Jude Knight's Blog, page 4

Tea with a scandalous woman

Eleanor, the Duchess of Winshire, was reserving judgement.

The Duke of Kempbury was coming to visit, and bringing with him his new duchess. Some were whispering, with approval, that he had finally wed the lady to whom he had been ten years ago. Others assured their friends that they’d had doubts about that betrothal at the time. A duke marrying the daughter of a mere gentleman? And not even the legitimate daughter, but the child of a long ago mistress, whom he and his wife had raised with their own daughter.

Eleanor had been sympathetic at the time. She firmly believed that a child should not be blamed for the sins of his or her parents, and Adaline Fairbanks had been raised as a lady.

Then came the scandal, ending the betrothal, justifying the critics and casting Miss Fairbanks into Society’s outer darkness. Those who had stirred the scandal broth at the time were doing so again now that Adaline was finally the Duchess of Kembury.

Hence Kempbury’s call on Eleanor yesterday, to assure her that the betrothal had been broken over a misunderstanding, that the scandalous encounter had been a plot against Adaline, and that his lady was innocent.

Eleanor had to wonder whether he had been duped. After all, credible witnesses placed Adaline Fairbanks in an intimate embrace with the Duke of Richport. However, Kempbury was no fool. He insisted that Eleanor would understand all if she only spoke to his wife.

So here she was. Waiting to have tea with a scandalous lady.

They would be here any moment. Eleanor resolved that, whatever had happened in the past, she would support Kempbury. And his duchess, too, if that lady could convince Eleanor that she was a fit mate for duke. Scandal could always be turned around, when a person knew how to manage it.

 

The Lyon’s Dilemma

Felix Seward, Duke of Kempbury, does not want to be at a house party. Any house party, particularly one attended by her. Adaline Beverley. His nemesis. His Achilles heel. The one woman put on God’s earth to lure him from his duty. But Kempbury’s purpose is strong. Nothing she can offer will tempt him from his chosen path.

Only 99c until July 30th.

 

 

Spotlight on The Lyon’s Dilemma – published this coming Wednesday

She shattered his heart—now she’s his perfect match.

Felix Seward, Duke of Kempbury, does not want to be at a house party. Any house party. But the matchmaker Mrs. Dove Lyon has promised him that his perfect match will be there, and Felix yearns for a wife.

He is horrified to find that the woman who meets the matchmaker’s description is Adaline Beverley. His nemesis. His Achilles heel.

The one woman on God’s earth he will never marry. Not after what she did last time they were betrothed.

Published July 30th

Excerpt

Felix did not go back to the house. More than ever, he needed to be alone. He needed to think. He took a path that led further out into the park. His mind was reeling.

In his country seat, Felix had a miniature of himself as a child of nine or ten. Melody Beverley could be that child’s twin, green eyes and all. It was easy to tell where her name had come from, for Adaline had once told him that her mother’s name was Melody.

Felix remembered everything she had told him in the brief few weeks of their romance. Everything she said and did, though his memories were colored by what came after.

He should have expected her to be a wanton. She was, after all, the baseborn child of Arthur Fairbanks and his mistress, even if she was raised in the Fairbanks house with the legitimate daughter. She had been honest with him about that even from the first.

He had admired her for it, he remembered, had said that he was a duke and could do anything he pleased short of treason, had said she would be a duchess and—even if people did find out about her tarnished birth—it wouldn’t matter, because she would be ranked above all but the queen and the royal princesses, and a score or so of other duchesses.

Even when she came to his bed, he didn’t despise her for it. They had made promises to one another, after all. He had thought only that she loved him too much to wait, or to make him wait, for them to repeat those vows in a church.

He had, at the time, believed her to be a virgin, though he had doubted that later. Whether or not it was true, he could no longer doubt that the child—of whose existence he had so recently learned—who went by the surname of Beverley was conceived on that night.

She was his daughter, and Adaline had kept her from him.

Felix was, he realized, being a little unfair. She had visited him at his townhouse and been turned away. She had written to him twice, and he had ordered the letters returned, refusing even to touch them.

He did not feel like being fair. He did not know how he felt, in fact. His mind, heart—his soul even—echoed with the beat of the repeated words. I have a daughter.

A daughter who was four months past her ninth birthday, if she was born nine months or so after the night that Felix and Adaline spent together. Felix had missed more than nine years of her life. It hurt more than he could bear, like an ache over his entire being. He felt as if he had missed her all his life, though two days ago, he had not even known she existed. “Adaline will not keep me out of my daughter’s life anymore,” he swore.

