Marquis of Aldridge

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Happy Sixth Birthday to A Baron for Becky

A Baron for Becky was first published on 5th August 2015. It introduced one of my most popular characters, but didn’t give him a happy ending.

Now, finally, the Marquis of Aldridge is hero of his own book. To Tame the Wild Rake will be published on 17th September, and is currently on preorder.

Presents for you

Free and discounted

To celebrate my book birthday, I’m giving away A Baron for Becky on Bookfunnel. It’s free for two days.

It’s also free on my SELZ bookshop.

I’m reducing it to 99c on Amazon as soon as their system gets over a glitch and lets me into the pricing field.

Haverford House website

I’ve set up a new website, a subsite of this one, to give you biographies, background information, images, a family tree, and excerpts. Lots of excerpts.

So far, I have a family tree and a couple of introductions, but I plan to post something new every day between now and the publication of the new book. Keep checking. I’ll also have contests and giveaways.

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 10

Chapter Five

Haverford House, London, July 1812

The Duchess of Haverford took tea in her rooms this quiet Monday afternoon. She was alone for once; even the maid who brought the tray sent off back to the servants’ hall. Her life was such a bustle, and for the most part, that was how she liked it, but just for once, it was nice to have an afternoon to herself. No meetings. No entertainments to attend or offer. Not even any family members—her current companion had gone to visit her mother for her afternoon off, Aldridge was about his own business, her youngest ward was at lessons, and the two older girls had been invited on an outing with a friend.

As to Haverford, who knew where he was? But he would not disturb her here.

The thought had barely crossed her mind when a knock sounded; not the discreet tap of a servant, but a firm rap. Not the duke. He wouldn’t knock. “Enter,” she called.

Aldridge let himself into the room.  He greeted her with his usual aplomb, asked after her day, but she could tell immediately that he was agitated. “What is wrong, my son?”

“I have no easy way to say this, Mama.” He knelt before her and took her hands. “Sutton has been assaulted in the street, and his schoolroom party was also attacked. A runaway brewer’s dray that was not a runaway at all.” He squeezed her hands, pulling her back from her sudden dizziness. “Sutton gave his assailants a drubbing, and the children and their attendants are unhurt, thanks to swift action on the part of their escort.”

Eleanor let out the air she was holding. “Thank goodness! And thank you, my dear, for letting me know before gossip made it so much worse.”

Aldridge frowned slightly. “There is more. I heard of the assault on Sutton before it happened, and arrived with help just after. Mama, my secretary was asked to be the paymaster for the assailants. And guess who gave him the command.”

She knew before her son said it. Breathed the words with him. “His Grace? Surely not. After the assassin at the duel, why would he do something like this again?”

“His Grace.” Aldridge confirmed. He leapt to his feet and paced the room, not able to keep still for a moment, his body expressing the agitation his face refused to display. “He is getting worse, Mama. Whether it would have happened anyway, or whether the arrival of Sutton lit the flame, he lives on the point of explosion.”

“I know, my dear.” She knew better than Aldridge, in fact. Despite the long estrangement between her and her husband, they nonetheless lived in the same house, attended some of the same social gatherings, worked side-by-side for the same political causes. Aldridge kept largely to his own wing when he was under the same roof as his parents, which was increasingly rare. He managed all the vast business of the duchy, but Haverford had long since let go those reins to the extent that his only association with Aldridge tended to be through the bills and notes of hand that arrived regularly to be paid.

Aldridge thumped the mantlepiece. “This latest start… if word gets out that Haverford was behind the attack on Sutton and his family, it will be a disaster. Sutton would be well within his rights to demand Haverford’s trial for attempted murder. This family is no stranger to scandal, Mama, and there’s no doubt in my mind His Grace deserves to be hanged, silken noose or not, but…”

Eleanor’s distress was such she found herself chewing her lip. “Thank God no one was seriously hurt.”

“Thank Sutton and his sons for their warrior-craft, and my secretary for telling me in time to lead a rescue.” Aldridge heaved a deep sigh and took another fast turn around the carpet. “He intended murder, Mama, and when I confronted him with it, he laughed and said he did it for England. He has gone too far, Mama. If he is found out, he puts us all at risk. What if the Regent decides to regard a murder attempt on another peer as treason?”

