’s Locket, my story in the new Bluestocking Belles collection, Belles & Beaux. Belles & Beaux is on preorder at the sale price of 99c, and is published next week. Find out more on the Bluestocking Belles website.

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Spotlight on Room at the Inn and Zara’s Locket in Belles & Beaux

Room at the Inn: By Caroline Warfield

A fatherless child requires a village to care for it, provided they have room in their hearts. When a cold-hearted baroness makes it impossible for the tenants of Little Hocking to care for one little boy, the Honorable Declan Alworth steps up to make room in his heart and his home for the little treasure. How can the vicar’s niece, Maera Willis, resist either one of them?

My comments: I certainly couldn’t resist them. I have never read a story by Caroline where I didn’t love both the heroine and the hero. This hero is a particularly lovely one. Caroline has a deft touch with a thoroughly satisfying short story, and Room at the Inn is a gem.

Zara’s Locket: By Jude Knight

A run-in with the adult son of the household leads to dismissal for governess Zahrah ibnit Yousef, or Zara MacLaren as the household knows her. Turned out on a Christmas Eve, her circumstances go from bad to worse when she is robbed and then arrested.

Goldsmith and jeweler Simon Marshall recognizes the locket a young aristocrat tries to sell, and it leads him on a hunt for Zara, the friend of his childhood. He finds her. He finds trouble, too, and joins her in her incarceration.

They need a Christmas miracle. It will take a pair of charitable gaolers, a little Christmas cheer, and the timely intervention of family to bring this story to a happy ending.

No comment on this one. You’ll have to read it and decide for yourself.

Find out more

Read all about the set on the Bluestocking Belles website, and preorder at the special prerelease price.

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Spotlight on Flowers for His Lady and An Angel’s Promise in Belles & Beaux

Flowers for His Lady: By Alina K. Field

Shamed into spinsterhood by a fall from grace years earlier, Eleanor Gurnwood has found a home for herself in the tiny village of Upper Upton, and a quirky, sometimes annoying family in the villagers she’s been serving as her vicar-brother’s minion. Now, with his rising career, she’s faced with a choice: succumb to his pressure to keep house for him elsewhere or stay on in genteel poverty with her new “family”.

For now, she has only one goal in sight: to make this year’s Christmas service beautiful for the parishioners of St. Tancred’s. Until the Christmas eve when a man from her past rides in on a white horse.

Major Sir Bramwell Huxley, late of his Majesty’s 95th Foot, has ventured on one last mission, a quest for a Christmas miracle: finding the lady he abandoned before leaving for Waterloo.

My comments:

I love second-chance love stories, and Alina has given us a delightful one. The device of an interfering family member who secretly intercepts messages is managed here with a deft hand. No long drawn-out disbelief once the machinations are disclosed. And the romantic gesture that Bram makes to win his loved one warmed my heart. I’m sure it will warm yours.

An Angel’s Promise: By Rue Allyn

Artis MacKai might be only a little girl, but she is not going to let a blizzard, wolves, or a deadly enemy stop her from rescuing the stolen mare and foal who are the hope of her family. It will take the spirits of her parents, a determined boy, and her desperate brother to save her.

My comments:

True love never dies in this little story by Rue Allyn. The love story of Artis’s parents doesn’t end when they are foully murdered. Nor does their love for their children. Artis and the boy she finds in the blizzard engaged my sympathy from the first. This story was unexpected, since the heroine was only eight, but it truly deserves its place in this set. It is a heartwarming tale of love, courage, and determination. And just long enough to read with a cup of coffee and a piece of Christmas cake.

Find out more

Read all about the set on the Bluestocking Belles website, and preorder at the special prerelease price.

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Tea with Zahrah

The Duchess of Winshire brought the bride a cup of tea. The various ladies of the family, the dresser who attended Sophia, her daughter-in-law, and her own dresser, had been hovering over the poor dear for hours, and she must be parched.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Zahrah said, gratefully.

“Aunt Eleanor to you, my dear,” the duchess insisted. Zahrah was the daughter of James’s personal steward and best friend, Yousef ibn Achmed, who was like a brother to him. Yousef’s wife, Patience, had raised the duke’s younger children after the death of his wife, and was like a sister to him. It seemed to Eleanor that Zahrah was a niece, or as good as.

Ruth, James’s third daughter and the eldest of the two who had accompanied him to England, hurried over with a towel and placed it over Zahrah’s elegant silk undergarments, tucking it into the top of the corset. “In case you drip,” she said.

Eleanor’s dear girls, Matilda, Jessica, and Frances, chorused, “Ladies do not drip.”

Sophia sent Eleanor a twinkling smile, recognising the phrase as one Eleanor had often used when her little charges had come to take teas with her. Sophia had been part of some of those lessons. She had been Eleanor’s goddaughter long before she married James’s eldest son, also called James.

Rosemary, James’s fourth daughter, carried over a plate with a couple of biscuits. “We cannot have you fainting at the church,” she said.

With the bride temporarily disengaged from preparations, everyone took the opportunity to pause for refreshments. The next step was the gown, which was hanging on the dressing screen, ready to go over the bride’s head and be fastened in place.

“The gown is beautiful, and you shall look lovely in it, Zahrah,” Eleanor told the bride, and the bride’s mother beamed, as if the complement was addressed to her.

