Revenge of the Wallflowers

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Recipes for Hijinks in A Wallflower’s Midsummer Night’s Caper

Today, my friend Alina K. Field visits us on Footnotes on Friday, with some information about sneezing powder, itching powder and more!

The heroine of A Wallflower’s Midsummer Night’s Caper seizes her first opportunity, a masquerade at her family’s estate, to take revenge on the duke who ruined her first season.

Though the duke has now expressed a desire to court her, she’s not having it. Her first ploy is swapping costumes with her devious younger brother. How embarrassing for the duke at the midnight unmasking when he discovers he’s been romancing a boy!

But she’s planned more. She’ll put sneezing powder (pepper) in his handkerchief, and itching powder in the costume he’s been given to wear. An emetic, syrup of ipecac, available in her family’s still room, can be put in his drink, and the estate’s abundant roses provide shriveled rose hips from which she makes itching powder. However, she puts her foot down at her brother’s plan to dose the hero with the Spanish fly and sweet flag provided by his friend, the local apothecary’s assistant.

Jude has blogged before about the aphrodisiac Spanish fly, made from beetles. Sweet flag, acorus calumus, is an herb with a history of medicinal applications, including aphrodisiac qualities. The plant was introduced to England in the 16th century, so would have been known and available. Besides its healing qualities, it was used by perfumers and as a flavoring agent. My schoolboy character, having learned of the ancient Orientals’ particular use for this herb, is anxious to try it on the hero.

If you’d like to make your own itching powder, there are other choices besides rose hips. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial. Keep these recipes away from the children!

A Wallflower’s Midsummer Night’s Caper

Release Day June 11, 2024

Heat rating: PG-13

As Midsummer Night’s magic unfolds and passions rise, will a repentant duke be well and truly punished, or will a vengeful wallflower be caught in her own game?

A Midsummer Night’s masquerade at her family’s country home presents the Honorable Nancy Lovelace with the perfect opportunity for revenge against the man who ruined her first London season—a man she’s known since childhood, a man she’d once thought she loved. With the help of her crew of younger relatives, she’ll give him his comeuppance.

Thanks to his bad behavior, Simon Crayding is now known to society as the Swilling Duke. When an old school chum invites him for a Midsummer Night’s party, he jumps at the chance to lick his wounds among friends and apologize to his friend’s sister, Nancy, because apparently, he’s done something to hurt her, he just doesn’t remember what.

It soon becomes clear that Nancy will not easily forgive. Never one to resist a challenge—or a beautiful lady—Simon vows to persevere. As the night unfolds and passions rise, will Simon be well and truly punished, or will Nancy be caught in her own game?

First Kiss

Nancy lifted her skirts and tiptoed along the dark passage, willing herself to proceed in a stately manner, with her hem and her hair wreath minding their places.

She had been doing so well, so very, very well, quelling the nervousness twitching through her… Until that first step from the carriage when she’d knocked the poor footman’s wig askew.

She took a long breath and assumed the ramrod posture that was her defense against the busk in her stays—as well as all the other worries unsettling her.

The dancing would start soon, and she would so love to dance the first set.

There’d be no more tripping. No more ripped clothing. No more embarrassing awkwardness.

If only she and Mama were not virtually alone in this crowd of strangers.

Not that the ball guests were all strangers to her mother. Though Mama had been absent from London these last two years since Papa’s death, she’d kept up her correspondence with friends and acquaintances.

Mama would find someone to lead her daughter out. Someone young, Nancy hoped, but not too fashionable. Not eager to wed, because she wasn’t at all ready to spend hours drinking tea or being driven in the park. She could drink tea and go for drives at home, and there were far too many interesting museums and theaters in London to waste time on mere courting. Her friend from school, Sally Simpkins, was in London as well, though Mama had advised restraint about socializing with the daughter of a Drury Lane actress, never mind that the woman was considered respectable.

It had seemed a trifle unfair. Sally was as much a lady as any of the ton, and she’d know exactly how to act with the crowd gathered here, no matter how high the title.

Oh, for a familiar dance partner. Her brother, George, wouldn’t mind if she stepped on his toes; her brother, Fitz, would laugh if she made a wrong turn. The same was true for Rupert and Selwyn.

Or… what about Simon?

Thoughts of him sent emotions spiraling in her, longing twining with annoyance, and strands of hurt and embarrassment befuddling her, so that when she turned a corner, she stumbled against a large body with a startled squeak.

“Here now. What’s this?”

