Tracy Cooper-Posey's Blog, page 24
May 30, 2021
20% Off Monthly 4 Day Sale Starts Today
The Stories Rule Press monthly 4 day 20% off sale starts today.
This sale includes all titles currently available on the SRP site, including boxed sets, books already on discount, new releases and pre-orders…everything!
You can buy as much or as little as you want, and you can use the coupon code multiple times over the next four days.
I’ve actually seen readers buy the first book in a series with the code, then come back on the last day, after reading the first book, and snap up the rest of the books in the series.
Here’s the coupon code:
XQG9KCEMThis is valid from today through to midnight MDT on June 2nd.
To browse the available titles, click here. That will let you filter and arrange current titles from all SRP authors in whatever way suits you.
Or you can head to my site and browse just my titles; Click here.
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Tracy
May 20, 2021
Sneak Peek at The Unaccompanied Widow, and the origins of jeans
The chances are really good that you’re wearing jeans right now. Especially since they invented stretch denim, jeans have become ubiquitous. Nearly everyone wears them as default casual pants, and I would guess (I didn’t look this up) that the majority of people in the western world owns at least one pair.
Today in 1873, Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets. They were considered workwear and for the lower classes only, but jeans zoomed into popular culture in the 1970s–I remember desperately wanting my first pair of jeans when I was in high school. But they were ridiculously expensive back then. And all the girls at school wanted a pair of Jordache jeans, the only jeans you could be seen in.
These days, my favourite jeans are Jeggings. 
We’re a couple of weeks away from the release of The Unaccompanied Widow, so today I’m giving you a good-sized excerpt from the beginning of the story.
Excerpt
EXCERPT FROM
THE UNACCOMPANIED WIDOW
COPYRIGHT © TRACY COOPER-POSEY 2021
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Calafort Átha Cliath (Dublin Port), Dublin, Ireland. Midday, July 9th, 1907.
It had been not quite a year since Adele had accompanied King Edward on an official visit to Germany. She had dreaded that journey, which had been utterly uneventful. Even the King himself had failed to achieve his hoped-for agreement from the Kaiser.
Now Adele was part of the King’s entourage again and this royal visit could not be more unlike that one, for it had become an unmitigated disaster even before the royal yacht had departed—and they were still to set foot upon Irish soil.
Adele clutched the rail of the top promenade deck and watched the grey, choppy waters of Dublin Port pass beneath the bow of the ship. On either side of the royal yacht, dozens of smaller craft tooted their steam whistles and their passengers waved and cheered. Two tugs guided the ship to its berth, their smokestacks chuffing.
It was an overcast day, the clouds grey and low enough that one might reach up and prod their rain-filled bellies. A stiff, chill breeze blew across the open water, stinging Adele’s cheeks and bringing with it the scent of salt and seaweed accompanied by a hint of thick, over-heated diesel oil and the stench of sun-dried fish.
The bleak outlook matched Adele’s mood. She would much rather be sitting before the fire in her little house in London, the teapot beside her, than here on the royal yacht. In this respect, the outing to Ireland was no different from the royal visit to Germany last year. She had no wish to be among the King’s entourage this time, either.
Adele’s reluctance stemmed from different reasons today…or perhaps not, in the end, were her reasons all that much different, for on both occasions she had not wished to linger near King Edward.
By rights, Edward and Queen Alexandria should be upon this deck, waving to their Irish subjects as the ship was tugged along the narrow port. But Edward was in a fine temper over the loss of the Irish Crown Jewels, which had been reported only two days before the court was due to leave for Ireland. Edward interpreted the theft as a direct insult to the Crown, coming so close to his attendance at the Irish International Exhibition. He had ignored the evidence which suggested the jewels might have been stolen weeks before. Instead, he snapped at everyone and had grown mulish.
He had demanded the investiture of the second Baron Castletown into the order of St. Patrick, when the jewels would have been worn, be cancelled. Refusing to step out upon the deck where Dubliners could see him was only the latest outburst.
Adele had tried to ignore the small voice in her mind which suggested the King’s unpredictable mood resembled the tantrums her son had once showered upon her. It felt disloyal to compare the King’s behavior to that of a two-year-old.