Eleanor had not considered that possibility. The title could be attainted, the lineage considered corrupt. Aldridge had worked for years to rebuild the wealth of the duchy after his father’s mismanagement. He could lose it all, including the title, and the Prince would be delighted to benefit.

Haverford had become more and more erratic as the year progressed. He insulted and alarmed other people at every event he attended, completely ignoring social conventions and saying whatever he thought, often using the foulest of language. Thankfully, he was showing less and less inclination to go into Polite Society. Even so, the duchess frequently needed to use all her considerable tact and diplomacy to soothe ruffled feathers and quiet the gossip that claimed the duke was going mad.

“He is going mad,” she acknowledged to her son, the one person in the world who could be trusted with the knowledge. “It is the French Disease, I am sure. It is rotting his brain.”

“We cannot bring in doctors to examine him, Mama. Who knows what would come of that; what he would say and who they would tell? He cannot be allowed to continue, however.”

Eleanor frowned. It was a conundrum. Who could prevent a duke from doing whatever he pleased?

Aldridge, apparently. “I have made arrangements. He has been persuaded to travel to Haverford Castle. When he arrives, trusted servants know to keep him there. He will be comfortable, Mama. I have arranged for him to be entertained, and have nurses on hand in case he needs them. The disease will kill him in the next year or two, probably, and he is likely to be bedridden long before the end.”

He was brave, her son. He was breaking the laws of God and man in showing such disobedience to his father and a peer of the realm. She was sure God would understand, but the Courts might not. She would not ask about the entertainment Aldridge had provided. Knowing Haverford as she did, she did not want to know details. “He must never be set free,” she concluded. Should anyone find out he was insane, the scandal would be enormous. Worse still for Aldridge.

“I understand that such spells may come and go, so we need to be prepared for him to return to sanity, at least for a time,” Aldridge cautioned. “But if that does not happen, my instructions are to keep him from understanding he is imprisoned for as long as possible. With luck, the confusion in his mind will prevent him from ever working it out. I needed you to know, Mama, for two reasons. First, we need a story for the ton. Second, if he does not recover and if anything happens to me, it will be for you to keep him confined until Jon returns to be heir in my place.”

“I hope dear Jonathan comes home soon, Aldridge. I miss my son. But do not speak of your demise, my dear. I could not bear it.”

Aldridge stopped beside her and bent to kiss her forehead. “You are the strongest woman I know, dearest. Fret not. I am careful, and I intend to live to grow old.”

Eleanor hoped so. She certainly hoped so.

After he left, she sat and stared at her escritoire, the concealer of her secrets. If Haverford’s madness came out, what would it do her darling wards, the daughters of her heart? Her two eldest had only just made their debut this year, and the rumours about their origins made their lives hard enough!

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Tea with Eleanor: Paradise Lost Episode 4

Chapter Two

Haverford House, London, April 1812

Eleanor had seen James—the Earl of Sutton, she supposed she must call him. Not that she would have a chance to call him anything. The Duke of Haverford had ordered his household and his dependents and allies to cut the entire Winshire family, and to refuse to attend entertainments where they were present.

Eleanor would have to make do with the glimpse last night at the Farningham ball. She had looked up when the room fell silent, and there he stood on the stairs, surrounded by members of his family, whom she barely noticed. James looked wonderful. More than thirty years had passed, and no person on earth would call him a fribble or useless now. He had been a king somewhere in Central Asia, and wore his authority like an invisible garment. And he was still as handsome as he had been in his twenties.

Eleanor caught herself sighing over James like a silly gosling. Silly, because women did not age as well as men, as the whole world knew. She no longer had the slender waist of a maiden, her hair was beginning to grey, and her face showed the lines her mother swore she would avoid if she never smiled, laughed, frowned, or showed any other emotion. Of course, she had not followed her mother’s instruction, but those who had were no less lined than Eleanor, as far as she could see.

Besides, she was a married woman, and he was a virtuous man who had, by all accounts, deeply loved his wife. Even if he was willing and she was a widow, she would never take a lover. Somewhere within her might lurk the monster that was consuming her husband. Perhaps not. According to the physician, she had a better than even chance. But she would not know until she was sick, or until she was on her deathbed and still clean of the dreadful thing.

