Regency Romance

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An Excerpt from Lady Beast’s Bridegroom on WIP Wednesday

This excerpt gives you my hero and his best friend.

After washing off the dust of the journey and changing into clean clothes, he set out in search of a dinner. He was just about to enter a pie shop that looked clean and was busy enough to hint at tolerable food when he was hailed.

“Peter! I thought you were buried for life in the country!” He turned to see Captain John Forsythe, who had served with Peter during the Peninsular campaign and later in Belgium. As tall as Peter himself, John had dark hair while Peter’s was fair. John was altogether more massively constructed, so that he felt as strongly about the nickname ‘Bull’ as Peter did about being called ‘Beau’.

Strictly speaking, the man was Captain Lord John Forsythe, but he refused to use the honorific, saying he had done nothing to deserve it beyond being born in a marquess’s family some years after his older brother.

John looked in the doorway of the pie shop and protested. “Not here, Peter. I can do better for you than that. I’m off to my club to have dinner. You will join me, of course.”

“I thought I’d just pick up a pie,” Peter told him.

“Not enough to keep body and soul together.”

“I don’t know,” Peter protested. “Remember that pork pie in Belgium?” After Waterloo, that had been. A baker, delirious with joy at the defeat of Napoleon, had given them her entire day’s baking as they passed her establishment on their way back into Brussels. After handing most of the haul out to the men they’d managed to bring back with them, John and Peter had shared the last pie.

“Pure heaven,” John agreed. “But so is the roast beef at Westruthers, Peter. Come on. Eat with me. I want to know what you’ve been up to.” His mouth twitched upward in a smile. “And I want to tell you about my betrothed.”

“You are betrothed? John! When did that happen? Who is the unfortunate lady?” He fell into step beside his friend and listened to rhapsodies about the most perfect and lovely woman in the world all the way to the club and on through most of the two courses of a delicious meal.

Eventually, even John realized he was repeating himself. “I am sorry, Peter. You should have stopped me. You cannot be interested in where Belinda is buying her bridal clothes and what linen she has chosen for our new townhouse.”

“I need to meet the lady for whom you have become interested in such things, John.”

“Come with me tomorrow afternoon and I’ll introduce you,” John proposed, and when Peter demurred, saying that he would not want to play gooseberry, John said it was no such thing. “For I am never allowed to be alone with her, more is the pity. Even when I proposed, her mother sat on the other side of the room. And no wonder. She is a diamond, Peter, in every way. Do come along, for her drawing room will be crowded with callers and it will be good to have a friend of my own there.”

And why not, after all? His appointment with Mr. Richards was at noon, so he was sure to be free by three o’clock. “Very well. I’ll come and make the acquaintance of your paragon. When is the wedding?”

That set John off again. The date had been set for after the end of the Season, and none of John’s representations had served to move it closer. “Her mother will not hear of it,” he complained. “I promised we would remain in town so that Belinda could continue to enjoy the parties and so forth, but her mother insists. They will not even announce the betrothal, or allow me to speak of it.” He sighed.

“What does your betrothed say?” Peter wondered.

“Oh, that she cannot wait to be my wife, but she feels she owed it to her mama to abide by the lady’s wishes. And I do see that. Belinda is the Weatheralls’ only daughter, and Weatherall tells me that his wife and Belinda have spent all winter planning for the fun of the Season.”

John managed not to raise his eyebrows. “I collect that Miss Weatherall is a young lady, just out?”

“This is her third Season, but she has had a hard time of it in other years, poor dear. Girls jealous of her beauty have been very cruel to her. I cannot help but admire her courage in returning. She is wonderful, Peter, and very mature for her age, I assure you. A great reader, and feels just as she should on all the things important to me.” His eyes stared into nothing and his lips curved in a fatuous smile. “And as beautiful as the dawn.”

He continued to extol the virtues of his beloved until Peter declared himself ready for bed after his days of travel, and they parted with an arrangement to meet the following afternoon.

