The Husband Gamble

by

Romance over the chess board

In my novella The Husband Gamble, Hythe and Rilla get to know one another while playing chess. What could be less romantic? Chess, after all, is a game of war, a game of logic. Yet, both chess and love are filled with passion and excitement. Both chess and love require the players to focus on one another, tensely wondering what the next move might be, and watching for clues.

In long centuries when society frowned on such a close focus between a man and woman, dancing and chess has allowed interested couples to meet. Chess allowed them to spend hours in one another’s company, talking and getting to know one another better.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, chess was used both to facilitate courtship and as an allegory of courtship, as can be seen in paintings, carvings, and tapestries of the time. Likewise with literature of the time, where the language of chess and the language of seduction merge.

The queen was not in the original Persian and Indian game. She replaced the vizier, whose moves were limited. Our modern day queen, with her expansive sweeps, may have arisen in medieval Spain at the time of the powerful Queen Isabella. Certainly, the new movements were first described in a Catalan poem called “Love Chess”, although the vizier lingered on in some places until the early 18th century.

The connection between love and chess continued. In 1801, in her book Belinda, the novelist Maria Edgeworth wrote:

O, you novice at Cupid’s chess-board! Do you not see the next move? Check with your new knight, and the game is your own.

Chess even made it into Victorian valentines:

‘My little love do you remember,
Ere we grew so sadly wise,
When you and I played chess together,
Checkmated by each others eyes?’

 

 

by

Spotlight on The Husband Gamble

This week, The standalone novella The Husband Gamble is published as part of the multi-author series The Wedding Wager. It stars my Earl of Hythe from To Wed a Proper Lady and A Dream Come True, and the runaway bride from The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill.

The universal link to purchase is: https://books2read.com/HusbandGamble

And here’s an excerpt:

Four days into the interminable week, Hythe had made no progress in his bride hunt. It had taken him the space of an afternoon to discover that Miss Thompson was an unkind shrew, and if he doubted his own experience, the men who knew her from London confirmed it. One by one, he spent a little time with each lady at the house party. This girl was too frivolous. That one was waspish.

In any case, he did not find himself in the least attracted to any of them. Surely it was not too much to ask that the woman to whom he would vow to be faithful for the remainder of their days was one he actually wanted to bed? He could not imagine physical intimacies with any of the ladies currently on offer.

Except Miss Fernhill. She had grown prettier day by day—not the flashy kind of beauty some of the others had, but a quiet loveliness that comprised her character as well as her features. Her attractions were manifold, and not least of them was her mind. She commanded his attention whenever she was in the vicinity. Even when she wasn’t, he could not stop thinking about her.

Perhaps he was making things worse by spending so much time with her. But nobody else here challenged him to think the way she did. When he succeeded in winning a discussion point with her, he felt as if he had persuaded the entire House of Lords— yes, and the Austrian and Prussian negotiators.

What an ambassador for Britain, she would have been, if she’d been a man. She knew several languages, understood the current political situation better most people of his acquaintance, male or female, and was invariably charming and composed.

The company that had been inclined at first to treat her with disdain was now, with few exceptions, thoroughly enjoying her company, and at least two of the gentlemen were seriously considering a courtship. Hythe felt she could do better than a penniless second son or a half-pay naval captain, but at least the lady would have choices.

 

by

Tea with Rilla

The scandalous Miss Fernhill was a delightful young lady. Initially, when the duchess’s daughter-in-law and her sister had brought Miss Fernhill into Eleanor’s pleasant parlour, she had been clearly nervous and very formal. But she quickly relaxed as her future sisters-in-law chatted cheerfully with Eleanor, being careful to include her in the conversation.

Last time Sophie and Felicity had been here together, they had been very worried about their brother, the Earl of Hythe. He had a list of what he required in a wife, and his sisters worried that he had not made any allowance for love. “Besides, Aunt Eleanor,” Felicity had said, “a woman who matches every item on the list will never loosen dear Hythe up. He needs someone to make him laugh, someone to tease him a little, someone fun.”

Amaryllis Fernhill might not have checked off every item on Hythe’s list, but his sisters clearly thought she was just perfect. Even if she had jilted her previous groom at the altar and disappeared for three years. Hythe had ignored these facts; definite evidence he was making a love match. And Miss Fernhill, or Rilla, as Hythe’s sisters called her, was totally besotted with Hythe, as was evident in the way her eyes shone whenever she mentioned him, which was often.

