scandal

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Scandal and risk on WIP Wednesday

Scandal is part of the stock in trade of a historical romance writer, and particularly the writer of Regency and Victorian novels, whose stories are set against a rigid, if hypocritical, standard of publicly moral behaviour. If my characters didn’t ignore it, or be accused of ignoring it, my stories would be a lot shorter! Here are the hero and heroine of One Hour in Freedom, ignoring social norms. Or are they?

After she was ready for bed, Ellie sat in a chair by the fire, waiting. He had stopped in the hall as Mrs Blythe showed them to their rooms. From the look in his eyes, he had thought about kissing her, but had changed his mind. Why? Were they still estranged? Was she a fool to hope they could be together again? Surely he had the same questions.

After half an hour, she decided that Matthias was not coming. Does he not realise that they needed to talk? They had both been given rooms in the guest wing, and were the only occupants. Furthermore, when they had come up together after the meeting with Max, she had seen which room he had entered.

Well then. She let herself out into the dim hall and counted doors until she reached the one Matthias had been given. Light still shone under the door. Good. That made things easier. She knocked and listened for a response from inside the room.

The door swung open, and Matthias stood in the opening, his neutral expression dropping for a moment to reveal surprise, then delight and lust, before he reimposed control over his features.

He stood to one side. “Ellie. Please come in.” The huskiness of his voice sent her body humming, as did his state of dress—or undress. He had wrapped a towel around his waist to open the door, but—apart from that scrap of fabric—he was naked.

She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and walked past him into the room.

“Give me a moment,” he demanded. He went behind a dressing screen. He is quite correct. We need to talk. Ellie took a deep breath and attempted to distract herself by cataloguing the contents of the room. A bed. A couple of chairs by the fire, one of which had a half full glass on the little table beside it. She sat in the other chair, and continued her examination.

A clothes press. A side table under the window. Another by the door. Very similar to her own room, so probably a washstand and some pegs for clothes behind the dressing screen.

Where Matthias was presumably armouring himself against her lustful eyes by hiding his glorious chest and strong legs under clothing. But the sight was graven on her eyeballs, and her efforts to think of something else were not working.

He emerged in a pair of trousers, with a shirt worn loose over the top. “Still undress,” he said, “but not quite as scandalous.”

“Not scandalous at all, under the circumstances,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but the household doesn’t know that, do they?” he argued. “Do you want a whisky, Ellie? Lion brings it down from Northumberland. They brew it in the hills there.”

“I have never tried whisky,” Ellie admitted. “Perhaps just a little. As to the scandal of my presence here, or not… that is one of the things I wanted to talk about.”

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Gossip and scandal on WIP Wednesday

 

Yes, I know I’ve said it again. But Regency romance set in high society does lend itself to the kind of ruthless gossip-mongering that today finds its expression through mean girls at high school and in the darker corners of social media. This week, I’m sharing an episode that shows how scandal can be wielded by a villain (or, in this case, two villains and a villainess). It’s from To Mend a Proper Lady. If you have an excerpt to share, please put it in the comments.

Because they were not socialising, Ruth didn’t notice people acting in a peculiar fashion until Rosemary pointed it out to her. “I wonder what the problem is,” she commented, as they rode home one morning from an early outing to Hyde Park. “Three times today, people coming towards us turned aside onto a different path. I didn’t say anything yesterday, when we took our niece and nephews to play in the square, but Mrs Wilmington collected her children and left, and so did two nursemaids with their charges.”

“You think they were avoiding us?” That had been the norm for a few months during the worst of last year’s feud with the Duke of Haverford, when he was challenging their legitimacy in a complaint to the Committee for Privileges. But their father’s evidence had swung the Committee their way, and most people in Society accepted them now.

Rosemary frowned. “I thought they might be avoiding Zahara’s children, but she and the little ones are not with us today.”

After that, Ruth watched, and soon concluded something was going on. No one was overtly rude, but a very few people directly approached them, and a number went to some lengths to avoid a casual meeting. Either that, or most of the people they came across while out walking were afflicted with a sudden need to cross the street or leave when the Winderfield family came into sight.

Or, more specifically, when Ruth appeared. Her brothers mentioned conversations that left no doubt that they were being treated as normal, and Sophia and Rosemary both had encounters with friends when Ruth was not with them.