Her thinning empathy for the King’s upset had pushed her out into the bracing sea air in search of a more positive perspective. After forty minutes of gazing at the city they approached, with her cheeks numb and her nose frozen, Adele still could not rid herself of the bleak, unsettled feeling which sat upon her shoulders and stirred her belly.
“Oh, do stop hedging!” she railed at herself, only to have her words whipped away by the wind. Even here, deep inside the port, the wind still whistled. “Say it, Adelaide Becket. You’re afraid.”
“Is it all of Dublin you address, Lady Adelaide, or simply the gulls?” The man’s voice came from behind her. The wind had hidden the sounds of his approach, but Adele knew the voice and her heart sank a little lower.
She turned and gave Pureton a polite smile, the best she could manage with her uncooperative cheeks. “Why, it must be the gulls I speak to,” she told him brightly. “For addressing an entire city is the province of the King.”
“A prerogative of which he will not partake, today.” Sir Godfrey Dale, Baron Pureton, Assistant Private Secretary to the Crown, leaned upon the varnished wood of the railing with a deep sigh. He was a tall, spare man in his late sixties. His hair was thick, but completely white. His full beard and moustache were just as snowy, and outlined a sharp chin and thin cheeks above hawk-like cheekbones and a long, elegant nose. His eyes were pale blue, and sharp with intelligence. The high forehead added to the elongated length of him.
“The King will remain aboard until tomorrow, then?” Adele guessed. The first official duty of the King’s was to attend the Exhibition on the morrow, now that this afternoon’s investiture had been cancelled.
“You were proclaiming to the gulls about fear, I believe?”
He was changing the subject. Pureton was immovably loyal to the King, to the point of utter blindness when it was necessary. Adele supposed that was an ideal trait for an Assistant Private Secretary.
But now that left her to answer a question she had no wish to respond to. “Oh, a new city, new faces…I am too much a homebody, Sir Godfrey.”
He glanced at her. “You did not seem to mind the novelties of Berlin,” he pointed out.
Adele clutched the railing with both hands as the entire ship shuddered as it kissed the wharf. Dock workers shouted to each other as ropes were tossed and secured about bolls.
Most of the entourage surrounding the King presumed Adele was among them to purportedly serve Queen Alexandra, while actually serving the King’s private…appetites. There were very few people who knew her true role, but Pureton was one of them. She could answer truthfully if she wished.
Yet she hesitated. The reasons for her fear all seemed…weak. Feminine.
William Melville had slipped into her house mere hours before she was due to depart for King’s Cross Station to join the royal party upon the train which would take them to Holyhead overnight. He had picked up a piece of shortbread from the plate beside the teapot and broken the news to her that he would not be among those numbers.
“Not even as one of the crew?” Adele asked, alarmed. Melville was adept at posing as laborers, navvies and workers to linger unremarked and eavesdrop upon conversations presumed to be private, or to follow someone of interest. She had been attempting to learn from his example for over a year.
“I must travel to York tomorrow,” Melville told her. “There is something else I must attend to.”
“But…but that will mean I am on my own.” She sank upon the arm of the sofa, careless of the impropriety of such a casual pose. “When is Daniel due back?”
Daniel Bannister, Baron Leighton, was a beau of sorts, when he was not working for Melville, which was a rare occurrence, these days. He was currently in France, eavesdropping upon yet more conversations.
“Tuesday,” Melville replied. “You will be fine on your own, Lady Adele.”
She gripped her hands together. “But you have always been nearby…even at a distance,” she pointed out. “You or Daniel. You even turned up in Germany—don’t think I didn’t see you.”
“You did, hmm?” He looked both pleased and disturbed. “What gave me away?”
“You took a biscuit from a platter on the King’s buffet table.”
Melville looked down at the shortbread in his hand, put it back upon her plate and brushed his hands of crumbs. “The fact is, we’re spread too thin,” he said, with a candid air. “If I had another dozen men, I would spare one to accompany you, but there it is. You’ll just have to rub along without us. We all have our duties.”
She clenched her hands even more tightly. “But what if something goes wrong?” she whispered.