Eleanor smiled to herself. A love match. If one wanted to guide Society’s opinion in favour of a couple, a love match was a very good place to start.

The Abduction of Amaryllis Fernhill is one of the stories in Chasing the Tale: Volume II, to be published next month. Hythe and Rilla meet and fall in love over a chessboard in The Husband Gamble, in The Wedding Wager, now on KU.

by

Spotlight on The Wedding Wager

15 superb authors, 15 wonderful novellas

The Boast—pride goeth before the fall…

After facilitating the match of the season, Lady Pandora “Pansy” Osbourne, has boasted that she is the best matchmaker The Ton has ever seen. Always willing to bring her cousin down a peg or two, her cousin, Lady Octavia Sewell insists that was no feat of matchmaking at all, as the couple involved were clearly destined for one another despite Pansy’s meddling. A bitter argument ensues and a dreadful challenge is issued. Pansy must do more than say it… she must prove it.

The terms of the wager are set!

Pansy must produce no less than one match per month between people who have been notoriously unmarriageable—spinsters, bluestockings, rakes and fortune hunters, oh my! But there’s more riding on this than simply her pride! If Pansy loses, she will have to give up her most prized possession—a tiara that belonged to their grandmother will be forfeited into Octavia’s grasping hands.

The Ends Justify the Means… or do they?

Desperate to make these matches, prove her claims of matchmaking prowess to be true and make Octavia eat crow in a very public fashion, Pansy resorts to the greatest weapon in any matchmaker’s arsenal—the house party. Not just one, but a series of them. For two weeks out of every month, she will open her home to an assortment of victims…er, guests. At the end of each party, one couple will emerge either betrothed or wed, by fair means or foul.

Order your copy now: https://books2read.com/weddingwager

Excerpt

The following day was stormy—far too cold, wet, and windy for any further ventures outside.

As Rilla had predicted, Lady Osbourne was keen to marshal her guests into group activities. Thankfully, she left the guests themselves to choose between the pursuits on offer, though any lady or gentleman without an occupation was politely rounded up and channeled into being sociable.

Rilla avoided the room where an excited group were planning a theatrical performance, and also backed quickly from the one that contained a game of charades.

She would have liked to play billiards. She’d learned the game from her best friend, the daughter of the earl whose estate bordered her father’s, and had continued to play on her own after Emma made a runaway marriage. But not after her father died and her uncle moved into her house. He did not approve of females playing billiard. Doubtless, the gentlemen at this house party would agree.

Was Lord Hythe in the billiards room? She had not seen him playing cards and could not imagine him as part of the laughing, flirting parlor games crowd. Perhaps, although he had denied any musical abilities, he formed part of the audience in the music room? She found herself heading in that direction and stopped.

What was she doing? She needed to be somewhere Lord Hythe was not. When he was in the vicinity, she found it impossible to consider any other man. And Lord Hythe was not for her.

She had to move to the side of the passage to make way for several of the guests, ladies and gentlemen, who were hurrying to find hiding places for a game of sardines. Another activity that was not to Rilla’s taste. At the last house party she had attended, she had found herself stuck in a cupboard under the stairs with four other people, one of whom had wandering hands.

In the end, Rilla collected her embroidery from her room, and joined Cousin Felicia in the parlor. Several gentlemen had also joined the ladies. Captain Hudson was whittling, and was happy to explain he was making a set of wooden soldiers for his older brother’s eldest son. “I suggested sailors,” he joked, “but apparently it has to be soldiers.” Rilla joined the others in admiring the skill with which he crafted a detailed little warrior out of a chunk of wood. “They will look more realistic once they are painted,” he told his audience.

Another gentleman was sketching the ladies as they worked. He asked Rilla if he could make a sketch of her hands, as they were particularly elegant. Rilla would have brushed it off as a meaningless compliment, but Mr. Woolard’s gaze at said appendages had a dispassionate quality that hinted his interest was entirely artistic. She granted permission.