It came to a head in Brown’s Emporium, where the ladies of the family had taken Zahara to purchase English cotton and lace, and perhaps an English porcelain tea set. Ruth had grown bored with discussing the relative merits of shawls, and had wandered over to some rolls of heavy fabric that might do for curtaining.

The others where within earshot, so she heard when a lady address Sophia. “Lady Sutton! I had no idea you were in London.”

“Lady Ashbury.”

The name captured Ruth’s attention, and she turned to watch. From the tip of her fashionable hat to her dainty leather-shod feet, the lady was an exquisite doll; the epitome of the English fashionable beauty, fair-haired, pale-skinned and blue-eyed. So this was Val’s sister-in-law?

Ruth stepped closer. The illusion of youth evaporated under closer examinations. Fine lines in the corners of the eyes, around the mouth, spoke of temper and a sour disposition, and those clear eyes were hard as she accepted an introduction to Rosemary and Zahara with a condescending nod.

Sophia turned to hold out her hand to Ruth, beckoning her closer. “And this is my sister Lady Ruth,” she said. “Ruth, Lady Ashbury is related to…”

In one sweep of her eyes, Lady Ashbury had examined Ruth from head to toe, sniffed, and turned her back. “Lady Sutton, I advise you to distance yourself from this female.” She pitched her voice to be heard throughout the cavernous building. “She may have hoped to keep secret her dalliance with my monstrous brother-in-law, but the people near his lands were rightfully scandalised, and have taken steps to ensure the truth is known.”

Sophia, bless her, showed no reaction to the accusation beyond raised eyebrows, and spoke so that the riveted onlookers could hear her reply. “Have you been spreading lying gossip again, Lady Ashbury? My sister was fully chaperoned at all times while nursing your daughter through smallpox. She has the full support of His Grace my father-in-law and all of her family and friends.”

She then turned to the rest of their party. “Ladies, let us come back another time. I find the company here today… malodorous, and I owe you an apology for condescending to make the introduction.”

Ruth was swept along in Sophia’s wake, but looked back as they exited the warehouse. Lady Ashbury remained where they’d left her, staring after them with narrowed eyes. Several of the other customers were already converging on her. This was not over.

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Tea with the father of the lady in the latest scandal

Brighton, August, 1813

The owner of the inn ushered James into the private parlour Eleanor had rented for this meeting.

“Is this the gentleman, my lady?” His question was perfunctory, and the way he looked at Eleanor could best be described as a leer. She didn’t bother to correct his form of address, but merely nodded her reply. “Thank you. That will be all.”

The leer broadened. “There’s a key in the lock, but you won’t be disturbed. I’ve given orders.”

James held the door open, and his frown must have penetrated the foolish man’s thick skin, for the innkeeper left with no further comments. James shut and looked the door behind him, then faced Eleanor with a shrug and a smile. “Small-minded fool.”

Now that they were alone, Eleanor lifted her veil. “James. It is good to see you.” They had crossed paths at the Pavilion the previous evening, but she had been with Haverford, and even the mere nod she gave him in passing had fetched a fifteen minute rant from her husband that ended only when the Prince Regent summoned him.

James bowed over her hand. “I am pleased to see you, my dear. You are looking well.”

Her fingers tingled where he touched them, and she allowed herself the momentary indulgence of the wish that the innkeeper’s assumptions were true. But she was a married woman and her honour would not allow her an affair. Not that James had ever hinted at desiring such a thing. He was still in love with his dead wife, and if he desired a bed partner, England abounded in younger and lovelier women than her, and many of them would be delighted to accommodate a handsome duke, with or without a ring on their finger.

“Shall we sit?” James prompted.

Eleanor shook off her thoughts, and took the chair by the tea tray she had ordered. Or should that be coffee and tea tray? James had returned from the East with a taste for thick black coffee, and she poured it for him just the way she had learned he liked it, then prepared her own cup of the gentler beverage.

As she carried out the ritual, they exchanged family news, while she wondered how to introduce the subject that had prompted her request for this meeting.

He gave her an opening when he mentioned his daughter Ruth. “She has been in quarantine in the north—a trip to a school that Sutton’s wife sponsors turned into a battle with smallpox. But all appears to be well, and young Drew has gone to escort her back to the family.”