Powerful hands matched the deep masculine voice and set her back, steadying her. She looked up, astonished, and her heart swelled and threatened to burst. All the mixed emotions evaporated, and joy flooded her. Dark hair spilled over one blue-gray eye and the full lips pursed together in a frown.

He’d come for her. Simon Clayding—Duke of Something now, but he would always be Simon to her—Simon was here.

“It’s you,” she said. “I’m so s-sorry. I’m as clumsy as ever. B-but… you’re here?”

Perhaps he would dance with her. Perhaps she should ask him.

“’Course I’m here.” He blinked, as though trying to focus. “Question is, why are you here looking like a fresh young thing ready for your come-out?”

“S-Simon?”

“Simon?” He muttered a foul profanity she’d heard only on the rarest of occasions spilling from one of her brothers’ mouths. “Demmed Percy told you my Christian name, I suppose, and sent you along. One of his pranks. Well, madam, you’re a pretty thing, and I mean you no offense, but I’m not going to be sidetracked tonight. I’m not interested.”

A wave of misery stilled her tongue and drove the breath from her. She’d loved Simon Clayding since her brother George brought him home from school that first holiday fifteen years ago when she’d been not much more than a baby.

In the dim light of a wall sconce, his gaze darkened and held hers, despite his proclaimed lack of interest.

Perhaps… Simon hadn’t seen her in nine years. He didn’t recognize her. He had her confused with someone else.

Reasoning trickled back into her senses, bringing along the strong scent of brandy.

Of course. He was completely foxed.

She licked her lips, preparing to set him straight, but as she opened her mouth, a spark lit his eyes and turned up the corners of his mouth.

And then he tugged her, pressing his lips to hers, pressing his chest to her… to her…

Breath left her in a whoosh as he angled his mouth over hers, nibbling and then entering her with his tongue, inflaming desire, demanding surrender.

She gripped his broad shoulders but instead of steadying her, their solidness sent heat spinning through her.

Simon was kissing her. Simon. The first man to kiss her. At a public ball. He cared for her. He hadn’t forgotten. He meant to mar…

“There.” He set her back as suddenly as he’d swooped down on her.

A tendril of hair fell over her cheek, the same one that a maid had just pinned.

“That’s all you’ll get from me. Go back and tell Percy we’ve had our tumble, if you will, and demand payment from him. Get you gone before one of the servants sees you and throws you out on your arse.”

He turned her around and smacked her bottom. She staggered against the wall, righted herself, and turned back ready to give him a piece of her mind.

But he’d disappeared.

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A gardener’s nightmare in WIP Wednesday

Another extract from The Blossoming of the Wallflower, for publication in July.

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Dar was beginning to question the competence of his gardener.

When he first arrived home, he put in the order for more vegetables of all kinds—he was not quite certain what his reptiles might prefer, coming as they did from the Far East.

The gardener had responded by insisting that the shade of the trees next door would prevent him from fulfilling the order. So Dar had suggested cutting back the trees to allow more sunlight into the garden.

The garden worried out loud about the anger of “her next door”, which was when Dar committed the error of assuming that the man he had seen coming and going from the house was the owner, asked permission, and arranged for the trees to be pruned, under the supervision of the gardener.

He hadn’t watched, and he hadn’t checked the results. Not until after Miss Parkham-Smith visited to acquaint him with his mistake. Then he had walked the length of the garden to see what the men had done, and had been forced to agree with her. The trees had been crudely hacked back in a sloping line from the wall between the properties. Far more than necessary. Far more than the gentle trim he thought necessary.

Remorse and embarrassment kept him nervous around Miss Parkham-Smith and made him brusque with his gardener.

In the days after the pruning, the gardener reported planting out rows of lettuces, cabbages, carrots, turnips, and other vegetables from his seed frames. So far, so good. But when he asked for progress, he was informed that an invasion of what the gardener called ‘nasty little critters’ had eaten all of the tender young seedlings.

Dar told the man to replant. The same thing kept happening. The gardener swore none of his usual traps were working. The gastropods and larval insects feasting on the young seedlings were also turning their attention to the more mature plants, so that the gardener was subjected to bitter complaints from the kitchen, and Dar to equally bitter apologies when a rather large specimen of larvae—stewed and buttered—made its way onto his dinner plate as part of a dish of stewed cabbage, apple, and onion.

Everyone in the household had an opinion of what might deter the creeping and slithering menaces. The gardener, at his wits end, tried them all. Dried and crushed eggshells. Wilted wormwood, mint, and tansy. Dishes of beer. The tiny monsters kept munching.