“Even better,” Patience said, ever the governess, “she is marrying a good man.” Everyone in the room nodded. Simon Marshall was a fine jeweller, a successful businessman, and a gentleman in his demeanour and behaviour. But most of all, he was a good man.

Eleanor clasped her hands together and beamed around the room. The marriage had all the signs of being an excellent one. Eleanor did love a happy ending.

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This is a short scene that belongs with Zara’s Locket, my contribution to Belles & Beaux, the new Bluestocking Belles collection that is out next month. I say with, not in. It would be a step out of the story if it had been included there. Besides, I only wrote it a minute ago. But such is the way the imagination works. My characters have lives outside of the words that actually reach the page. If you’d like to know more about this story and the other seven delightful tales that make up the new collection, take a look at: https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/belles-beaux/

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Spotlight on A Mistletoe Kiss and The Magic Christmas Stew in Belles & Beaux

Each week for the next four Sundays, I’m going to tell you about two stories in the coming box set by the Bluestocking Belles.

A Mistletoe Kiss: By Sherry Ewing

All she wants for Christmas is a mistletoe kiss…

Miss Sophie Templeton has been waiting a lifetime for the one man who owns her heart, but he seems to court a different woman every Season. As Christmas approaches, Sophie’s one wish is a kiss from him beneath the mistletoe.

Spencer, Earl of Wilmott has quietly watched Sophie through the years, holding her in his heart, and biding his time until he can offer for her. He appeases his parents by being seen with a variety of eligible women. But Sophie is grown up now, and he must put aside his worries that she’ll find him too old and make his offer.

One chance encounter, one dance in which he all but claims her; can Spencer convince Sophie to make this a Christmas romance that will last a lifetime?

My comments:

Sherry has given us another delightful heroine. Years ago, Sophie gave her heart to the Earl of Wilmott, a friend of her sister’s husband. Of course he could never be interested in someone so much younger, poorer, and less well born. She hopes for a kiss, but will be surprised when he wants more. You may remember Sophie from Margaret’s and Frederick’s story in the box set Holiday Escapes. It is lovely to see old friends again, and this story was a lovely journey back into Sherry’s Regency world.

The Magic Christmas Stew: By Susana Ellis

When we join together to share what we have, we can make a difference

The life of an idle spare is no life at all for retired Captain, Daniel Winthrop. He is capable of doing many things, but they all required a wealthy bride, and he’ll not be a fortune hunter. He’d like to be a husband, though–of the governess who looks after his brother’s children. As he thinks about his options, he throws his energies into a project to encourage people to help veterans and their families, called ‘the magic stew project’ after the meals that Daniel and his comrades created from donated bits and pieces.

Governess Emily Bainbridge fled her home because her unpleasant cousin was plotting to force her into marriage. To avoid being pursued by another fortune hunter, she keeps who she is a secret. Soon, she will be twenty-five and able to control her own property. In the meantime, she cannot help but notice her employer’s brother. He is handsome, generous and kind. And his kiss is magical. But how can she allow him closer when she is pretending to be someone she is not?

Will this pair find the courage to conquer their pride and risk all for love?

My comments:

I’m so thrilled that Susana joined us for her box set. She has a deft touch with characters and plots, and this short but charming story is a fine example of her work. Emily’s dilemma is very real. Who among us has not kept something hidden for good reason, and then feared what others will know when they find out? And, too, I am always a sucker for a good villain. The villain in this story is a true scoundrel, and his attempt at abduction gives us readers a few nasty moments (and even more so, the heroine, who has no way of knowing that her happy ending is inevitable).

Find out more

Read all about the set on the Bluestocking Belles website, and preorder at the special prerelease price.

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Tea with Jude

Her Grace the Duchess of Haverford appears in my dream. Or do I appear in hers? Do fictional characters dream? However it is, I am on the terrace on the sheltered side of Haverford Castle, and Eleanor is pouring me a cup of tea.

Calling my duchess by her first name is a privilege afforded to me, commoner though I am, because I am her author.

“I know how you love Marcel’s cakes,” she tells me, putting two of them on a plate. “I had a box of them delivered to help us celebrate your latest book. Short stories, is it not?”

“Yes,” I agree. I take a sip of my tea, which is just the way I like it. “Chasing the Tale: Volume II. Ten short stories and novelettes, just long enough to enjoy before bed or with a cup of coffee or tea at any time of the day. I brought you a copy.” It appears in my hand as I speak, which is confirmation that I am dreaming, for it is a print copy, and print copies only came available to order, when the book went live, which should have happened a few minutes ago.

“Next month,” I say, “I have a story in Belles & Beaux, a Bluestocking Belles collection. Your husband appears in it.”

Her eyebrows go up. “Haverford?”

Oh. So this is prior to 1815, which is when Haverford died. “Your next husband, I tell her.” It’s a bit of a spoiler alert, but I won’t tell her anything more.

“You are not planning to inflict another husband on me, I hope,” she scolded. “Was the first one not enough?”

Perhaps a little bit more. “The second one is more in the way of a reward,” I assure her. To prevent her from asking any more, I take a bite from one of Marcel Fournier’s lovely little cakes. One of the benefits of meeting my characters inside my fictional world is that I’m not allergic to anything. It is delicious.