Lord Joseph Enright said that he had no skills to craft anything with his hands, but offered to read to the company. Lord Joseph was the second son of a marquis, but seemed to have avoided the arrogance that often went with such elevated rank. He had a very pleasant voice, and read with a dramatic style that suited the Robert Burns poem he had chosen, Tam O’Shanter.

Rilla did not understand some of the Scottish words, but she laughed with the others at the tale of the drunken Scotsman spying on a witches’ gathering, becoming entranced at the dancing of ‘a winsome wench’ and calling out encouragement. Then followed a wild chase until at last his brave horse managed to cross water, just in time to escape the lead witch, though the poor nag paid for its master’s peeping by the loss of its tail.

“What is a cutty sark,” she asked, when everyone had clapped the ending of the piece. “Does anyone know?”

Miss MacRae, one of the chaperones, was able to explain. “A sark is a shirt; in this case, a nightrail. Cutty simply means short, Miss Fernhill.”

“She was dancing in her night attire, then, and it flapped as she danced,” Captain Hudson chuckled. “No wonder naughty Tam was glued to the peephole in the wall.”

Rilla suppressed her smile when several of the ladies called him to account, and poor Lord Joseph, as well, for reading the poem in mixed company. Rilla was pleased to note that neither gentleman seemed much abashed. Certainly, she had heard far more bawdy stories in the world that had been her refuge from her uncle’s machinations.

by

Fun and games on WIP Wednesday

In my story for the coming collection The Wedding Wager, my heroine plays a game of pall mall.

Rilla found lunch surprisingly delightful, thanks to Lord Hythe. Useful, too. Two of the men who had shown her some attention during the morning had drifted away when the discussion turned serious, one after expressing doubt that ladies were capable of intelligence.

The day continued fine enough to return outdoors, though clouds suggested that they would not be as fortunate the next day. Lady Osbourne suggested Rilla might like to take part in a game of pall mall. She had never played before, but the rules seemed straightforward enough.

One played in a pall mall alley, with walls either side and an iron ring set in the ground around one hundred yards distant from where the players started. One used a mallet to hit a ball towards the ring, repeating the strokes until close. Then an implement with a spoon-like end was used to hit the ball through the ring.

It was harder than it looked to achieve the right direction and force. One of the other ladies playing, Miss Thompson, also claimed to be a novice, but Rilla soon guessed that the lady was pretending helplessness, presumably to impress the gentlemen.

Rilla came last in the first four contests, trailing one of the gentlemen, a Captain Hudson. “No room for a pall mall alley on a ship, Miss Fernhill,” he said, cheerfully.

“I imagine that waves would also inhibit play, Captain Hudson,” she replied, much to his amusement.

In the fifth contest, the others had once again finished before she and the captain were halfway down the alley. “I picked the game up quickly, did I not?” crowed Miss Thompson, whose combined scores made her third overall.

“I bet she is her village champion,” muttered Captain Hudson. Rilla agreed, but pretended she hadn’t heard.

Miss Thompson marched off on the arm of the overall winner, and the remaining couple came to let Rilla and Captain Hudson know they were going in out of the cold.

“Go ahead without us,” Captain Hudson said. “Miss Fernhill and I have to find out who wins last place.”

“It is a fight to the finish,” Rilla agreed.

The other couple stayed to cheer each stroke, cheering when a wild stroke of Rilla’s bounced off the alley walls and groaning when the captain’s ball shot past the edge of the ring.

In the end, the captain finished first, but Rilla was only one stroke behind him. The other couple clapped, Rilla curtseyed, the captain bowed, and they all laughed.

A few spots of rain hurried their steps, and they left the alley behind in favour of a warm fire and a hot drink.

Captain Hudson, Rilla concluded, was a pleasant gentleman. He could laugh at himself, and he saw right through Miss Thompson. Rilla had no objection to a half-pay officer, though there was always the risk—presumably Captain Hudson would say the hope—he would be called back into service.

Did she want a husband in the armed forces, who was away more than he was at home?

This is only the first day of the house party, she reminded herself. She had plenty of time to consider that question. Which would not even be a question if he was simply being polite to the lady he had inadvertently been stuck with at the end of the pall mall alley.

However, when she came back downstairs after taking off her outer garments, he waved to catch her attention as she entered the drawing room. He had hot chocolate and cake waiting for her on a low table next to the chair he had been holding ready for her.