“Then you must cope, Lady Adele. I will not have the King travel without one of us nearby to run interference should the Germans try something while he is away from England.”
She had not schooled her expression to complete neutrality, for his tone was milder as he added, “You have a perfectly good head upon your shoulders, and you have learned a great deal since you came to work for me. Keep your head and don’t act without thought. Besides, it is only Dublin.”
“Where Nationalists seethe and conspire,” she replied tartly.
“Leaving no elbow room for the Germans,” Melville said.
Adele gave up. She pushed the fingered piece of shortbread into Melville’s hand and saw him out, then closed down her house and travelled to the train station. Her heart had not completely steadied since then, and the King’s chancy temper had not improved the matter.
But she would not admit to Pureton that in Berlin, Melville had been close by if things should go wrong. In every assignment Melville had given her since she had met him, he or Daniel had been on hand, even if at a distance.
Pureton was very old-school. He believed women were quite unable to think for themselves. She knew he tolerated her presence near the King, because Edward liked her. Quite likely, he believed the rumors that the King was having an affair with her, too, for in Pureton’s regard, women were fit for little else.
Adele would not support his belief by admitting the source of her fear. Instead, she straightened and pulled the fur more firmly around her throat. “If the King is to remain aboard tonight, I believe I will find a hotel…if that suits you, Sir Godfrey?”
His smile was knowing. “With the Queen aboard, I do not believe your absence will be noticed. By all means, find your hotel, Lady Adelaide.”
She seethed, but made herself smile. “Is there an establishment you would recommend?”
“Indeed. The Shelbourne Hotel is highly respectable, frequented by most of the upper class.” He stood and touched the brim of his hat. “We shall see you at the Exhibition tomorrow, then.”
Adele brushed passed him and went to repack her trunk.
Lady Adelaide is on her own…
In Edwardian Britain, Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket, continues her work for William Melville, spymaster. Adele accompanies King Edward and Queen Alexandra to Dublin where the King will attend the Irish International Exhibition. Events go awry even before they depart England, for the Irish Crown Jewels are stolen and King Edward takes the theft as a personal insult to the Crown.
Then the renowned Irish MP, Eilish Slane, who is a personal friend of the King’s, is found murdered in a Dublin hotel. Adel attempts to investigate while navigating the shoals of the King’s temper, the actions of Irish Nationalists, the provocations of the British and Irish press, and the prejudices of men everywhere. And she must work alone, for Melville and his cohorts remain in England…
This novelette is the third in the Adelaide Becket Edwardian espionage series.
1: The Requisite Courage
2: The Rosewater Debutante
3: The Unaccompanied Widow
…and more to come.
A historical suspense espionage novelette.
Get your copy a week early
The story is available for pre-order right now from all retailers. If you pre-order your copy directly from me, you will get the story a week before everyone else. That is, next week.
Buy From Me @ SRP!
Buy from your favorite retailer!
Enjoy!
May 6, 2021
New historical suspense and cover reveal!
I’m getting some marvelous feedback about the Adelaide Becket series, from readers and from professional reviewers, too.
Recently, Spy Guys and Gals reviewed the first two books in the series, stating:
My avocation is spy series and I am always on the lookout for new ones. I was also in the mood for something a bit different than the male-kick-butt story and was delighted to find this short, very fast read. I very much enjoy Adelaide Becket and hope she sticks around for a long time. I also hope the author continues to give us the adventures in the novelette format – the size of the stories is perfect for her escapades.
In the meantime, Book 3 of the series is now out for pre-order.
But first — the cover!
More of Dar Albert’s magic!
Lady Adelaide is on her own…
In Edwardian Britain, Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket, continues her work for William Melville, spymaster. Adele accompanies King Edward and Queen Alexandra to Dublin where the King will attend the Irish International Exhibition. Events go awry even before they depart England, for the Irish Crown Jewels are stolen and King Edward takes the theft as a personal insult to the Crown.
Then the renown Irish MP, Eilish Slane, who is a personal friend of the King’s, is found murdered in a Dublin hotel. Adel attempts to investigate while navigating the shoals of the King’s temper, the actions of Irish Nationalists, the provocations of the British and Irish press, and the prejudices of men everywhere. And she must work alone, for Melville and his cohorts remain in England…
This novelette is the third in the Adelaide Becket Edwardian espionage series.