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Haverford Castle, East Kent, 1784

The Duke of Haverford did not bother with greetings or enquiries about Eleanor’s health. He flung open the door without knocking and marched into Eleanor’s sitting room, saying, “What is it, duchess? I have a great deal to do today.”

Inwardly, Eleanor quailed as he stood over her, threat in every line of his posture.  Unlike her father, he had never beaten her in cold blood, but she had every reason to fear his temper.

But fear would not serve her here. She was fighting for her life and for the wellbeing of her son. She maintained an outward semblance of calm and gestured to a chair. “Will you not be seated, Your Grace? As I said in my note, I have an important matter to discuss with you.”

Haverford grumbled, but sat; even accepted a cup of tea. The delicate porcelain cup might not survive the next few minutes, but its sacrifice was a small price to pay for giving the discussion a façade of normality.

As she’d hoped, the good manners drilled into every English gentleman in the presence of a lady, even his wife, kept the duke sitting during the ritual of preparing the cup, but he burst out as soon as he accepted it from his wife’s hand. “Well, duchess?”

Eleanor prepared her own cup, glad to have a reason not to look at him as she spoke. “Your Grace, you will be aware that I have been very ill this past six weeks. It is, indeed, why I removed myself to Haverford Castle.”

“Yes, yes. And I’m glad to see you much improved, madam. I have need of you in London.” He condescended to provide an explanation. “The bill I am sponsoring—those idiots who will not listen are much easier to convince after you’ve given them one of your excellent meals, and invited their wives and daughters to your soirees. How soon can you be ready to travel?”

What an excellent opening. “I can pack tomorrow and leave for London the day after, Your Grace.”

Haverford smiled. “Excellent, excellent.” He put the cup down, shifting as if to stand.

“If I do not have a relapse,” Eleanor added.

Haverford sank back into his chair, frowning.

Now to get to the meat of the matter. Eleanor grasped hold of her dwindling supply of courage with both hands. This is about saving Aldridge. The situation in the nursery was fit to ruin him. His attendants had always indulged his every whim, egged on by the duke, who considered himself to be the only person the infant marquis needed to obey. Eleanor’s frequent visits and threats of dismissal allowed him to be raised with some sense of structure and decorum. He knew she would not tolerate rudeness or temper, to her or to his nurses and the maids.

After spending four weeks too sick to leave her bed, she found the nursery in disarray, the young heir ruling the roost. He was in a wild tantrum when she arrived, and the next hour left her drooping with fatigue, and she still had to hunt down the boy’s missing head nurse and find out why she had allowed such chaos to reign.

The memory prompted her to deal with the minor issue first. “Your affair with Aldridge’s nurse, Your Grace.”

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Internal dialogue on WIP Wednesday

It’s nice to give a character a friend to talk to, so readers can find out what they’re thinking. But now and again, we need to peek inside their heads. In today’s post, I’m including some thoughts that my character Aldridge would never share with anyone else. If you have an excerpt with internal dialogue that you’d like share, please feel free to add it to the comments.

Aldridge let himself into the Duke’s Study. The duke’s desk, a massive object of carved oak, stood in the bay window, its back to the view out over the pleasure gardens that descended from the house to the river. 

Aldridge had thought of taking it over; of moving it so it was at right angles to the windows so that he could enjoy the view while he was working.

He would certainly enjoy the extra space. His own cadet desk, tucked away in a corner near the door, was a quarter of the size. And, as each secretary in turn had pointed out, his father would never return to this room or even to London, and Aldridge was duke in all but name, rank, and title.

It was a final step he wasn’t willing to take until he had to. He would adopt his father’s desk when he took his father’s title. Refusing the first was, he knew, a symptom of his reluctance to assume the second. If the doctors were to be trusted, he’d be the Duke of Haverford within the next twelve months, and probably sooner rather than later. 

None of his secretaries or clerks understood. They thought he was lucky. But then, they and the rest of the population of England thought he was the Merry Marquis; envied him his wealth, his position, the hordes of women keen on an illicit relationship, even the maidens panting for a chance to be his duchess.

The reasons people wanted him had nothing to do with him. He could be a donkey on two legs, and they’d still praise him. The woman would still pant to bed him. The men would still court his favour. And if it was bad now, how much worse would it be when he was duke?