 

 

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Peril in WIP Wednesday

This week’s excerpt is one of the murder attempts in my current novel, which is book 3 in A Twist in a Regency Tale. Working title is Snowy and the Seven Blossoms.

His valet must have arrived while he was in the bath, for the man had set up clean clothes and Snowy’s shaving tackle in the room where he had slept.

“I will not finish getting dressed until I have seen to washing my brother and helping him dress,” Snowy said. “But let’s start with my shave.”

“If you will allow me to do it, sir,” the valet said. “I see you have been missing some bits.”

Snowy leaned close to the mirror to check his reflection, and sure enough, the usual morning stubble was thicker in a couple of places he must’ve missed during yesterday’s shave. Even so, he’d never allowed anyone else to get near him with a cutthroat razor, and he wasn’t about to start now.

“Thank you. I will do it but I will take more care. You just take the clothes I want to wear through to my brother’s room next door and let him know I will be there shortly.”

The man’s sour expression deepened but he did as he was told. Snowy was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was going to be a viscount. If a valet went with the position he was going to have to find one who suited him better.

Someone who could manage a bit of cheer. Someone who could serve without looking down his long nose at the very man who paid his wages.

Satisfied he was as smooth as he was going to get, he went through to Ned, who was sitting up in the bed. “How are you this morning, brother?”

“Weak as a kitten,” Ned responded, cheerfully.

“Ready to get cleaned up for a bit of an outing?” Snowy asked.

“Perhaps sir would like to change into a shirt first?” said the valet. “It is less bulky than the banyan, and one can roll up the sleeves, thereby suffering less damage.”

Snowy decided to ignore the sneer, since the advice was good. He shrugged out of the banyan and bent to allow the valet to fit the shirt over his head. As he felt it settle over his shoulders, the valet suddenly yanked it down so it trapped his arms at his sides. He tried to turn even as he felt a cord tighten around his neck.

Even as he struggled, he heard a thud and the constriction was gone. He turned, stumbling a little as he did, for the valet lay at his feet, the marble paperweight that had felled him a yard or so away.

“Are you all right, Hal?” Ned asked. He was sitting upright, his face white around the bruises.

“Good shot,” Snowy said. He bent to check the valet’s pulse. The man was still alive, but out cold, with a rising lump on the back of his head.

“Good thing I didn’t break my bowling arm,” Ned responded. “Hal, he was going to kill you, with me right here in the room.”

“He failed,” Snowy reminded his brother. “Thanks to you.”

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Propriety on WIP Wednesday

In a made-to-order story I’m currently writing for the winner of the Bluestocking Belles’ May rafflecopter, my hero has been called to a neighbour’s house. He is good with animals, and she is worried about her toy spaniel.

Thirty minutes later, he handed the reins to one of the Dalrymple grooms, and presented his card at the front door.

“You are to be shown straight up, my lord,” the butler told him.

Lady Dalrymple was sitting on a sofa in the drawing room, little Lady Fluff-fluff on a cushion beside her. Lord Puff-puff, the lady’s other pet, had been lying at Miss Watkin’s feet, but leapt up when Bas entered and hurried towards him, the plume of his tail waving an enthusiastic greeting.

Bas bowed to Lady Dalrymple, patted Puff, and gave Miss Watkin a friendly nod.

“Lord Sebastian, at last you are here.” Lady Dalrymple sighed, dramatically, laying one white ring-bedecked hand on her decollotage. She had once, or so rumour said, been a great beauty—an actress who had achieved the impossible, and married a baron.

He had long since gone to his rest, and she had taken on the role of aristocratic widow with great enthusiasm. Perhaps the actress still showed through at times like this. One could even see remnants of her youthful appeal through the powder and rouge with which she tried to disguise her wrinkles.

She batted her lashes at him and pouted. “I thought you would never arrive.”

He had come immediately, but he would not point that out. “How is my patient?” he asked, instead.

