Earl of Ashbury

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Tea with Ruth, Countess of Ashbury

The new Countess of Ashbury was the Duchess of Haverford’s only guest today. She was shown out to the terrace where her grace sat taking the sunshine while looking over the gardens that sloped to the river. Her curtsey was gracefulness incarnate, and her looks not at all in the common way, but stunning.

“Your Grace, thank you for your invitation,” she said.

Eleanor waved to the chair that had been placed next to her own, and at an angle to it so that she could keep her eyes on her visitor’s face. “My goddaughter Sophia encouraged me to do so, Lady Ashbury. She tells me you have a charitable project that I might be interested in supporting. But first, let us have tea and talk about our families and the weather.”

Lady Ashbury’s amused smile flashed. “I shall feel very English,” she said.

She stated her preferences—black, with a slice of lemon and one lump of sugar–and accepted the cup Eleanor poured. “I have not thanked you in person for your influence in the matter of my sister-in-law, and the scandal she tried to raise,” she said.

Eleanor never did anything so crass as shrugging her shoulders, but she allowed her eyebrows to do so. “You blunted the worst of the rumours when you married Lord Ashbury,” she pointed out. “You are happy, I hope? Sophia tells me it is a love match.”

The glow in Lady Ashbury’s eyes, the softening of her voice, all confirmed the diagnosis. “Yes, Your Grace. I love Val, and I love his–our daughters. We would have come to it in the end, I believe. Elspeth Ashbury did us a favour by forcing us to decide sooner, rather than later.”

“Tell me about your daughters,” Eleanor encouraged. “Lady Mirabelle and Lady Genevieve, are they not?”

Ruth needed no further encouragement, extolling the talents and characters of her girls while they drank their tea. However, when Eleanor put her cup aside, she brought her current anecdote to a close, and commented, “But I have been rattling on about my family, which is hardly good manners, Your Grace. Will you further extend your kindness to me by allowing me to rattle on about my cottage hospital instead?”

“A cottage hospital! How interesting. Please tell me more.”

***

Ruth is the heroine of To Mend the Broken Hearted. She meets the Earl of Ashbury when she delivers his two daughters to him after they are sent home from school during a smallpox epidemic. By To Claim the Long-Lost Lover, she is running the cottage hospital mentioned above.

 

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Do children have a place in romance? Work in Progress Wednesday

‘Black Monday or the Departure for School’, 1919. After William Redmore Bigg (1755–1828)

Somehow, I find myself including children in my stories. Perhaps it is because I am a mother and a grandmother and I write what I know. Or perhaps that putting children into the equation of a marriage adds an extra element with huge potential for plot and character development. However that may be, I’m back into blogging again with another Work in Progress Wednesday invitation. If you have children in your current work in progress, how about giving us a sneak peak by posting an excerpt in the comments?

Mine is from To Mend the Broken Hearted. My hero, Val, is helping in the sickroom, where two of the sick are the little girls he is responsible for. They were born after he was posted overseas, and have been at school for the entire three years he has been home. Mirrie is at the sore throat stage of the smallpox, by the way, hence the staccato delivery.

He entered the room as quietly as he could. The sickest of the schoolgirls was coughing bitterly as a maid tried to encourage her to drink something for her throat. The adult patient was sleeping. The two girls Val was responsible for had reached an arm across the gap between their beds, their hands held in the middle. They lay, each on the edge of their own bed, facing one another, talking in scattered words with long pauses between.

“I met Father.” That was Mirabelle. She had her mother’s build; small-boned and slender, but the blonde hair could have come from either side.

“Nice?” Genevieve was also fair-haired, but with the heavier build of the Ashbury line.

Mirabelle moved her head in a shallow nod. “Kind. Looks a bit like Uncle. But not angry. Kind, Genny.”

“Did you ask?”

Mirabelle shook her head. “Not yet.”

Genny roused enough to insist, “He can’t send us away again while we’re sick.”

“Kind,” Mirrie insisted.

“You think he will let us stay home?”

Mirrie nodded. “Kind,” she repeated

Val concealed his wince. He had no right to the child’s good opinion. He’d done his best to forget the pair of them, even resented Mirrie’s monthly letters because he was honour-bound to think about her long enough to write a cursory reply.

He backed to the door again, and called, “Greetings, ladies. I am on my way to bed, and thought I would come to wish you a day of healing.” The words took him across the floor to the bedsides of the two girls. He smiled at Genevieve. “I know who you are. You are Genny, my brother’s little girl.”

“Lord Ashbury,” the child answered, hope and hesitation mingled in her eyes.

“Uncle Val,” Val suggested. No doubt purists would have a fit to hear a child use such casual address, but hearing their opinion of his brother — angry? what had the old devil put them through? — made him determined to distance himself from the name Mirrie had known the man by. What did Genny call her father? Not Papa, Val was certain.

Genny rewarded him with a smile. “Uncle Val.”

“Rest, my ladies,” he told the two of them. “I need to talk to your attendants, and then I’m off to bed, for I was up all night helping Lady Ruth. I will see you this evening, and will hope to find you both much better.”