1: The Requisite Courage
2: The Rosewater Debutante
3: The Unaccompanied Widow
…and more to come.
A historical suspense espionage novelette.
You can now pre-order the book from anywhere, but if you pre-order directly from me, you get the book a week before anyone else does. That is, you get your copy on May 27th, while everyone else has to wait until June 3rd.
Buy From Me @ SRP!
Buy from your favorite retailer!
In a few weeks’ time, I’ll run an excerpt for you. Stay tuned!
Enjoy!
April 29, 2021
20% off everything is here again
It’s the end of April already. I feel like a stuck record–I tend to exclaim “Oh, it’s here already” every month! These days I’m so busy writing, editing and publishing, that the days roll by faster each month.
It’s the SRP monthly 20% off sale. The sale starts today, and ends at midnight MDT May 2nd.
All books, stories, boxed sets, even those already discounted, are included in the sale. You can re-use the coupon over and over, too–as long as it’s on one of the four days.
And you will still earn loyalty points, too. (Your balance will show at the checkout.)
First, copy the coupon code:
DE45RK9R
Then head over to the SRP site to browse.
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Tracy
April 15, 2021
My Brilliant Idea — Christmas romances!
This is a little bit off center, but it struck me as a great idea.
I’m editing a Christmas Romance anthology that will be out in late October. At the moment, writers are prepping to submit their stories to me.
And here’s where the brilliant idea comes in.
Who would YOU like to see in the anthology? What would make the ideal collection of stories for you? These will be contemporary romance Christmas stories.
If there is an author you know who you would like to see in the anthology, then send this link to them and urge them to submit: https://storiesrulepress.com/christmas-romance-digest-2021-call-for-submissions/
Isn’t it a great cover? Dar Albert’s brilliance shines yet again.
Enjoy!
April 8, 2021
Rolling up my sleeves for Spring Cleaning…and Rosewater Debutante is out!
As I write this, Alberta is being whipped about by a storm–a bit of snow, some rain, and lots of wind. Last night we had a rumble of thunder, too.
I’ve noticed that somewhere in the changeover of the seasons, from winter to summer and from summer to winter, there is always a few days of high winds, somewhere around the solstice. It’s like the weather is gearing up for the new season, sweeping out the old one and settling into the next six months.
We’re sort of doing that in our household, too. We have opened the windows on warmer days, the first time this year — and believe me, for Alberta, late March being warm enough to open windows is pretty damn good.
And it’s around this time of the year when the daylight is stronger and windows are open that I begin to notice the dust and debris that has accumulated over the winter.
I am a deplorable housewife. I would much rather be writing or reading, than cleaning. Although I do like a clean house, so sometimes I stir myself to a Herculean marathon of cleaning, before returning to my computer. I’ll enjoy the clean house for a while until the dust rebuilds, then remain vaguely unhappy until the dust and dirt and clutter has built to such a degree, I can’t stand it any more. Then the cycle starts over again.
But in Spring, I really notice the dirt that you usually don’t see. And I’ve come to the realization, very late in life, that this is why “Spring cleaning” is a thing.
I had to move to North America, where there were four distinct season, to understand the term fully, but now I get it.
And I can’t wait to pull all the rugs in the house outside and beat the crap out of them.
But I’m putting off actually doing it until I’ve got the current book written.
—
Today is the release day for The Rosewater Debutante–Book 2 in the Adele Becket historical suspense series.
Adele learns just how ruthless German agents can be.
In Edwardian England, Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket, continues her work for William Melville, spymaster, even though it has left her with no time to live the life she would prefer, which includes spending at least a little time with Daniel Bannister.
When she refuses to travel to Germany to watch over King Edward while he visits the German Emperor to discuss disarmament of their increasingly more competitive navies, Melville gives Adele an alternative, superficial task of watching over a young, sweet debutante, Lady Winnifred.
Adele perseveres with the useless, quite horrid task of trailing an innocent girl through the Season. It puts her in the path of German agents, who demonstrate just how dark and dangerous her new work really is…
This novelette is the second in the Adelaide Becket Edwardian espionage series.