Recalled to the purpose of his visit, Lady Dalrymple turned to the little dog, who at that moment sat up and then jumped down from the cushion, evading Lady Dalrymple’s grasping hands. Fluff-fluff stepped towards him, not in her usual scamper but in a deliberate trudge. Perhaps she really was ill?

“She is restless,” Lady Dalrymple explained, “and she has not finished her meals this past two days. Also, there is a… When I put her on my lap… My dress… I had to move her away, because of the—” she paused, then, in a hissed whisper, “mess!”

As Bas crouched to greet the little lady, a suspicion crossed his mind, and a quick palpation of the swollen abdomen concealed under the fur confirmed his diagnosis. Lady Fluff-fluff was not ill. She was whelping.

He picked the little dog up and examined her more closely, checking her bright eyes, her cold damp nose, the cheery set of her ears and wave of her tail, the indecorous secretions staining her rear end. Yes, the spaniel was going to give birth, and shortly. Certainly within the next day.

Lady Dalrymple looked up at him, anxiously. “Is she very ill, Lord Sebastian? Will she—she will get well, will she not? You can fix her?”

Bas gently put Lady Fluff-fluff down. “She is perfectly well, Lady Dalrymple. She is about to have a litter of puppies, that is all.”

Lady Dalrymple shot to her feet. “That cannot be! She could not… That is to say, her husband, Lord Puff-puff, cannot…”

Ah yes. It had been before he moved to the area, but the village still giggled about how distressed Lady Dalrymple had been by Fluff-fluff’s first season. Declaring that she would not allow her pet to be so humiliated ever again, Lady Dalrymple had commanded one of her shepherds to render poor Lord Puff-puff incapable of another of the performances that so overset his mistress.

It made a man wince, and also wonder about the baron’s bedroom prowess.

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Backlist spotlight on A Raging Madness

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies want them destroyed before they can make it real.

“Envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.”
François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

See more and buylinks.

Extract

They had history together, not all of it good

He had embarrassed Ella, which was not well done of him. Particularly since she would need to share his bed this night. Just as well Farnham could not possibly know that. The lousy carbuncle would undoubtedly share the news that Alex Redepenning had been seen with a woman in Stoke-on-Trent but would not be able to identify Ella; would not know that Alex and Ella had been living together since she turned up in his room at the inn.

Living together in the chastest of senses, but Society would say he had compromised her beyond all saving, except by marriage. He was surprised at how tempting that sounded! He’d vowed never to marry except for love, and had sworn off love by his early twenties: a bad experience with an older woman, and then with Ella.

The arrogant cub he’d been resented her choosing Melville instead of him, though he’d never let his interest in her show, certain she would find him as unworthy as Lady Carrington had.

Yes, marrying Ella would be a blessing, not a burden. For Alex. But it would not be fair to Ella.

She was moving around the small cabin, brewing his willow bark tea and pouring him a cup, retrieving the canister of tea leaves she had purchased at the market and brewing another pot, bringing him a cup of that, its fragrant delicacy taking away the bitterness of the willow bark.

If he drank it all, he would need to ask for her help to relieve himself. Just to pass him the pot and perhaps hold a blanket for his privacy. Not the prurient fantasies that flashed across his mind and stirred his recalcitrant member. Simmer down, he told it. Not for you.

She poured another mug of tea and took it to Big Dan at the tiller, receiving the man’s soft thanks.

Alex let his eyelids fall and watched Ella through his lashes as she moved around the cabin finding places to stow their possessions, every movement graceful and economic. She had blown out the candles she’d lit to illuminate her work on his leg, but plenty of light entered the cabin from the doorway and the small windows on either side of the boat. She slipped glances at him from time to time, the colour coming and going in her face. What was she thinking?

Was she as attracted to him as he was to her? Or was she just embarrassed at the situation in which they found themselves? He had never been able to read her. Sometimes, he was sure she saw him merely as a friend. Sometimes, not even that, though those occasions were mostly his own fault.