He was a title and a position, not a man. Even those who knew him best couldn’t see past the marquis, the heir. Just a clever automaton, smartly dressed, with a repertoire of motions and words to fool people into thinking he was a real person. On days like today, when he had given the one lady he wanted to attract yet another reason to despise him, when he’d been unable even to protect a boy who apparently bore his blood, he wondered if they were right.

He gave a short laugh. How the rest of the world would mock and marvel to know he was feeling sorry for himself. 

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Tea with an ally

Hollystone Hall, July 1790

Thomas Oliver Fitz-Grenford watched his hostess as she poured his tea. Even after his very public split with the duke, he had retained his friendship with the servants at the main Haverford properties, but they had been able to tell him little about her health or her state of mind. Only the bare facts. That she had been sick. That on her recovery, she had argued with the duke. That she had then packed her bags and retreated to this lesser estate, the one place in the vast Haverford holdings that belonged to Her Grace and not His Grace. No doubt she would tell him soon why she sent for him.

“There, Tolly. Milk and no sugar. Is that not correct?”

The Grenford heir, the Marquis of Aldridge, had come up with the shortened form of his name. ‘Uncle Tolly’ had been a favourite of the little boy when he had been the duke’s steward and secretary, perhaps because he found time to talk to the child. His Grace had no interest in or patience for children, and the duchess had suffered a succession of miscarriages before successfully carrying her second son, Lord Jonathan, to term. Also, His Grace had decreed that his heir have his own extensive suite, staffed by his own personal servants, and that the duchess was neither to visit nor to interfere in Aldridge’s care.

Tolly took the cup. “Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.”

She smiled. “We are brother and sister, Tolly. Will you call me ‘Eleanor’?”

Tolly’s face heated. His relationship to the duke was not precisely a secret, but he had never been acknowledged. The father they shared had brought the son of a favourite mistress to be raised on the estate, and had even kept on his half-brother’s tutor to train Tolly in the skills he would need to serve the duchy. Still, he had not been encouraged to show any familiarity, and the duke liked Tolly no more than Tolly liked the duke. “His Grace…”

The duchess’s eyes flashed and she scowled. “I do not mean to concern myself ever again with the opinions of His Grace, except as I must for my safety and that of my children and the servants. Will you not call me by my name, Tolly, when we are not in company? Will you be my friend? For I stand in great need of one.”

He could see that for himself. She had always been slender, but was now gaunt, with dark shadows under her eyes.

The sickness had confined her to her rooms, with everyone, even the children, refused entry. Only the doctor came, so Tolly had been told. Before that, she had very low after Jonathan’s birth, as she had after the birth of Aldridge. Birth seemed to take some woman like that, as if being married to Haverford wasn’t depressing enough.

He felt a wave of compassion for the poor lady, and leaned forward to pat her hand. “I will always stand your friend, Eleanor,” he told her.

“Good, for I need your help. Can you find me information with which to blackmail Haverford?”

Tolly blinked. Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t that.

“Blackmail?” he stuttered in response. “Is he… Has he…” Tolly struggled with a kaleidoscope of mental images. Haverford beating Eleanor. Haverford berating Eleanor. Worse.

Eleanor pursed her lips as if considering how much to tell him, then nodded decisively. “I shall be frank, Tolly. You shall not be shocked, for you know the duke even better than I do, in some ways. He gave me a loathsome disease he picked up from one of his intimate companions. I am recovered, the doctor says. He tells me that many people remain well for their lifetimes, but that continuing to allow Haverford in my bed will make it more certain that the disease will eventually kill me. It may also kill or deform any further children we have.”

Tolly was reduced to stammering again. “I am sorry, Eleanor. Are you safe from him here? How can I help you?”

Eleanor waved off his questions. “I need to broker a truce with him, Tolly, for he has the power to keep my children from me. I wish to live apart, but in the same house. Will you find me the ammunition to bend him to my will?”

Tolly sat back. He had always admired Haverford’s wife; always seen the strength of spirit with which she bore the trials of her marriage. The willingness to fight the duke was new, and he admired her more than ever. It would not be easy. The Duke of Haverford was one of the most powerful men in the country. He feared little and was embarrassed by nothing. Still… “I think I may be able to help, Eleanor. I have a couple of ideas.”

Eleanor’s smile broadened. “I have in mind to be a proper mother to my children; one who spends time with them as real mothers do, and also to do good for others with my position and my wealth. I can build a good life, Tolly, if I can just keep Haverford at arms’ length.”