1: The Requisite Courage
2: The Rosewater Debutante
…and more to come.
A historical suspense espionage novelette.
Buy From Me @ SRP!
Buy from your favorite retailer!
Enjoy!
March 30, 2021
Two + Two 20% off *Everything* Sale, now starting!
…and we’re back to the end of the month. Lordy, it’s scary how fast it comes around.
It’s the SRP last two days + first two days of the month 20% of Everything sale. Everything (including pre-orders, boxed sets, literally everything) is on sale for the next four days, ending at midnight MDT on April 2nd.
Copy this coupon:
GPMHB7C7And then head to the SRP store to browse and make your selection.
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Tracy
March 25, 2021
Historical Suspense goodness–read the start of the book right here.
I’m changing things up a little. I don’t usually run the first chapter of an upcoming release here on the blog. So let’s see how this goes.
Two weeks before a release, I generally provide the entire first chapter of a book for my readers to check out. The upcoming release, The Rosewater Debutante, is a novelette and doesn’t have chapters, so I’m providing the first major sequence of the story, instead.
Excerpt
EXCERPT FROM
THE ROSEWATER DEBUTANTE
COPYRIGHT © TRACY COOPER-POSEY 2021
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
John Brown Shipyards, Glasgow, 7th June, 1906.
Adele was quite far away from the front of the crowd of well-dressed people pressing up against the railing. All she could see of the HMS Lusitania between the roof of the observation deck and the heads of the people in front of her was a great black wall of iron and rivets which did not seem to be moving.
Yet everyone cheered madly, clapped and made little hopping motions, as if they really would jump about and squeal if they were not the cream of British society.
Champagne had been smashed against the bow by Mary, the widow of Lord Inverclyde. Inverclyde had hammered home the first rivet on the Lusitania nearly two years ago. Cameras popped, foul-smelling smoke rising from the bright lights held in the hands of the camera operators, only to be whisked away by the fresh breeze.
Adele had not attended a ship launch before, but she suspected that what was meant to happen now was that the ship would slide backward down the slipway into the River Clyde, which twinkled in the bright afternoon sun.
“It’s not moving,” Adele muttered to herself. Her invitation to the launch of the newest of the Cunard transatlantic ships had not extended itself to include a companion, so she stood alone at the back of a group of six hundred guests who had traveled to Scotland to attend the launch, leaving her with only herself to converse with.
As it happened, she knew nearly everyone on the observation deck, and could have worked her way into a conversation with any of them. Since the affair at Balmoral, three months ago, she was a sought-after member of society. Silent and invisible word of the King’s approval of her had moved through the ton. The ignominious exclusion she had been facing because she had dared to marry a commoner had been cancelled because King Edward had a roving eye and an appreciation for a pretty ankle.
Only, she did not wish to converse. She really did not want to be here at all. The launch of the Lusitania was just the last in a long line of events, affairs, intimate gatherings, small dinners for hundreds, balls and soirees she had attended since March. Cream envelopes with seals and embossing and elegant, flourish-filled script slid through the front door of her little house in Mayfair every day. What had been just one or two of the little, almost-square missives had become a pile scattered across the Turkish rug which required two or three trips to the dining table to carry them all.
William Melville surveyed her invitations each morning after breakfast, before she settled in to write acceptances or find a polite way to convey her regrets. It was he who had insisted she travel to Scotland for this latest affair. Adele would much rather have stayed in her little house for several days in a row, or perhaps even a fortnight, with no requirement to speak pleasantly, keep the order of precedence firmly in mind at all times, or keep her back straight.
She could not remember the Season being so draining, when she had been a debutante.
Therefore she lingered at the back of the observation deck, getting in the way of the staff carrying trays of full champagne glasses and little petits fours, her mood dark.
“Oh, the ship is moving, I assure you, my Lady,” a male voice said, from her left and just behind her.