How often had he looked up across a campfire, or a room in a scurvy little billet in some benighted village on the fringes of a war, or a bedside where someone in his command lay depending on Ella’s care and met her eyes? And seen in them an echo of the wanting in his own?

Was it his imagination; his own longing misinterpreting an innocent glance? Even if it were not, she had never once, since her ill-judged marriage, by word or deed given him reason to think she would act on that attraction.

Only a reprobate would take advantage of a woman under his protection, especially a woman persecuted as Ella had been. Alex could not be such a scoundrel, but perhaps Jasper had unwittingly done him a favour. Because even with the increase in pain, his physical response to Ella’s presence had proven beyond doubt that the injury had not made a eunuch of him as he had feared. The pain would be a timely and much needed reminder to keep his hands and other bodily parts to himself.

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Spotlight on “Concerto” in Desperate Daughters

Concerto: By Mary Lancaster

At the age of seven and twenty, Lady Barbara has long accepted her position on the shelf. She is thrilled to put aside her music-teaching in order to help her beautiful young sisters find eligible husbands.

But then, a chance encounter with an unconventional and mysterious young piano tuner has her heart in a spin. When she encounters him again at a York assembly, playing the violin, it seems he has too many names. Can she trust such a man with the family secrets, let alone with her heart? And can she save him from the lethal threat hanging over him?

And 8 other great stories.

Excerpt

Oddly, Barbara was conscious of a desire not to return to York. To let her sisters go on without her, just for a few days. But even if Jack wished it, she could not stay here.

So, after tea they said goodbye to Mrs. Weeks. Jack even hugged the housekeeper, which made her cry, and then they walked around to the stables.

“What did you think?” Jack asked casually on the way.

“I think it is a beautiful house which you can make your own. I think you can make it ring with music and fun, and compose to your heart’s content. In between seeing to the land and your tenants. You could have the music and Allbury Court.”

“That is what I have begun to think.” He paused, catching her arm and turning her to face him in the shade of a spreading chestnut tree. A smile played on his lips. With his free hand he tucked a stray strand of hair beneath her bonnet, and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “Thank you.”

“For what? Telling you what you already know?”

“For making me see what I already know,” he corrected. “Barbara?”

“Yes?”

The smile flared and died again. “Nothing. Just this.”

He bent his head and her heart seemed to lurch downward into her suddenly tingling stomach. She could have avoided it, but the truth was, in that moment, she wanted his kiss more than anything in the world.

His lips paused above hers, giving her time to object, perhaps, or maybe just drawing out the anticipation. She parted her lips, raising them to his, and he smiled as he kissed her. A firm, yet tender kiss, slow, exploratory, tasting.

He raised his head, searching her face. “Again?” he whispered.

For answer, she cupped his cheek and took back his mouth and with this longer, deeper kiss, she was lost.

See the project page at the Bluestocking Belles’ website for more information.

Desperate Daughters is on preorder for publication on 17 May. Order now to get the preorder price of 99c

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Tea with Miranda

Miss Miranda de Courtenay squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and entered the parlor of the Duchess of Haverford. This wasn’t the first time she had been introduced to Her Grace nor was this the first time she had been in the Haverford household.

Brief glimpses of memory flashed quickly across her mind. Miranda’s stupid bet with her sister Grace had almost been Miranda’s ruin at Hollystone Hall. Of course, Miranda could look back on it now and be thankful she had left the manor still a virgin. She should have never set her caps so high as to actually think she could get the Marquis of Aldridge to propose marriage to a girl of her inexperience and young years. Her bet had been destined to fail from the start.

The duchess was sitting near a window where the sunbeams seemed to float into the room. A tea trolly was near at hand. Miranda gave her best curtsey still curious as to why she had been requested to join the duchess for tea. The reason did not matter in the least. When the Duchess of Haverford summoned you, it was best that you present yourself post haste!

“Miss de Courtenay. A pleasure to see you again. Please take a seat and let me pour you a cup of tea,” the duchess said politely.

