Fire & Frost is out in just over a week, and I’m really excited. I think this collection is the best the Bluestocking Belles have done yet! I’m going to be celebrating each of the novellas over the next couple of weeks, with excerpts and everything!
First up, my own novella, Melting Matilda.
Her scandalous birth prevents Matilda Grenford from being fully acceptable to Society, even though she has been a ward of the Duchess of Haverford since she was a few weeks old. Matilda does not expect to be wooed by a worthy gentleman. The only man who has ever interested her gave her an outrageous kiss a year ago and has avoided her ever since.
Charles, the Earl of Hamner is honour bound to ignore his attraction to Matilda Grenford. She is an innocent and a lady, and in every way worthy of his respect—but she is base-born. His ancestors would rise screaming from their graves if he made her his countess. But he cannot forget the kiss they once shared.
Here’s an excerpt:
For more than a year, Charles had kept to himself the fact that the Haverford Ice Princess kissed like a flame. As he abandoned his own granite facade for once and for all, he rejoiced in her heat. This time was even better than the last, and the best was yet to come. Though perhaps not here in a family parlor where her brother or sisters could walk in at any time.
“I hope you do not want a long betrothal,” he whispered, between kisses.
She broke off her attempt to completely unravel his cravat. “Not long,” she agreed.
Her fervent answer demanded that he kiss her again, losing himself so deep he didn’t know they were no longer alone until a voice behind him said, “I trust you are betrothed to my sister, Hamner, for it would be most inconvenient to start the evening’s celebrations by killing you.”
Meet my hero, walking in the fog.
Charles lifted his hat in greeting, and sensed rather than saw her shoulder’s ease. Did she think an assailant unable to ape good manners? Stride by stride he approached, and stride by stride she came into better focus.
His heart sank as he recognized her. Of all the females to need his help, it had to be the Haverford Ice Princess. Nonetheless, manners demanded that he lift his hat again, bowing. A slight bow, peer to commoner, but still a bow. He fiercely resented the necessity, telling himself that a female with her breeding — or lack thereof — should not expect such recognition from a gentleman, but the ward of the Duchess of Haverford had every right to be treated with respect.
Miss Grenford returned a small curtsey, though a quick darting look at the fog hinted that she no more wanted to be rescued by him than he wanted to play knight errant to her.
Matilda Grenford had been bedeviling Charles since she first made her entry to Society, side by side with her equally problematic sister. No. She was more problematic.
“Lord Hamner.” Just that, and in freezing tones. No explanation of her presence alone in the street. No pleas to see to her safety. No smile.
“Miss Grenford.” How he wished Miss Grenford were more like her sister so he could blame her, instead of himself, for the insult that had sunk him so low in her regard. He’d fought an unwelcome and inappropriate lust in her presence since he asked her to dance at her debut ball two years ago. It was, of course, only lust. He would have recovered long ago, he was certain, if she had been in his keeping, but that would never happen.
Besides, for all that he told himself he would tire of her, he could not imagine it. He would not take a mistress he could not give up. He had sworn on his mother’s grave that he would have no other women when he married. He would never do to his wife and children what his father had done; marrying a proper lady when his heart was with his irregular family.
To marry Miss Grenford was unthinkable. When he wed, it would be to a maiden of pure bloodlines, both maternal and paternal. He owed it to his name. He owed it to the heir he and his wife would raise to the dignities of his title, and to any other offspring.
To offer protection to a ward of the Duchess of Haverford was impossible. She behaved like a proper lady, whatever her appearance. If he compromised her, he would be honor bound to offer for her, and would do so without even the incentive of an angry brother. The Marquis of Aldridge would avenge insult to any of the Grenford sisters, and Aldridge was deadly with both sword and pistol, but Charles’s own sense of what was due a lady would propel him to the altar without such a threat.
Sometimes, he struggled to remember that would be a bad outcome.
And my heroine:
If the two of them made it out of the near-invisible city streets alive, Matilda Grenford was going to kill her sister Jessica, and even their guardian and mentor, the Duchess of Haverford, wouldn’t blame her. Angry as Matilda was, and panicked, too, as she tried to find a known landmark in the enveloping fog, she couldn’t resist a wry smile at the thought. Aunt Eleanor was the kindest person in the world, and expected everyone else to be as forgiving and generous as she was herself. Matilda could just imagine the conversation.
“Now, my dear, I want you to think about what other choices you might have made.” The duchess had said precisely those words uncounted times in the more than twenty years Matilda had been her ward.
When she was younger, she would burst out in an impassioned defense of whatever action had brought her before Her Grace for a reprimand. “Jessica is not just destroying her own reputation, Aunt Eleanor. Meeting men in the garden at balls, going out riding without her groom, dancing too close. Her behavior reflects on us all.”
Was that the lamppost by the corner of the square? No; a few steps more showed yet another paved street with houses looming in the fog on both sides. Matilda stopped while she tried to decide if any of them were in any way familiar.
Meanwhile, she continued her imaginary rant to the duchess. “Even in company, she takes flirtation to the edge of what is proper. This latest start — sneaking out of the house without a chaperone or even her maid — if it becomes known, she’ll go down in ruin, and take me and Frances with her.”
Matilda had gone after her, of course, taking a footman, but she’d lost the poor man several mistaken turns back. Matilda had been hurrying ahead, ignoring the footman’s complaints, thinking only about bringing Jessica back before she got into worse trouble than ever before. Now Matilda was just as much at risk, and she’d settle for managing to bring her own self home to Haverford House, or even to the house of a friend, if she could find one.
Home, for preference. Turning up anywhere else, unaccompanied, would start the very scandal Matilda had followed her sister to avoid. If Jessica managed to make it home unscathed, Matilda would strangle her.
In her imagination, she could hear Aunt Eleanor, calm as ever. “Murder is so final, Matilda. Surely it would have been better to try something else, first. What could you have done?”
Fire & Frost: released 4 February. Buy now!
Join the The Ladies’ Society For The Care of the Widows and Orphans of Fallen Heroes and the Children of Wounded Veterans in their pursuit of justice, charity, and soul searing romance.
The Napoleonic Wars have left England with wounded warriors, fatherless children, unemployed veterans, and hungry families. The ladies of London, led by the indomitable Duchess of Haverford plot a campaign to feed the hungry, care for the fallen—and bring the neglectful Parliament to heel. They will use any means at their disposal to convince the gentlemen of their choice to assist.
Their campaign involves strategy, persuasion, and a wee bit of fun. Pamphlets are all well and good, but auctioning a lady’s company along with her basket of delicious treats is bound to get more attention. Their efforts fall amid weeks of fog and weather so cold the Thames freezes over and a festive Frost Fair breaks out right on the river. The ladies take to the ice. What could be better for their purposes than a little Fire and Frost?