Adele glanced over at the man. He was a stranger to her, but his dress was not that of a servant, or one of the dock workers who climbed up to the deck to speak to the John Brown and Company officials. He wore a very proper grey suit and matching hat, a pristine white collar and his sober tie held not a hint of brown in it, which would have clashed with the suit. His overcoat had a fur collar, nothing elaborate—vicuna, perhaps.
His grey eyes twinkled at he considered her from under the brim of his hat. “The HMS Lusitania weighs over thirty thousand tons. It takes a while for anything that heavy to get moving.”
Adele adjusted the fur stole around her neck, pushing the tail back over her shoulder. “I don’t believe we have met,” she said coldly.
“Because we have not,” the man replied. He didn’t seem at all bothered by the impropriety, either. He swayed slightly toward her, as if he was sharing an intimacy, even though he stood a good three paces away from her, and staff passed between them. “I am not an invited guest,” he added.
Adele drew back, horrified. “You…you just climbed up here?” She reassessed the man swiftly. He was as well dressed as any of the gentlemen on the deck and he was not young, either, for which one might forgive such daring. His cheeks and the corners of his eyes had fine lines and his beard held a great deal of white, while his thick moustache was grey.
The grey eyes were close set on either side of a slightly uneven nose, but they were warm with humor as he gave a soft laugh, displaying even, white teeth. “Oh, I am permitted to be here, my Lady.” He hefted a leather-bound notebook in his left hand. His thumb held a pencil against the spine between open pages. She saw notes and little sketches on the pages. “I work for the Times newspaper. They have asked me to report upon the launch.”
Relief trickled through her. “I see,” she said, keeping her tone cool.
“And look.” He nodded toward the wall of iron, with its gleaming coat of fresh new paint. “There she goes.”
Adele looked back at the ship. It was moving, now, and the cheering and clapping intensified. She watched as the ship slid to her left, the seams of the hull passing by with increasing speed. “It—she, I mean—she seems to be moving away from us. I mean, not just down the slipway, but sideways, too.”
“That is because she is.” The man gestured toward her. “May I?”
“If you do not intend to copy anything I say into that notebook of yours, you may.”
He moved closer, so that they stood together on the deck, but there was still a good foot of space between them. “The Lusitania is nearly eight hundred feet long.”
“I see.” She did not.
“That is nearly three football fields, end to end,” he added.
“Oh…that is long.” She studied the ship sliding past them with even greater interest.
“It is,” he said. “The ship is longer than the river is wide here in Clydeside. They couldn’t back the ship straight into the river the way they might one of their little steamers. The slip was built at an angle, so the ship can slide into the river along its length, rather than its width. That is why it appears to be moving away from us.”
It was quite simple, once one was acquainted with such little facts. “Thank you, that makes a great deal of sense,” Adele admitted.
They watched the ship move majestically down the slip. The prow of the boat, which had looked as sharp as a knife when she had stared at the great ship from the window of her cab when she had arrived at the docks, was actually a rounded edge. The hole where the anchor would sit was empty, for now, and much larger than she had assumed it to be.
Everyone leaned out and looked to their left as the ship moved down the slip. Now Adele could see the edge of the hull beneath the roof of the observation deck. There was little to see above the hull. A deck and the beginnings of superstructure, but there were no funnels yet, and the luxury interiors the Cunard line had promised were yet to be installed.
“She will be rather magnificent, once she is properly finished,” Adele murmured.
“But not the most luxurious,” the man replied. “Have you not heard? Cunard are building a second luxury ship, in Wallsend.” He lifted his notebook. “The HMS Mauretania.”
Adele considered the man. “I would say that you are uncommonly well informed, but I suppose it is part of your work as a journalist to know everything.”
“Oh, not everything. For instance, I do not know who you are, my Lady, and as there is no one I am acquainted with here on the deck, that is a gap in my knowledge which must linger.”
“Yet you speak to me, despite the lack of formal introduction.”
“But that is part of my work, too, you see.” His eyes were twinkling yet again.
“There are five hundred and ninety-nine other guests at this launch. You have spoken to all of them?”
At the front of the deck, the guests leaning against the railing straightened and a great cheer went up.
“She’s fully in the water now,” the journalist guessed, for neither of them could see anything from this far back on the deck.
Adele remained silent, waiting for the man to answer her question.