“You are too kind, Your Grace,” Miranda murmured taking the china cup and taking a sip of the tea that she hoped would calm her overly active nerves.

The duchess took her time assessing her before she spoke. “You must be wondering why I asked you to join me here today.”

Miranda’s cup rattled on the saucer before she put the tea down on a nearby table. “It has crossed my mind a time or two.”

“I am not here to discuss your past… indiscretions,” the duchess began.

“Your Grace, I—”

“There is no need for you to explain, my dear. I am only concerned that going forward you shall remain wary of putting yourself into situations that could once more be the ruin of your reputation.”

Miranda attempted not to fidget in her chair. “Your Grace is all too kind to be concerned for me. However, I assure you that with my brother and sister having me live at their estates in the country, there are have been no further opportunities to… get myself into trouble.”

The duchess’s brow rose. “Your quest for a title gentleman is well known within Society. Living in London or the country and knowing you as I do, I have no doubt that trouble shall follow you if you continue on your current course of finding yourself wed to nobility. Do not be so foolish as to put yourself in another situation as you did at Hollystone Hall.”

Miranda gulped at the horrible reminder of what Aldridge and Gren had proposed; to be a shared mistress between them. God forbid if she ever found herself in such a circumstance again.

“I assure you, Your Grace, that I have learned my lesson well,” Miranda answered quietly.

“Splendid!” the duchess declared. “Now tell me of Bath and how your family has been fairing since I have last seen them.”

Miranda began filling in the duchess on the mundane matters of living in the country. Before long, her audience with the Duchess of Haverford was at an end. Somehow, Miranda had survived the meeting. She couldn’t leave fast enough and for once, looked forward to returning home to the boring routine her life had become.

Did you think you knew Miranda de Courtney? Jude’s review of Before I Found You

I’m so pleased Sherry Ewing has finally given Miranda her match in Before I Found You. Miranda made her first appearance in A Kiss for Charity, in which her older sister was the heroine. With her determination to garner herself a title, and her foolhardy boldness in picking my Marquis of Aldridge as a target, she certainly attracted my attention. The lesson she received from Aldridge and his brother Gren didn’t take. In The Earl Takes a Wife, she is up to her old tricks. This time, her machinations trap her brother and her best friend into a forced marriage.

How was Sherry going to make her a sympathetic character, so that we readers wanted her to succeed? The answer is given in Before I Found You. All I can say is that Jasper at first seems better than she deserves. But he sees her as she is, and she becomes the woman he thinks her. A beautiful love story, and one I strongly recommend.

Before I Found You

Miss Miranda de Courtenay has only one goal in life: to find a rich husband who can change her status from Miss to My Lady. But when a handsome stranger crosses her path at a Valentine’s Day ball, her obsession with titles dims. Might love be enough?

Captain Jasper Rousseau has no plans to become infatuated during a chance encounter at a ball. He has a new ship to run, passengers to book, and cargo to deliver. But one look into a young lady’s beautiful hazel eyes, and he becomes lost. Does love at first sight really exist?

Their paths continue to cross until they are both stranded in Fenwick on Sea. Their growing connection is hard to dismiss, despite Miranda’s childish quest for a title at all cost. But what if the cost includes love?

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/4XDrva

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Sunday Spotlight on Before I Found You

A quest for a title. An encounter with a stranger. Will she choose love?

 

Miss Miranda de Courtenay has only one goal in life: to find a rich husband who can change her status from Miss to My Lady. But when a handsome stranger crosses her path at a Valentine’s Day ball, her obsession with titles dims. Might love be enough?

Captain Jasper Rousseau has no plans to become infatuated during a chance encounter at a ball. He has a new ship to run, passengers to book, and cargo to deliver. But one look into a young lady’s beautiful hazel eyes, and he becomes lost. Does love at first sight really exist?

Their paths continue to cross until they are both stranded in Fenwick on Sea. Their growing connection is hard to dismiss, despite Miranda’s childish quest for a title at all cost. But what if the cost includes love?