Tolly narrowed his eyes as he thought. “Entertainments,” he said. “Eleanor, build alliances with the other great ladies of the ton and become a formidable hostess. You have it in you. If you have the support of the ladies, Haverford will have to think twice about acting against you.”

Her eyes lit up. “And if I host his political cronies and support his public life he will have far less objection to my removing myself from his private one.”

“You will have to fight him for influence over Aldridge,” Tolly warned.

“I know,” Eleanor agreed. “But I have an advantage there, my friend. I have never bullied or beaten my son.” She lifted her cup as if it was filled with port or brandy rather than tea. “To my freedom, Tolly.”

He grinned and returned the salute. “To your freedom.”

 

 

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Fish out of water on WIP Wednesday

Part of the fun of writing is to put your characters into situations they don’t much like, and no one is more fun to torture than a hero who is usually in charge. Do you have an excerpt where your character feels like a fish out of water or the fox in a hunt? Please share in the comments. Here’s mine, from the beginning of To Tame a Wild Rake. It follows on from the piece I used a couple of weeks ago.

“Do not leave my side,” he whispered to Jessica, sternly.

She grinned up at him. “You already threatened the loss of half my dress allowance if I do.”

“Make it the whole dress allowance,” he growled, but she treated the threat with the contempt it deserved, and giggled. He’d never been able to resist any of his half-sisters, and had been putty in Jessica’s hands since she arrived in the nursery, a little infant, too thin for her age and too weak to do more than grizzle. He had put his finger into her little fist, and she had gripped it firmly, smiled at him, and made him her besotted slave from that moment.

“I mean it, Jessie. For your own reputation, even if you don’t care about feeding me to the harpies.”

Her smile slipped and became brittle. “My reputation was ruined before I was born. We cannot all be as fortunate as Matilda, Aldridge.”

He couldn’t help his wince, though the guilt was not his. Though no one risked the wrath of the Duchess of Haverford by shunning the sisters or gossiping in public, everyone knew her three wards were the base-born and unacknowledged daughters of the Duke of Haverford. As soon as Aldridge was duke, he intended to repair what he could, and acknowledge them. It wouldn’t satisfy the high sticklers, but it should help Jessica, and later Frances, to find a match.

At least his eldest sister, Matilda, was now happily married, her husband willing to ignore the scandal for love’s sake.

Jessica ignored his reaction, her mind on her own thoughts. “I will protect you, though, if only because I don’t want to live with a harpy.”

I should choose a wife and be done with it. Without his volition, his eyes scanned the room until he saw her. He had known she must be here; the hostess was, after all, her cousin. The musicale was a benefit to provide medical services in one of the poorest parts of London, or at least to provide the rental for rooms and a salary for a doctor. Lady Ashbury was rumoured to be a healer, and was certainly patroness of the proposed doctor’s clinic.

Lady Charlotte Winderfield sat with her sister, the pair of them somehow an island of serenity in the sea of ferment that was Society at its endless posturing.

“Lady Charlotte won’t have you,” Jessica observed. He glanced down into hazel eyes very similar to his own. She touched his hand. “She swears she will never marry, Aldridge. She has refused every offer, and resisted even when her father and grandfather tried to bully her.” A fact Aldridge well knew, since he had made one of the earliest of those offers, and reluctantly withdrawn it when he discovered the pressure she was under to accept.

He pulled back over himself the cover of the insouciant ducal heir. “There are others who may suit. But I am in no rush to put on shackles, Jessie. “ Not that he could fool Jessica with the part any more than he had deceived Lady Charlotte. She had been able to see through his mask since they first met. She had still been a child in the schoolroom, only fifteen. He had been twenty-seven and sozzled to the gills, nearing the end of three months of drinking and wenching that had failed to dull the edges of a loss he still shied away from considering.

He had known from the first time she scolded him for allowing his pain to make him stupid that he wanted her for his duchess. But by the time she was old enough to court, she’d grown past the friendship they’d forged that long-ago summer, and learned enough about him to reject him out of hand.

He needed to accept his dismissal like a gentleman. But that didn’t stop his yearning.

“They are about to start,” he pointed out to his sister. “Shall we find a seat?”