Surely that meant he was interested in pursuing the acquaintance?

He seems to be a nice man. He is a possibility. Then her eyes drifted to the man who had just come through the door. Lord Hythe. Her heart gave a bound. Stupid heart. Lord Hythe was not for the likes of her.

by

Tea with Sophia and Felicity

“I worry about him,” said Felicity Wentworth. “He has a list, Aunt Eleanor.”

“Is that a bad thing?” the Duchess of Winshire asked. “Your brother is, after all, choosing a suitable countess as well as a wife. A list of appropriate qualities seems like a good idea.”

Sophia, Countess of Sutton and sister to both Felicity and Hythe, snorted. “It is a bad thing when the women Hythe thinks he wants would bore him witless in a week and make him miserable in a month,” she said.

“Oh dear.” Eleanor could see how that might be a problem.

“Hythe needs someone lively who will tempt him to see the fun in life,” Felicity declared.

“Hythe needs someone who will be his friend as well as loving him with all her heart,” Sophia corrected.

Eleanor sighed. “He is a grown man, and I have learned that it is a bad idea to try to interfere when our loved ones are determined on their course.”

Sophia’s eyes twinkled. “Unless they ask for our advice.”

“Sophia,” Felicity demanded. “What have you done?”

“Only suggested to Hythe that he should attend one of Lady Osbourne’s party and look over the wallflowers,” Sophia said, airily. She spoiled her air of innocence with a giggle. “I may also have suggested to Lady Osbourne that she might invite him to the same party as Amaryllis Fernhill, and make sure they can spend time together.”

Felicity’s mouth dropped open.

The duchess asked, “Amaryllis Fernhill, my dear Sophia? The one who…?”

Sophia nodded. “Yes, that Amaryllis Fernhill. The one who was supposedly stolen by the Faerie.”

Felicity was grinning. “The one Hythe was not able to take his eyes off all Season.”

“She is a perfectly nice young woman, Aunt Eleanor,” Sophia insisted. “Whatever happened, I am sure she is not actually ruined whatever the ton might think.”

The duchess had recovered her equanimity. “Well then, my dear girls. If Hythe chooses Miss Fernhill for his bride, it will be our job to make her acceptable to the ton. We cannot have any silly scandal marring the career of a diplomat of his skill.”

His sisters nodded. “Quite right, Aunt Eleanor,” Sophia said. “I knew we could count on you.”

The Husband Gamble is my contribution to The Wedding Wager, which you can find more about on my book page. Its out in September, so I’ll share more about Amaryllis and the Earl of Hythe in the coming couple of months.

 

by

The marriage mart on WIP Wednesday

This week’s excerpt is from The Husband Gamble, a short novella I am writing for The Wedding Wager.

The Earl of Hythe was already regretting his agreement to attend the party. The room he had been given was perfectly adequate. His valet Pritchard, who had been with him for years, had been busy while Hythe was in his bath. Pritchard knew exactly how Hythe likes things. He had organised the dressing room and the bedside table, and had moved the chairs in the seating area so that they were precisely aligned with the edge of the hearth, with the little table equidistant between the two and on the same ruler-straight line.

After he was dressed again, Hythe set his travelling desk on the desk provided, and checked the desk drawers. Lady Osbourne had provided quality paper and ink. The stack of paper needed to be tidied, as did the rest of the drawer contents. That task finished, Hythe had no further excuse for lingering in his room, getting in Pritchard’s way. Like it or not, he needed to go below and meet the other guests.

He blamed his sister Sophia, entirely. On second thoughts, he had opened himself to the attack. If he had never grumbled to her about the difficulty of finding a wife one could respect and even, perhaps, befriend, she would never have suggested that he put himself in the hands of the acclaimed matchmaker. One who had found matches, furthermore, for people whom Society had judged unmarriageable.

Even so, Hythe would never have agreed if the marriage of his sister Felicity had not left his townhouse appallingly empty. Felicity had followed him from one diplomatic post into another, keeping house for him. His servants were perfectly competent, but they would be horrified to be asked to sit down for a chat over breakfast or of an evening.

And, of course, no servant could be his hostess or be at his side during the social occasions that were so much part of his work.

“Excuse me, my lord,” Pritchard said.