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/u/4XDrva

Excerpt

She was not sure what to expect. Being outside alone with a man she did not know was a bold move. If she needed reinforcements, she could easily call out for help, but that would hardly do her reputation any good. It had barely recovered from her last scheme. Society’s memory was short, remembering scandals only until something new came along for them to gossip about—or until something happened to remind them. She couldn’t afford to give them new fodder to chew on.

She could not resist. Miranda took the remaining few steps until she stood next to him, and he rose to his full height, his hair tousled by the evening breeze. She suppressed the urge to push back the lock of hair across his brow that refused to stay in place. Oh my, but the man was tall!

Miranda did not even realize she offered him her hand until he leaned down and kissed the air between her knuckles. His fingers were warm even through the silk of her gloves. How would they feel if her hand was bare? Good heavens! What was coming over her?

“Mademoiselle,” he whispered in a husky French accent, causing goose bumps to rise on her arms. His voice was utterly divine!

“Miranda,” she said offering only her first name. It was hardly appropriate, but she did not wish to see his disinterest when he learned she was a “Miss” and not a “Lady”.

Although it might not matter. Many gentlemen present this evening were on the lookout for a well-dowered heiress to enrich their estate. The man before her could be one of them. Even though she could not attach “lady” to her name, she was still wealthy in her own right… or would be when she finally wed.

Love had nothing to do with what really mattered in life—marriage to a husband within the nobility, one with enough wealth to keep her and her children in luxury. Not for her a boring life as a country matron, with nothing to do or to talk about beyond counting sheets and breeding children. She wanted a glittering life as a Society hostess! It would be an adventure. Or so she had always thought, and she would not allow her heart to rule her head.

She bit her bottom lip before she realized she had done so. The man before her could not know it was an automatic reaction when she was worried. She watched his brow arch in surprise before a grin turned up at the corner of his lips.

“Jasper,” he finally replied in return, examining her reaction to his touch. “The evening has become brighter now that you have joined me for a breath of fresh air. Look how the stars above beam in approval that they may gaze down upon you.”

Miranda’s lips twitched at the compliment. Very nice, though she sensed that he used this phrase often. She realized he still held her fingertips and she reluctantly pulled them away before waving her hand towards the crowd inside.

Meet Sherry Ewing:

 

Sherry Ewing picked up her first historical romance when she was a teenager and has been hooked ever since. A bestselling author, she writes historical and time travel romances to awaken the soul one heart at a time. When not writing, she can be found in the San Francisco area at her day job as an Information Technology Specialist. You can learn more about Sherry and her books on her website where a new adventure awaits you on every page!

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Spotlight on The Forgotten Daughter

When the old Earl of Clarion leaves a will with bequests for all his children, legitimate and not, listing each and their mothers by name, he complicated the lives of many in the village of Ashmead and beyond. One of them was left out. She is the third of The Ashmead Heirs.

Eli may not be her idea of a hero, but he’ll solve her problems or die trying

Frances Hancock always knew she was a bastard. She didn’t know her father was an earl until her mother died. The information came just in time. She and her mother’s younger children were about to be homeless. She needs help. Fast. What she wants is a hero.

Eli Benson, the Earl of Clarion’s steward, took great pride in cleaning up the mess left behind by the old earl’s will. When a dainty but ferocious young woman with the earl’s hair and eyes comes demanding help, his heart sinks. She isn’t in the will. She was forgotten entirely. And the estate is just getting its finances back in order. But he knows a moral obligation when he sees one. He may not be her idea of a hero, but people count on him to fix things. He’s good at it. Falling in love with her will only complicate things.

Eli will solve her problems or die trying. It may come to that.

PREORDER LINK: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PGSYJ3Q/

Excerpt

Eli dismounted instead of riding around to the stables and climbed up to investigate. The girl, a bit of a thing, didn’t come up to the footman’s shoulder, but she confronted him with a straight back and commanding voice. Though slender, she had the look of someone used to hard work. She wore a plain, rather rumpled gown. He suspected she had been traveling for some time. An unadorned straw bonnet covered her head.