One recipe was to creep down to the garden in the early dawn to catch the villains at their work. Apparently, snails and slugs were like the aristocracy—out dancing all night and then gliding back into their dark refuges to sleep away the daylight hours.

Dar was awake early one morning. He had had yet another unsatisfying encounter with Miss Parkham-Smith the evening before, and yet another dream of her which would have been entirely satisfying, had he not woken, hard and yearning, before it was fully consummated.

Since he saw no likelihood that he would sleep again, he decided to get up, dress, and embark on his own gastropod hunt. The sun was far enough up for good visibility, but the air would still be cool and moist.

He had always enjoyed this time of the morning, especially on a gorgeous day as this one promised to be. The constant busy roar of London was muted in this short interlude when the roads were empty of the home-going carriages of the ton and had not yet seen the first of the carts and drays that would soon pour into London to service the markets and warehouses.

He spent a few minutes peering into his terrariums, though the glass was misted and he could see little. The fountains would be ready soon, but in the meantime, the servant he had hired to look after the reptiles was misting the water dragons enclosure four times a day.

They, at least, had enjoyed a few slugs with their chopped lettuce.

He was smiling at the thought as he stepped through the gate and into the vegetable garden. He did not at first focus on the figure bent over the lettuces in the far corner, but something teased at the corner of his mind. Surely that was not his gardener? The shape was all wrong. Too tall. Too slender.

Whoever it was had not noticed his arrival. Whoever it was? Dar knew perfect well, at some level too primitive for him to deny. Every stealthy step of his approach only confirmed that instinctual knowledge. What was Miss Parkham-Smith doing in his garden?

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Two preorders for your reading pleasure

Have you heard about these two preorders? Both are part of multi-author series, and both are coming out later this year.

The Blossoming of the Wallflower

Book 21 in The Revenge of the Wallflowers

As a gardener, Merrilyn Parkham-Smythe, was happy to be called a wallflower. Wallflowers were tenacious, long blooming, colourful and reliable plants, easy to care for as long as they had a fair share of sun. Like them, Merrilyn had no objection to providing providing background to the showier and more troublesome ladies of Society. She did object to being slighted and bullied by those highly praised blooms and their male counterparts.

The gentleman next door, for example. He had killed an entire herbacious border, pruned all the flowers off her magnolia tree, refused to see her when she called, and failed to reply to her letters of complaint. He richly deserved what he had coming. Didn’t he?

Justin Falconbridge hadn’t meant to offend the lady next door. He supposed he should have known that treating his carriageway with lime and sulfur to kill the weeds might affect the plants next door, but they would grow again, wouldn’t they? And wasn’t he entitled to cut off the flowers that dropped onto said carriage way and made it slipperly underfoot?

It was a pity she only spoke to him to abuse him, because he could think of a better use for those perfectly shaped lips than to hurl abuse at him. Since he couldn’t be in her presence without thoughts that were inappropriate in the presence of an innocent lady, he had to ignore her. Sooner or later, she would give up and leave him alone. Which is what he wanted. Wasn’t it?

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This one is out in July. You can preorder it from most major retailers: Books2read https://books2read.com/TBotW

If you’d like to see the other books in the series, check here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CKHNCQ6T

The Widow’s Christmas Rogue

Book 30 in The Wicked Widow’s League

Jessica Lady Colyton has no intention of being a wicked widow and has no time for rogues.  No time for men, in fact. Her father and her brothers were rogues enough for a lifetime, and her deceased husband was a scoundrel of quite a different type. However, she has joined the Wicked Widow’s League, and is grateful for their help to get her back on her feet after her husband’s will proves to be just one more blow from a controlling and manipulative man.

They have even organised for her to have a week’s holiday in the country. She blesses them right up until she finds a naked rogue in her bed.

Benjamin Lord Somerford is no rogue, unlike the father and brother whose deaths brought him a title and a barrow load of responsibilities that give him little time to play. He refuses an invitation to his sister’s Christmas house party because he has no time for the beauties she has undoubtedly invited to tempt him into matrimony.

When he wakes up in a strange bed, naked and tied down, he has no idea how he came to be there and wants no part whatever plot is underway. Thankfully, the lady who finds him is of the same mind. When a snowstorm prevents them from leaving, they must work together not just to survive but to avoid scandal.

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This one will be a treat for next Christmas. Again, you can preorder from most major retailers: Books2read https://books2read.com/u/m26zvd

If you’d like to see the other books in the series, check here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BFJ29XQ2