Hythe stepped out of his way, and Pritchard, carrying Hythe’s dinner jacket as if it was the crown jewels, proceeded to lay the garment on the bed and return to the dressing room for the next item. “Dinner is at seven, my lord, with gathering in the drawing room from six thirty.”

It was Pritchard’s way of saying “You have at least two hours before dressing for dinner, so please go away so I can ensure that anything you might choose to wear has been inspected and, if necessary, restored to a standard suitable for the Earl of Hythe.”

Hythe repressed a sigh and bowed to the inevitable, though he only went as far as the passage, where he stood for a moment, his eyes shut, bracing himself to meet all those people.

It was only for a week. He could resist any plots by Lady Osbourne or her protégés for one week. One of them might be the one for you. He rejected the errant thought. Everyone knew that Lady Osbourne had wagered with her cousin that she could find matches for the most awkward, difficult and challenging of wallflowers and hoydens and the most unprepossessing of grooms.

Hythe knew that he had little to recommend him beyond his title and his wealth. Ladies seem to prefer a man of address, who could flatter them with elegant compliments and talk for hours about frivolous matters that bored Hythe witless. Someone at ease meeting strangers and comfortable in crowds of people.

For Hythe, social occasions were an ordeal. He could manage. He had memorised a hundred different meaningless but polite responses, and practiced them in front of a mirror. He had learned which ones to trot out on which occasion.

It was not so bad if he could find a meaningful conversation in which to immerse himself, but the ladies of Society and many of the men had no interest in topics that mattered. Hythe had discovered the trick of finding a quiet corner where he could take a few deep breathes before pasting on a smile and getting back to work.

The right wife would have the skills he lacked, as his sisters did. They were both brilliant political and diplomatic hostesses, and had been happy to give their brother the benefit of their skills. Until they married. Without them, life in Society was even more exhausting than before.

He had not been able to find what he needed as a man. What his title required made it even more difficult.  The Earl of Hythe needed a countess who could burnish the reputation of the earldom and the family. Money was irrelevant. Looks were secondary. Behaviour…

Even in his thoughts, he could not agree that behaviour was everything. Important, yes. Hythe was the head of the Belvoir family, and no stain had ever attached to their family name. His parents had been renowned for their good ton as well as their wealth, their generosity, and their wide circle of friends. His sisters were models of propriety. Felicity, his younger sister, might at times allow her vivacity to bring her to the edge of proper behaviour, but never over.

However, Hythe wanted more from marriage than a countess who could be a good hostess and who knew how to behave. Perhaps, if he had contemplated marriage a few years ago, he might have chosen one of the insipid bird brains that seem to be the primary offering on the marriage mart. And perhaps, if he had been lucky, she might have learned to be an adequate countess.

Hythe also wanted a wife. He had watched his sisters find love matches. So had several of his friends. He was not convinced that a love match was a desirable thing — such an untidy excess of emotions did not appeal to him. In any case, he had never imagined himself in love, even when his friends were falling like flies for opera dances and Society beauties. He was probably not capable of the emotion.

The other kind of love he could manage very well. He held a deep and abiding affection for both of his sisters. He was sure he could be a fond and caring husband and father. All he had to do was find a wife he could talk to. It may be setting the bar too low to say a wife who did not irritate him, but that was precisely what he told Lady Osbourne when she buttonholed him in Town after Sophia had asked her for her help.

Someone who did not irritate him. Someone who was old enough and interesting enough to know her own mind and be prepared to have opinions and defend them. Someone who liked children and would be a good mother, for Hythe would need an heir, and hoped that his son might grow up with brothers and sisters.

Someone who knew how to behave as the wife of a diplomat and a peer — that went without saying, although he said it anyway. Someone who was at ease in social situations and prepared to exercise that mastery on his behalf, though he did not put that into words, unwilling to expose his deficiencies to that extent.

He waved away Lady Osbourne’s questions about appearance. Short or tall. Fair or dark. Plump or slender. What did those matter over a lifetime? “I want someone to grow old with,” he told Lady Osbourne, “should we be so blessed.”

He couldn’t spend the rest of the day leaning against the wall outside his room. He opened his eyes even as he took a stride down the passage, only to find his arms full of a warm fragrant female. Who gasped, and pulled backwards.