romeo and juliet

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Welcome to Dukes in Spring


Are you ready? Coming on April 24th, Dukes in Spring, the latest anthology from Dragonblade Publishing. It includes my take on family feuds, but with a happy ending.

Spring has arrived—and with it, dukes destined to fall.

As the world stirs from winter’s long shadow, London’s most powerful men emerge with darker desires and restless hearts. Beneath the gaiety of the Season linger brooding, dangerous dukes—men shaped by ambition, secrets, and passion—who are about to meet the women bold enough to challenge them.

From glittering ballrooms to intimate encounters behind closed doors, this vibrant spring collection brings together acclaimed historical romance authors in a celebration of heat, heart, and irresistible temptation. Leave the cold behind and surrender to tales of moody dukes and the women who awaken them to love.

Indulge in a season where romance blooms—and nothing is quite as it seems.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GNNZJW78

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An Arranged Marriage on WIP Wednesday

 

In April, I have a story in the collection “Dukes in Spring“. Here’s an excerpt.

***

Mima’s sister Marge had locked herself in the tower and was refusing to come out. Papa said she would give up when she was hungry, but Mima asked the servants, and had discovered that Marge had given orders. All the cisterns were stocked with fresh spring water, the wine store replenished, and the larder fully stocked.

The artful woman had told the servants she was merely preparing against the possibility that the evil Townswells might break the marriage agreement and attack the Ruthermonds.

Of course, they believed it, for no one thought this proposed marriage was anything except a trick by the wicked inhabitants of Keldwood Cross. So, they had willingly provided the stores their lady could easily live on for months, if she did not mind an almost endless supply of preserved food.

No one had ever said that Lady Margherita Ruthermond was stupid. Spoiled, yes. Willful, certainly. And determined not to, as she put it, sacrifice her happiness on the altar of the family feud. As always, Mama sided with Marge, and when Papa growled that she and her daughter were both selfish termagants, she took to her bed.

After ranting for three days, Papa sent for Mima. “You shall have to go in Margherita’s place, Mima,” he decreed. “Someone has to marry the Townswell cub, or we have broken the agreement.” He shuddered.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Mima asked. “After all, we have been ignoring the Townswells for three hundred years, except for a few broken bones here and there. We can go back to doing so again, can we not?”

Papa shook his head. “It’s more than a few broken bones, though, Mima, isn’t it? Wrecking the Lion and Harp, beating the Ruthermond steward until the doctor feared for his life, blowing up the bridge across Coombe Water.”

He held up both hands, palms out. “You are going to say that was all the Townswells, but for everything they did, our people did something as bad or worse. And if I find the fool who led the attack on a Royal Mail coach because they mistook it for a Ruthermond carriage, I shall have their guts.” He thumped a fist into a hand to emphasize his point.

Mima, who knew perfectly well that the idiots in question were her two youngest brothers, kept her mouth shut.

“The riot in Coombe was the last straw,” said Papa, with a sigh, “and you know as well as I do, it was as much our people’s fault as it was theirs.”

Two packs of young hotheads, both the worse for drink. But property had been damaged and a Coombe innkeeper who had tried to stop the violence had been knocked unconscious.

Even worse, the daughter of another neighbor, the Duke of Norcross, had been caught up in the riot. As far as Mima knew, the lady had not been physically hurt, but she had been shoved, and she had been scared. Since her father had powerful allies in both Houses of Parliament, and the ear of the Prince Regent besides, neither Papa nor Harwood had been able to brush the riot into oblivion.

“I am sorry, Mima,” Papa said. “But now that the Prince Regent is involved, and some of my fellow lords are talking about sending in an outside magistrate… I had no choice but to sign the agreement that his highness demanded. If I do not produce a bride for Harwood’s son, I will be foresworn. Even worse, the agreement says that, if one party defaults, he must pay a fine of ten thousand pounds and surrender the disputed lands in Coombe. Do you want to hand Harwood a win of that magnitude?”

So, Papa had bowed to pressure from the Crown and his peers and had put his pride on the line, Marge had thrown a tantrum, and Mima was to be the human sacrifice to save them all. That is, if Marge did not appear to do her duty.

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Wedding day on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from my novella for a Dragonblade anthology that will publish next year. My hero and heroine are substitutes for their older siblings in an arranged marriage. Here’s my bride.

When Mima woke on her wedding day, she was not miserable.

She had met her groom. Pel was someone she thought she might have liked, had their families not been at war, and had they met under different circumstances. Their marriage, she cautiously hoped, might not be as terrible as she feared.

Then her best friend Isabelle, one of her female cousins, arrived with the maid carrying the breakfast tray. “You are not getting married without me, Mimmie,” said Bella, “even if you are marrying an ogre.”

“He is not an ogre,” Mima protested, and found herself telling her friend about the night-time visit.

Bella took a predictably romantic view of the encounter. “Oh, I could swoon,” she declared. “He climbed to your balcony, Mimmie! How delicious! Is he handsome? Of course, he must be. It would be a travesty were he not, after he braved all those guards so he could meet you.”