“Is there a problem here John?”

“Aye Mr. Benson. I was explaining to this person—”

“I demand to see the earl,” the chit said at the same time. She had cheek for one so young.

“May I ask your business with the earl?” Eli studied her closely. Her face had character. He’d give her that. Perhaps she was older than she first appeared.

“Who are you?” she asked, fire flashing from her eyes. Her very attractive green eyes… Oh no.

“Show some respect, girl,” John said. “This is Mr. Benson, the steward. I’ve been telling you—Mr. Benson will see to whatever it is. The earl isn’t here.”

“Steward, is it? Then you’ll have to help me.” Disappointment inched across her face driving the determination to the side, but not away. She glared up at the footman.

“I’ll deal with this, John. Please care for my horse,” Eli said.

She bounded past John into the foyer where she came to an abrupt halt, wide eyes taking in the magnificence that was Clarion Hall’s entrance: the parquet floors, the marble mantle, the gleaming banister curving upward beside carpeted stairs…

She spun toward Eli, that fire raging in her eyes. “The earl will help me. He has to.”

She pulled the ribbon on her bonnet and took it off, shaking her head and loosening a fall of hair. Glorious auburn hair… Oh no.

Eli’s peace had just been upended by a problem—one cursed with Caulfield hair and Caulfield eyes. One encased in the dainty body of a beautiful young woman with the heart of a warrior.

Damn.

Meet Caroline Warfield

Award winning author Caroline Warfield has been many things: traveler, librarian, poet, raiser of children, bird watcher, Internet and Web services manager, conference speaker, indexer, tech writer, genealogist—even a nun. She reckons she is on at least her third act, happily working in an office surrounded by windows where she lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far-flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.

Website:   http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

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A Dangerous Nativity, a novella prequel to both her Children of Empire and Dangerous Series is available for free at:

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Spotlight on Defiant Daughter

The Ashmead Heirs

When the old Earl of Clarion leaves a will with bequests for all his children, legitimate and not, listing each and their mothers by name, he complicated the lives of many in the village of Ashmead.

One sleepy village

One scandalous will

Four tormented heirs

The Defiant Daughter — Buy now! Only 99c until release on 21st October

Madelyn assumed marriage as an old man’s ornament would be better than life with her abusive parents. She was wrong.

Now the widowed Duchess of Glenmoor, she wrestles with ugly memories and cultivates a simple life. She is content. At least, she was until her half-brother returned to Ashmead bringing a friend with knowing eyes and coal black hair to capture her thoughts.

Colonel Brynn Morgan’s days as an engineer in his father’s coal mines in Wales are long behind him. With peace come at last and Napoleon gone, he makes a life for himself analyzing the reports about military and naval facilities worldwide for a shadowy government department. What income he has is committed elsewhere. He has nothing to offer a wife, much less a dowager duchess.

More lies between the duchess and the man she wants than money and class. They have personal demons to slay.

PREORDER LINK: https://bit.ly/TheDefiantDaughter

Giveaway

To celebrate the launch, Caroline will give a copy of any of her books to one randomly selected person who comments. They can choose from the books found here:

Bookshelf

Meet Caroline Warfield

Award winning author Caroline Warfield has been many things: traveler, librarian, poet, raiser of children, bird watcher, Internet and Web services manager, conference speaker, indexer, tech writer, genealogist—even a nun. She reckons she is on at least her third act, happily working in an office surrounded by windows where she lets her characters lead her to adventures in England and the far-flung corners of the British Empire. She nudges them to explore the riskiest territory of all, the human heart.

Visit Caroline’s Website and Blog               Meet Caroline on Facebook                          Follow Caroline on Twitter                            Email Caroline directly                                  Subscribe to Caroline’s newsletter            Amazon Author

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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.