Melody. She seemed a nice child. She spoke politely and curtseyed beautifully, and there was obvious affection between her and her mother.

But was Adaline a fit person to raise a child? A daughter? If he did not intervene, would he not be condemning his own child to the kind of life Adaline must have lived? Condemning some poor fool to the kind of betrayal he had experienced?

He could take Melody from Adaline, citing her immoral conduct as a reason. The legal ground would be shaky, but he had no doubt he could succeed. Wealthy dukes had few limits. But was it the right thing to do?

No child deserved to lose a loving, even if unfit, . Felix did not remember his own mother, but he had seen his sister-in-law Dorcas with his nephew Stephen and her new baby. The impersonal attention of servants was no replacement for maternal affection.

No matter how far he walked, he could not make up his mind. “Felix, you need more facts,” he decided, as he made his way back towards the house. “Talk to Mrs. Stillwater. Talk to others who know Adaline. Talk to Adaline herself, as distasteful as that may be, to Melody. You are no longer a cub, still wet behind the ears. You won’t be taken in again.”

Felix was not altogether confident about the last point. Even with everything he knew about her, he still felt the tug in Adaline’s direction. But he was a man in his thirties, a respected peer, and a gentleman. He could trust himself to resist Adaline’s wiles and to do the right thing.

Couldn’t he?

 

 

 

Making a spark

Every time I need light in a bedchamber or a carriage in one of my stories, I have to remind myself that the easy light we have grown up with was late coming.

Magic, mystery or mayhem on WIP Wednesday

Another excerpt from The Night Dancers, which I will finish before the end of this month. Finish to beta draft, that is. It is due for publication in December. My heroine has been sent to join the marquess’s sons in their tower prison, and ordered to discover their secrets.

***

The evening meal arrived at seven o’clock—merely bread and water, as the previous investigators had told her. But as they had said, the brothers produced wine from somewhere, and even a pot of soup.

By magic, two of the agents had claimed. Through collusion with the servants, another hypothesized. The fourth had been too badly beaten to express an opinion, and it would only have been an opinion, for none of the investigators had discovered any evidence.

The marquess had found no wine nor any food when he had had the tower searched after each investigator reported. Indeed, many of the items she had seen in the bedchambers had apparently disappeared between when the other investigators saw them, and when the searches were made.

Magic was unlikely, in Mel’s opinion. She’d certainly never seen objects appear and disappear in a way that defied nature. The tower must have hiding places that the marquess knew nothing about, and if it had hiding places, it might also have hidden ways in and out.

Though if that is the case, why do the marquess’s sons stay? Why do they not just run away?

Mel accepted a glass of the wine, but made certain to spill it discreetly, for the other investigators must have been drugged somehow, no matter how they denied it. The soup was served from a common pot, so should be safe enough.

Mel returned to her room after dinner, and drank sparingly from the water she had brought with her. She then sat in the chair by the room’s little fireplace, for her intention was to remain awake and thoroughly search at least the public rooms once the brothers had all gone to bed.

Although I am feeling remarkably sleepy. That was her last conscious thought.

When she woke up, her head ached and her thoughts moved sluggishly, as if through a fog. Light was filtering in around the edges of her drapes, and she could hear the muffle hum of conversation.

She forced herself to sit up, hoping it would help. Pain stabbed at her temples, and the room seemed to reel around her for a dizzying moment, but then stabilized. In the dim light, she could see this was not the room at her sister’s house, where she lived between assignments.

Oh yes. The tower. The marquess’s sons. They must have managed to drug her, despite her precautions! Well, then. From now on, she’d eat only what she had managed to bring with her in the hidden compartment of her bag, and drink only water.

She pulled back the curtain nearest the bed. From the light, it was early morning. What were the brothers doing out of bed?

Mel wasn’t at all certain she could walk across the room, so she crawled, and opened the door just a crack. Not enough to see, but enough that the voices from below floated up to her ears.

“Ought you to check on Black?” That was Lord Kemble.

“I won’t disturb him. I gave him enough of the drug to knock him out for the night, but he could be stirring about now.” That was Lord Baldwin—the one with medical text books and herbals on his bookshelf. “If we leave him alone, he might sleep as late as we do.”

“Then let’s all go to bed,” Kemble said. “A good night’s work, brothers.”

A night’s work doing what?

Footsteps on the stairs to the second level had her closing the door quickly. Presumably, the Sheppard brothers were all heading to bed. Let them. Then Mel would be able to examine the tower’s public spaces. Meanwhile, her head was spinning. She had better not lie down lest she went back to sleep. But surely it would not hurt to sit down again for a while?