“I had heard, James. And what I heard concerns me. Unkind gossip is insisting that she has been staying unchaperoned in the home of a widower with a fearsome reputation–a monster who killed his own wife and who is shunned by the entire county for his ravages amongst their women.”

James could summon a fearsome scowl when he chose, but he had never before turned that ducal glare on her. “Lies!”

“Of course, and I am happy to play my part in saying so. But it would help to know what small modicum of truth the lies are built on, so I can more effectively demolish them.”

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Scandal on WIP Wednesday

After: William Hogarth

Scandal, or the threat of it, is a useful tool in historical romance—and in many other types of fiction. Indeed, much of history revolves around what happens when people try to avoid scandal, or when a scandal breaks.

Today, I’m looking for an excerpt to do with scandal: past, present, possible, imagined, or actual.

Mine is from A Midwinter’s Tale, my box set story for the Speakeasy Scribes. It’s the scandal that wasn’t, because they managed to keep their secret.

Tee would have loved to have sisters, or at least known the ones her mother told Uncle Will about. Two older sisters, and a brother who was her twin, and who escaped with her mother. If the escape was real, and not just a kind story Uncle Will made up to comfort a grieving toddler.

After all, it could not be true. Her mother could not have walked out of the twentieth century into a tavern in nineteenth century Boston and then skipped two hundred years to frozen Jogenheim. That was Uncle Will’s story—his pregnant great grandmother had made a double time jump, first to the past and then to her future, where she gave birth to twins. Tee and her brother.

When the PED tried to scoop her up to add to the breeding pool, Tee’s mother and brother stepped through the tavern door into history, leaving Tee to be raised by Will, who was her great nephew and also sixty years older than her.

Tee snorted. More likely, her mother escaped the breeding pool long enough to have Tee, was then locked up, and would arrive once more on their doorstep when her breeding days were over. Breeders who coupled with unlicensed males or hid their babies lost their freedom of movement. Everyone knew that.

If they caught Tee, they would lock her up, too.

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Scandal and gossip on WIP Wednesday

VFS109732 Ladies Gossiping at the Opera (oil on canvas) by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896) (attr. to) oil on canvas 39.3x37.4 Private Collection English, out of copyright

Ladies Gossiping at the Opera (oil on canvas) by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896) 

One useful trope in the historic romance writer’s arsenal is scandal. In the highly structured societies many of us write about, social censure was a powerful sanction. It could ruin lives—not just the lives of the women gossiped about, and occasionally even the men, but also those of their families.

Have you used scandal, or the threat of scandal, as a plot point? Share a bit with us, if you would, in the comments.

Here’s mine, from A Raging Madness.

When Alex finished, Lord Henry turned to Ella. “You have shown exemplary courage, Lady Melville. Thank you for what you did for Alex. This family owes you more that we can ever repay. What are your plans? You may call on our help for anything you need. ”

Ella blushed. “Alex helped me first, my lord. He saved my life, I believe, and certainly my sanity. But I would be deeply grateful for help. I must work for my living, and I thought perhaps Susan might advise me on how to find an employer? I thought I could nurse, perhaps, or be a companion to someone elderly, as I have been these five years.”

“Oh, but…” Susan began, then fell quiet, her eyes sliding to Alex.

Lord Henry frowned. “There may be a more immediate problem, Ella. May I call you ‘Ella’, as my children do? You saved my son’s life and so I quite feel you are part of the family, my dear.”

Ella nodded her agreement, lost for words. The man was the son of an earl, and a brigadier general, and he wanted to include her in his family?

“I have met your brother-in-law, I am sorry to say. He is here in London, and he called on me to demand that I tell him the whereabouts of my son.”

“Edwin is here?” Ella said at the same time as Alex said, his mouth curving in a predatory grin, “I would be delighted to meet with Braxton, the hell-spawned bastard.”

At Lord Henry’s raised eyebrow, he muttered an apology, which Susan ignored, saying, “Braxton? You are Braxton’s mad sister!” She patted Ella’s hand again. “Not that you are, of course, I do not mean that. I mean Braxton and his wife have been spouting that story all over town. That their sister is not in her right mind, and that she has been abducted by a…” She trailed off. “Oh dear.”

“Yes,” Lord Henry murmured. “That is the problem.”