Lady Ashbury had hired professional musicians to entertain her guests, which was both good and bad. Good, because he didn’t have to suffer through the mediocre performances of debutantes hawking their accomplishments. Their proud mothers must all have cloth ears, or perhaps they hoped that some patron of the musical arts might marry one of them just for the right to forbid them from every playing or singing in public again.

Bad, because the dullards in the audience saw no need to pay the performers the courtesy of their attention, and insisted on chattering the whole way through.

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Tea with the dowager Lady Hamner

“And just like that,” the Countess of Hamner said, with a contented sigh, “I am now a dowager.”

The wedding was over, the wedding meal eaten, the wedding guests gone home, and the wedded couple on their way to one of Aldridge’s smaller estates, which he had placed at their disposal for the next month. The Duchess of Haverford echoed her friend’s sigh. “I thought it went off very well, Clara, do you not agree?”

“Very well, Eleanor. They will be happy, I think.”

They shared a smile. Clara’s son and Eleanor’s ward had exchanged their vows at Haverford House, before the Haverford chaplain and a small congregation of close friends and family. The bride had been even more beautiful than usual, her joy as her half brother escorted her to her groom illuminating the old chapel for more effectively than the hundreds of candles deployed for the occasion. As for Hamner, his love for his new bride was in every movement, as he took the hand she offered him with gentle reverence, and angled his body towards her, offering himself without words as her shelter and support for the rest of their lives.

Eleanor poured her friend a cup of tea. After the last few weeks of working together to organise the wedding, each knew the other’s preferences without asking. “If I can just get Jessica settled,” Eleanor said, “I can relax for a while. It is another five years before I need to consider launching Frances.”

“What of Aldridge?” Clara asked. “He will need a bride.” Since news leaked about Haverford’s impending demise, the poor Marquis had been looking ever more and more hunted.

Eleanor shook her head. “I have been told, in no uncertain terms, that I am to offer no help unless it is asked for.” She looked down at her hands, her hesitation so obvious and so out of character that Clara raised her eyebrows.

“I am a safe listener, if you would like one. Or we can speak of something else, if you prefer.”

Eleanor clasped the hand Clara offered. “It is just that I have interfered before, my dear, and Aldridge feels that I put the duchy and its welfare ahead of his happiness. I cannot say he is wrong. I fear that I have hurt him, though all I intended was to protect him. You do believe that, do you not?”

“No one can doubt that you love your son, Eleanor,” Clara insisted.

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The wedding follows (by a matter of six weeks) the end of Melting Matilda, a novella in the newest Bluestocking Belles collection,  Fire & Frost. Aldridge’s love story is slowly coming together inside my computer as we speak.

 

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Tea on the Ice

UPDATE: The prizes for the blog hop have been awarded, but please read on for flash fiction and historical tidbits. Prizewinners names at the bottom of the post. Comments always welcome.

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It was going to work!

Maddie Forrest had called in so many favours and promised more, that if she’d been wrong, she’d be ruined in all the ways a disgraced former lady’s maid could be.

“The ladies will want somewhere they can sit down and warm their hands around a proper cup of tea,” she’d told her brother Will.  It was the first Frost Fair in a generation, and Maddie was sure they’d all come.

Will had scoffed. “Them proper ladies won’t even come down ’ere. Think they want to rub shoulders with the likes of us? Leave it to me, Maddie. This is our chance to make some real money.”

Maddie refused to listen. Will’s ideas about getting his hands on some cash were shady at best and mostly downright criminal. If she’s was going to get herself and little Nan out of London before Will found himself imprisoned or worse, she needed money, and the Frost Fair was her chance. Maddie knew what ladies liked. She’d been a favourite until she fell for the false promises of a black-hearted gentleman.

That, she thought, as she smiled a welcome at yet another group of fashionably dressed ladies as they entered her booth, was her biggest remaining risk, now that the Duchess of Haverford had made all her dreams come true by bringing some huge ton event onto the ice. She was counting on no one knowing her from her former life and spreading around the gossip that the hostess of this discreet and convenient booth was a fallen woman, dismissed without reference when found to be with child.

The chance was low. No one looked at servants. As she served tea and plates of tiny tarts and cakes, the ladies in their fine gowns and warm coats huddled around the braziers that she had begged from a friend in the Night Watch and ignored her, except to speak orders to the air with every confidence that their desires would be met.