Spotlight on The Knight Falls First

The Knight Falls First is volume 7 in the Ladies Least Likely, a series of romances set in Georgian Britain featuring ambitious, determined women and the heroes who win their hearts. Knight is the sequel to the first book in the series, Viscount Overboard, and continues where that book ends.

The Knight Falls First

Anne Sutton has the beauty and breeding to make a gentleman’s wife, but not the dowry. When her parents offer her to the vile Calvin Vaughn, Anne does something a gentleman’s daughter would never do: she decides to ruin herself. And the best means at hand is Calvin’s prodigal older brother, Hew, lately returned from war.

Hewitt Vaughn is either the hero of Acre or under a cloud of disgrace—he’s yet to find out which. He’s home to recover from his wounds and take charge of the family estates; stealing his brother’s fiancée is decidedly not a way to redeem himself. But when the lovely, desperate Anne entreats Hew’s help, how can he, as a man of honor, deny her?

When Anne’s plan spectacularly backfires, the only solution is a forced marriage—to each other. But as she makes a home in Newport, Anne wonders if Hewitt Vaughn is the smartest mistake she ever made. And Anne might be the future he never dreamed he could have, but to win her, Hew has to persuade her he would have chosen her anyway—and he’ll have to defeat the dangerous enemy who wants to take everything from them, including one another.

Excerpt from The Knight Falls First:

The newcomer drew in a breath as the surge of voices rose to an excited babble. His gaze went to the hall leading to the refectory. “It’s time for the reckoning,” he said.

This ought to prove interesting. Anne wanted to see the impression this stranger made. More than that, she wanted to watch him a bit longer. He grew more prepossessing the more one looked at him, more discoveries to acknowledge and appreciate. There was something not quite right in the way he moved, though she couldn’t define what it was, and at any rate, as she turned toward the refectory, he was behind her. Hair prickled all over her scalp.

Why should she be so very conscious of his eyes on her, perceiving the cut of her gown, the drape of her shawl over her arms? She put a deliberate sway in her hips, a delicate, ladylike glide she’d been taught in endless grueling lessons in the Vine Court drawing room. Let him look. She wanted him looking.

The noise had resulted from the long, heavy refectory tables, there since the reign of Henry II, being moved aside to make room for dancing. Everyone in the room was on their feet, circulating excitedly, while musicians set up in one corner. Someone brought in Gwen’s traveling harp—Anne remembered her having it at Vine Court. She felt an imposter, an imposer on these revelries, watching from the outside but not part of the merriment.

And beside her this stranger, tall, lean, and alert, was an outsider, too.

“Oh, someone dropped a pin.” Anne spotted the small stick of bronze on the floor, about to roll between two flagged stones, and picked it up.

“The pin!” Prunella shrieked. “Anne found the pin!”

“The pin!” The cry spread, leaping from mouth to mouth like the sweep of wildfire. “The pin has been found!”

Anne stood bewildered. Pins were dear, yes, especially a bronze pin like this, but such an uproar. It must belong to someone important. Her heart took up its rabbit beat once again. Perhaps Lydia, the dowager Dowager Viscountess. Perhaps she would notice Anne at last and make a pet of her. Take her to London. Introduce her to men who were as handsome as this stranger, but less alarming in their manner. Perhaps she could marry someone proper and he would pay to keep her parents in their home.

Dovey clapped her hands. “Bodes a wedding!” she said with a smile. “Another wedding for St. Sefin’s.”

Gwen slung her way through the crowd toward them. “You found my pin!” she exclaimed. “That’s the custom, it is. You’re next to be married, Anne. Who’s the young man to be, then?” She turned to the newcomer with a frank, curious grin that faltered once she got a look at him.

A storm of wind shook through Anne’s head. Calvin Vaughn, back inside, pushed toward them like a fat pike swimming upstream. The smirk on his face was as smug and condescending as could be. He meant for Anne to marry him, and now this blasted pin was his opportunity to claim her.

Calvin marked the man standing beside Anne, and the smile dropped off his face.

The most curious silence followed the pin clamor. It spread swift and somber, like the ripples in a pond when something precious had been dropped and lost in it. The hush reached the edges of the room, including the head table, where Lord Penrydd stood, his eyes widening.

Beside him the Earl of St. Vincent shot to his feet, disbelief overtaking his placid features.

“You,” he exclaimed.

“Me,” the stranger agreed.

Lady Vaughn gave a scream like her soul had been torn from her body. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her limbs collapsed like a marionette clipped of its strings. Mr. Evans, Dovey’s new husband, caught her ladyship with his one good arm before she hit the floor.