He had the intelligence to not avoid her question. He closed his notebook with a decisive slap of paper. “The other five hundred and ninety-nine guests are not standing by themselves at the back of the deck where they can see very little. Nor are they looking…disgruntled.”
“Ah.” She grimaced, then said in a rush, “I’m not entirely sure how one goes about introducing themselves.”
“You’ve never had to do it for yourself?”
“Oh, I did it all the time in the Cape Colony, but that is South Africa and things were a little more relaxed there.”
“And how would you introduce yourself to a stranger in the Cape Colony?”
She considered, recalling the many times she had met someone. “I would say to them, ‘I am Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket’.”
“And they would say?”
“They would usually look confused and ask me what they should call me,” she admitted.
He laughed. “I am Phillip Cowden, Esquire.” He bowed his head. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Adelaide.”
A commoner. Not upper class, not if he was employed. Upper middle class, then. Adelaide nodded at him, her hat brim bobbing. “Thank you for your illuminating comments upon the Lusitania, Mr. Cowden.”
“Lady Adelaide! Adele!” The high-pitched voice made Adele swallow a groan, for it was coming closer.
She painted a wide smile upon her face and turned to face Miriam Lynwood. “Miriam, dear, how delightful! I didn’t know you were here.” Since Balmoral, Miriam had acted as though she and Adele had been friends forever, when they had only known each other for a few short years before Adele’s marriage. Royal approval drew leeches.
Miriam Lynwood held her arms out and leaned toward Adele for the empty kiss beside her cheek. They did it carefully, for Miriam’s hat brim was just as wide as Adele’s.
“Isn’t it a simply enormous boat?” Miriam exclaimed. “Maybury wants to book passage upon her for the maiden voyage, but that means actually visiting America.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “New York,” she added in an undertone, her distaste dripping.
Adele barely managed to not roll her eyes. “New York is a very pleasant city, Miriam.”
“Good lord, don’t tell me…you’ve actually been there?” Miriam put her gloved hands to her cheeks. “Oh dear, I do forget. You lived in that dreadful place in Africa. New York would seem heavenly after that, I suppose.”
Cowden cleared his throat. “I must speak to the Chairman of Cunard, Lady Adelaide.” He gave another bow of his head and threaded his way between the guests, who were now moving away from the railing, clumping together for conversation and for more champagne.
Miriam paid no attention to the man, which was proper, for she would not know who he was, either. She turned back to Adele and gripped her wrist. “Come with me, Adele,” she said firmly. “Esther and Mary have been cornered by that dreadful Lady Penryn and her two daughters…you know, the poor dears with the buck teeth. We simply must rescue Esther and Mary.”
Adele very nearly lodged her heels into the temporary boards of the observation deck, a silent scream of protest building in her middle. How had she thought such vapid conversations and intrigues to be so delightful? Yet this had been her life, once.
Adele learns just how ruthless German agents can be.
In Edwardian England, Lady Adelaide Azalea Margaret de Morville, Mrs. Hugh Becket, continues her work for William Melville, spymaster, even though it has left her with no time to live the life she would prefer, which includes spending at least a little time with Daniel Bannister.
When she refuses to travel to Germany to watch over King Edward while he visits the German Emperor to discuss disarmament of their increasingly more competitive navies, Melville gives Adele an alternative, superficial task of watching over a young, sweet debutante, Lady Winnifred.
Adele perseveres with the useless, quite horrid task of trailing an innocent girl through the Season. It puts her in the path of German agents, who demonstrate just how dark and dangerous her new work really is…
This novelette is the second in the Adelaide Becket Edwardian espionage series.
1: The Requisite Courage
2: The Rosewater Debutante
…and more to come.
A historical suspense espionage novelette.
Get your copy a week early
The Rosewater Debutante is currently available for pre-order, and will be released on all retail bookstores on April 8.
You can get a copy a week earlier than that–in other words, next Thursday!–if you pre-order your copy directly from me. Click on the SRP link, below, to jump to the store and get your copy.
Or, if you prefer to buy all your books from one retailer, you can pre-order from any bookstore. Click on the other link to select your preferred store and get your copy.
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Enjoy!