A gentleman entered, escorting two ladies. Maddie took their cloaks and showed them to a table. The tent had come from the pawn shop, and she shuddered to think of the payment the pawnbroker would have demanded had she not made its hire fee in the first day on the ice. Yes, and enough to pay for the tables and chairs, too.

“I’ll think of something a fine woman like you can do for me,” he’d told her, his leer leaving no doubt about his meaning.

She didn’t need to worry about the pawnbroker now. She already had his fee wrapped in a package and hidden under her bed. And she’d arranged for her landlady to give it to the man the day after Maddie and Nan got on the stage and left town.

“What is your pleasure?” she asked the ladies who had just taken their seats. She rattled of the types of tea she had available; the foods that local bakers were supplying for her to sell on their behalf, with a small commission sticking to her pocket with every sale.

She was also being paid for supplying the booth two doors up, where the Ladies Society was giving pamphlets about the plight of those returned, and the families of the dead and injured. Yes, and the fortune teller’s booth, and the book tent. She was even making a few extra coins selling tea out the back of the tent made from the great folks’ leavings, with each steep fetching a progressively lower price. Even the chestnut seller could afford to bring her own mug to Maddie’s friend who was serving out the back, for a weak brew that cost her a farthing.

Maddie’s grin at her own success won an answering smile from the gent. He was a handsome fellow for an old man. “Can you also take tea – strong, black and sweet – to my two men outside the tent? They’re the ones in the red coats and large hats.” He handed over a half crown, and for that she would have served half a regiment. Maddie offered him change and her heart sang when he refused.

She poured the ordered tea into mugs for the lesser folk, and carried them outside. Her eyes widened. The men were barbarians of some kind, in red coats like banyans, almost knee length and richly embroidered, and bushy hats made out of sheep’s wool.

“Your master asked me to bring you this,” she told them. They thanked her like civilised beings, but her heart still thumped in her chest as she retreated inside, stopping in the entrance to allow a veiled lady to go first.

Before she could show the lady to a table, the gentleman with the barbarian servants stood and pulled out a chair for her.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” the lady said. His Grace? The gentleman was a duke? He must be the Duke of Winshire, then. Maddie should have realised. The papers had been full of him for nearly a year, ever since he arrived back in England with an army of barbarians, including his own foreign born children. And there were some of the barbarians right outside her tent!

She crossed to the table to ask for the lady’s order, hoping she would lift the veil. Surely she knew that voice? She was to be disappointed. But as she turned away to make the ordered Oolong, the Duke of Winshire leaned forward and used a finger to lift the veil aside. “How is it?” he asked.

Maddie had a bare moment to catch sight of the lady’s face. The Duchess of Haverford herself sat in Maddie’s tent with the Duke of Winshire, one side her face a massive bruise discernible even through powder intended to conceal.

There must be a story there. Perhaps Maddie could tell the Teatime Tattler, which had a booth several Frost Fair streets over? But no. She’d done all sorts of things to win the funds she needed to give her and Nan a fresh start, but she’d never hurt another person. Whatever the duchess was up to meeting her husband’s greatest enemy, it was nothing to do with Maddie or the Teatime Tattler.

Besides, she owed the Duchess of Haverford for the success of her booth, and for the idea that had just entered her head. She’d taken home one of the pamphlets from the Ladies Society last night, and read it, too. All about the plight of those hurt by the wars over in France, where that fiend Napoleon was trying to scoop up all the countries over there before coming for England. Injured soldiers had a hard time, and so did their families. But widows and orphans were even worse off.

Maddie could be a widow. Why not? Start again where nobody knew her. Perhaps get work in a shop, or even – if the Frost Fair lasted long enough and the crowds remained as large – rent a shop: one that dressed ladies. Who better? Maddie almost sang as she tidied up tables and served more customers.

The Duke of Winshire came to talk to her after the veiled lady left. “I think you recognised the lady who joined me at my table,” he said.

“Discreet and comfortable, it says on the sign, Your Grace,” she told him. “I saw nothing and I know nothing. You can count on me, Sir.”

He examined her face, and must have been satisfied, for he smiled again. “Be sure that you speak of this to no one,” he advised, and she nodded.

He pressed something into her hand then turned away and unhurriedly joined his companions, who were waiting by the door.