Anne turned to regard the stranger. He started forward in a halting fashion, his eyes on Lady Vaughn, every line in his body as tight and pained as a rigged sail fighting the wind. The fragments of suspicion rushed together with a snap, and she knew him.

Calvin’s older brother, Lady Vaughn’s revered hero, Greenfield’s prodigal son and heir. Hewitt Vaughn.

Back from the dead.

Meet Misty Urban

Misty Urban is a medieval scholar, freelance editor, and college professor who writes stories about misbehaving women who find adventure and romance. Her Ladies Least Likely series of historical romances, set in Georgian Britain and beyond, feature headstrong heroines who set out to carve themselves a place in the world and find soul-searing love along the way. Misty lived for several years inside assorted books and academic institutions, and now lives in the Midwest in a little town on a big river. She loves to hear from readers and give away free stories through her newsletter and on her website, http://www.mistyurban.com

 

Who lived in the small manor houses of England?

I came across a video today, and thought it might interest some of you. Here’s a short from it. Playback of the full video on other websites has been disabled by the owner, but if you’d like a tour around some of the small manor houses of Dorset, and an explanation of their important role in the countryside, the youtube link is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEob6sdlo4Y

Family reunion on WIP Wednesday

I’m expecting The Secret Word back from the editor this week. Looking forward to it! Here’s an excerpt.

***

Chris waited anxiously in the private room at Miss Clemens’ Book Emporium and Tea Rooms. He was about to meet cousins from both sides of the family, and he was far from certain of the reception he was about to get.

Clem squeezed his hands and he smiled at her. He wasn’t at all certain he would be facing this if not for her. She gave him strength.

She had done so at Aunt Fern’s ball. Both his mother’s brother, the Earl of Crosby, and his father’s cousin, the Earl of Halton, were there. Later, he found that the public repudiation had been organised by Aunt Fern. But whether they meant it or not was the question.

Both reacted with the same disdain when Chris was presented to them.

Lord Halton said, “Reginald Satterthwaite’s son? I have no wish to meet anyone associated with that scoundrel.”

And Lord Crosby looked Chris up and down and declared, “No, thank you, Lady Fernvale. With all due respect, I see no reason to acknowledge this person.”

Chris wanted the floor to open up and swallow him, and then Clem had slipped her hand into his, and all was right with his world. He had not had their approbation before, and had not felt the need of it. He did not need it now.

Nonetheless, as the minutes ticked by, he acknowledged to himself his deep yearning for a family. He would have Clem, of course. Somehow. With or without Wright’s blessing. But, for as long as he could remember, he had longed for brothers and sisters or—failing them—cousins. Perhaps, if this meeting went well, his children with Clem might grow up knowing their cousins.

The first to arrive was Lord Crosby’s son, a tall man with that gaunt stretched look of a youth who was still growing—one who ate like a horse and put on no weight. “Are you the son of Reggie Satterthwaite, who ruined my father’s sister Christabel and ran off with her to Gretna Green?” he asked. “I am Michael Thurgood, Lord Crosby’s son and your mother’s nephew.”

He held out a hand to be shaken, so Chris figured his somewhat hostile first question could safely be ignored. “Clem,” he said, figuring a female—and a non-family member at that—might help to keep the conversation civil, “May I present my cousin Michael Thurgood? Thurgood, Miss Wright has done me the honor of accepting my suit. I have yet to convince her father.”

“Miss Wright.” Michael Thurgood’s nod was perfectly polite, but his attention remained on Chris.”

“Is it true, what Lady Fernvale said? That your grandfather abandoned you in the streets after your father died?” he demanded. “Father says he would have taken you in if you had come to him.”

Chris was about to protest that his nine-year old self had had no idea where the Earl of Halton lived, and no expectation of being welcomed, in any case. But they were interrupted by another arrival. A second man, this one around Chris’s age, so perhaps five or six years older than Thurgood.

Chris would have known him for a Satterthwaite even if he had not been expecting him. He look more like Reggie, Chris’s father, than Chris did, though his hair and complexion were fairer and his chin was firm and determined where Reginald Satterthwaite’s was weak. He wore the flashy uniform of a horse guard,

“If you’re Satterthwaite, so am I,” he growled. “Hello, Thurgood.”

Thurgood nodded. “Satterthwaite.” He gained a bit of respect from Chris when he then turned to Clem. “Miss Wright, may I make known to you Captain Satterthwaite of His Majesty’s 27th Regiment of Horse, and Satterthwaite, this is our cousin Christopher Satterthwaite and his betrothed, Miss Clementine Wright.”