“Do not tell the others,” Mima warned her, as giggles from outside of the door heralded the arrival of the rest of her cousins.

Moments later, she was engulfed in a feminine avalanche, and the next two hours were filled with pampering, primping, praise, and lots of laughter. Almost everything she wore, from the skin out, was new—most of it given by or borrowed from her cousins.

The cream silk gown had been intended for special occasions, and she supposed there were few occasions more special than one’s own wedding. Even so, Bella had declared it needed a little more, and had spent the past two days adding little embroidered flowers to the bodice and hem, each of them a tiny work of art, each chosen to express a suitable sentiment—asters, white carnations, and forget-me-nots for love, myrtle for luck, peonies for a happy life, violets for faithfulness.

One of the other cousins had taken scraps of the fabric and the lace that trimmed it, and made a bonnet to match, decorated with left-over ribbon from the gown and silk flowers that matched those Bella had embroidered.

A third cousin, nearly as deft with her needle as Bella, had embroidered matching slippers for Mima to wear on her feet, and others had searched through their drawers or the local drapery shops for stockings, garters, petticoats, and all the other items Mima needed to do the Ruthermonds proud at the wedding.

Even without her sister’s presence, Mima felt buoyed up on a tide of family love. In fact, if she were to be honest with herself, this way was better. She and Marge had never had more than a cordial relationship, and it had frequently been much less.

Marge seemed to believe Mima was her rival for everything—possessions, talents, parents’ affection and attention. What Marge had, she would not share. What Mima had, Marge wanted.

Marge was the older by three years. Marge was also—at least according to Mama and Marge—cleverer, prettier, and more talented. Mima had to concede the “prettier.” Marge was an English rose—a peaches and cream complexion, golden hair, blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a figure that displayed to advantage in everything she wore.

Mima had dark brown hair. Her blue eyes were closer to a faded grey. And she was undeniably… curvy, a charitable aunt put it. Plump, said Mama and Marge.

Today, though, as she examined herself in the mirror, she felt almost beautiful, and the compliments from her cousins lifted her confidence still further. Let Marge sulk in her tower while Mima married Lord Pelham Townswell! Never had Mima been happier to be the recipient of something—or in this case someone—rejected by Marge.

 

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Family feuds and arranged marriages on WIP Wednesday

Or one of each, at least, from the story I’ve just started for a Dragonblade Publishing anthology that will be published next year. The theme is Romeo and Juliet! Of course, everyone will have their own take on it.

***

The people in the neighbourhood of Keldwood Cross hated the bride. Not that they had met her, of course, but village, manor, farm and hamlet were agreed. No female from Marshhold-Over-Water could possibly be anything but a villain, and it was a terrible thing that the Young Master was going to have to marry the daughter of Marshhold’s earl.

Or so they were saying in the tavern. Pelham Townwell sat so quietly in the corner that they must have forgotten he was there. On the other hand, perhaps they remembered, for they did not blame his father, their own earl.

Neither did Pel. Lord Harwood was in a difficult spot, and clearly his people realised that. The Prince Regent himself had taken an interest in the Marshhold-Keldwood feud, and the two earls had been commanded to make peace and to seal it with a marriage!

Since Lord Harwood had an unmarried heir, and Lord Ilton’s eldest daughter was also unwed, they were the obvious choices for the arrangement. Pel’s older brother was furious about it. Clay—Viscount Clayton was the Harwood courtesy title—Clay had been drinking for two solid weeks, and his prognostications for the marriage got gloomier by the day.

Pel wondered what the bride thought. Were the people of Marshhold as upset about the marriage as the people of Keldwood? Did Lady Margherita Ruthermond dread the marriage as much as Clay? Probably more. After all, Clay would have to live with Lady Margherita, but the lady would have to live with Clay, his family, the household, and an entire countryside who had already decided to hate her.

At least Ilton had shown some consciousness of the size of the problem. He had asked to have it written into the marriage agreement that his daughter must be treated well, and that—if she could show grounds for complaint—she could return to her family and the Earl of Harwood and his family would need to pay massive damages.

Father’s reaction to that clause had been to send his secretary with a letter to the Prince Regent, complaining that the clause was an insult, and showed Ilton’s ill intentions.

The Prince Regent had decreed that the clause was to stand, and Father had spent fifteen minutes breaking every vase, dish, cup and china statue in the library, where he had been when his secretary reported.

Clay and Pel had taken the secretary out for a drink, and then another, until they heard exactly what the Prince Regent had said. “Wise man, Ilton. Young Clayton had better behave himself and treat the Ruthermond girl well, or she will beggar the Townwells.”

When Father was over his tantrum, he had decreed that the new bride was to be given every courtesy, and pampered like princess, and Clay had begun drinking and had, so far, not stopped.

Pel was glad to be only an observer in the coming carriage wreck of the Harwood-Ilton marriage. Right up until the moment that Father realised that his eldest son was too drunk to send to the wedding, so he decided to send Pel, instead.