Maddie watched him go before looking down. She knew it was a coin by the shape and size of it, but a spade guinea! She could get 27 shilling for that, easy. Why, even as a maid, she’d not made that much in a month! She hadn’t had any idea that keeping secrets could be so lucrative!

For the rest of the day, Maddie hummed as she worked. If just a few more people came to the tea booth seeking a place to hide their secrets, she and Nan would be in clover.

Comment to win

Tea was not the only beverage on sale. No doubt coffee and hot chocolate had their place, too, and all kinds of hot and cold alcoholic beverages. What would you want to drink and eat if you were attending a frost fair. Comment on this post, each of the other four, and the page on the Belles’ website to go into the draw for the main prize in the blog hop, a $50 US Amazon card.

All comments on this post will go in a draw for an e-copy of one the four earlier Bluestocking Belles’ collections, plus a copy of my Paradise Regained, the prequel to The Children of the Mountain King.

Next up: Anna’s Hot Roast Chestnuts!

Could ladies get a discreet cup of tea on the ice?

I don’t have any evidence that the 1814 Frost Fair included a tent where ladies of refinement could escape from the crush of the common people to purchase a good cup of tea, but why not? The ice offered entertainment for all classes and of all kinds, and not everyone enjoys mulled wine and copious quantities of ale.

My tea lady’s experience with the ton was not uncommon. A maid seduced or raped by a so-called gentleman was assumed to be of loose morals and carried all the consequences, while the gentleman was forgiven, because everyone knew that the lower classes were asking for it, and men couldn’t be blamed for taking what was offered.

The secret meeting touches on the matters in my series, Children of the Mountain King, but the main action here and in the rest of the blog hop is Fire & Frost. Don’t miss our five tales of love in a time of ice.

Fire & Frost

In a winter so cold the Thames freezes over, five couples venture onto the ice in pursuit of love to warm their hearts.

Love unexpected, rekindled, or brand new—even one that’s a whack on the side of the head—heats up the frigid winter. After weeks of fog and cold, all five stories converge on the ice at the 1814 Frost Fair when the ladies’ campaign to help the wounded and unemployed veterans of the Napoleonic wars culminates in a charity auction that shocks the high sticklers of the ton.

In their 2020 collection, join the Bluestocking Belles and their heroes and heroines as The Ladies’ Society For The Care of the Widows and Orphans of Fallen Heroes and the Children of Wounded Veterans pursues justice, charity, and soul-searing romance.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day 2020 with five interconnected Regency romances.

Melting Matilda by Jude Knight – Fire smolders under the frost between them.

My One True Love by Rue Allyn – She vanished into the fog. Will he find his one true love or remain lost, cold and alone forever?

Lord Ethan’s Courage by Caroline Warfield – War may freeze a man’s heart; it takes a woman to melt it.

A Second Chance at Love by Sherry Ewing – Can the bittersweet frost of lost love be rekindled into a burning flame?

The Umbrella Chronicles: Chester and Artemis’s Story by Amy Quinton – Beastly duke seeks confident woman who doesn’t faint at the sight of his scars. Prefers not to leave the house to find her.

Congratulations to Cheri, winner of the overall prize for the blog hop, and to Kimberly, who has won two ebooks: her choice of one of the Bluestocking Belles’ earlier collections (Holly and Hopeful Hearts, Never Too Late, Follow Your Star Home, or Valentines From Bath), plus a copy of my Paradise Regained.

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Spotlight on Fire & Frost: Visit the Frost Faire

Starting tomorrow, the Bluestocking Belles are taking you on a tour of the 1814 Frost Faire. Start on this blog for a piece of short fiction, prizes, and more. Then follow the links to each of the booths in turn.

Or go to the Bluestocking Belles’ website for blog hop central, or to the blog Facebook page for more about the fair and links.

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Fire & Frost: it’s almost here

Hot mulled wine and a book on the wooden table. Fireplace with warm fire on the background.

In a winter so cold the Thames freezes over, five couples find a love to warm their hearts. Love unexpected, rekindled, or brand new—even one that’s a whack on the side of the head—heats up the frigid winter. After weeks of fog and cold, all five stories converge on the ice at the 1814 Frost Fair when the ladies’ campaign to help the wounded and unemployed veterans of the Napoleonic wars culminates in a charity auction that shocks the high sticklers of the ton.

Preorder now. Released next Tuesday.