As with Thurgood, Satterthwaite greeted Clem politely, but then turned his attention back to Chris.

“Is it true you did not go overseas with your grandfather? My father wants to know why you didn’t come to us. We would not have turned you away.”

“You did,” Chris said, dryly. “Or at least your grandfather had me and my grandfather thrown out of the house, and when my grandfather sent me on my own, the butler would not let me in.”

“You were nine or ten,” the guard’s officer said.

“I was nine.”

“You went back out into the road, and then what?”

“I ran back to where my grandfather had been, but he was gone. I called out for him. I asked other people if they had seen him. Then I ran down the street he’d left by. But I never found him.”

“I saw you,” Satterthwaite said. “I was watching from the schoolroom. You turned at the corner. Do you remember? You shook your fist at the house.”

“I did,” Chris said.  He had forgotten that detail until this moment. “I was angry with my grandfather and with yours.”

“It is you,” Satterthwaite said. “Chris, isn’t it? Chris, I’m Harry.

Backlist Spotlight on The Talons of a Lyon

With my next Lyon’s Den book, The Lyon’s Dilemma, out on July 30th, I thought it was time to remind you where it all began.
The death of Lady Frogmore’s neglectful and disloyal husband should have been a relief. But then her nasty brother-in-law seizes her three children and turns her out, telling the whole of Society that she is a crude, vulgar, loose woman. Without allies or friends, Serafina, Lady Frogmore, turns to Mrs. Dove Lyon, also known as the Black Widow of Whitehall for help, paying her with a promise to grant whatever favor Mrs Dove Lyon asks.

Lord Lancelot Versey has always tried to be a perfect gentleman, and a gentleman honors his debts, even when an unwise wager obliges him to escort a notorious widow into Society. But Lady Frogmore is not what he expects, and helping her becomes a quest worthy of the knight for whom he was named.

Except Mrs. Dove Lyon calls in Seraphina’s promise. The favor she asks might destroy all they have found together.

https://amzn.to/3YVLvPt

https://books2read.com/TToaL

This book is inspired by The Frog Prince. My Frog Princess needs someone to sponsor her into the ton.

Meet Lord Lancelot Versey

It was out of character for him to drink so much that he ended up wagering when he shouldn’t, but a night of celebration left him in debt to Mrs Dove Lyons. His forfeit? To do her a favour when she asked. And that favour was to help Serafina.

Meet Serafina, Lady Frogmore

She has lost her children to her deceased husband’s brother and faces a sea of rumours put about by that villain. She approaches Mrs Dove Lyons for help to put the rumours to rest so she can succeed in gaining access to her babies.

 

 

Lighting London

Family troubles on WIP Wednesday

I’ve just heard that The Secret Word will be back from the editor soon, so I thought I’d give you an excerpt.

***

“Yer young fella’s gaffer came by to threaten me today. Me! At my work! Happen I’ll lurn him that Bertram Wright ain’t to be pushed round by a useless blot of an upper crust snot rag. Says that scoundrel of a grandson is already betrothed!” Father was furious. His careful speech, much like that of the class he aspired for his grandson to join, had been slowly and thoroughly learned. It was very seldom that he slipped back into the words and accent of his youth.

Another sign of his anger was the way he was pacing, to and fro across the parlor rug.

Fortunately, Clem had already heard from Chris the probable topic that had so upset her father. “Our Mr. Satterthwaite was angry with his grandfather when we met this afternoon, Father. Apparently, the man turned up in Chr— Mr. Satterthwaite’s office this morning, demanding that Mr. Satterthwaite stop courting me as the older Mr. Satterthwaite had already signed a marriage agreement for Chris. Of course, Mr. Satterthwaite told him where he could put his plans.”

That stopped Father’s furious pacing. “He did? Yes, I suppose he did. Though the man is his grandfather.”

“The man abandoned our Mr. Satterthwaite sixteen years ago, when he was a child. To turn up now and dare suggest Chris owes him anything? Chris told him in no uncertain terms that whom he marries or does not marry is not the business of Mr. Satterthwaite senior, and he wants nothing to do with the man.”

“Is that right?” Father had taken up station in front of the fireplace, rocking back and forth, his hands in his pockets, and a smile on his face. His temper was gone as if it had never been.

“When are you seeing ‘Chris’. Tonight, is it?”

Father had not missed her slip of the tongue, then. It was too late to unsay it. She could do nothing more than hope he wouldn’t find a way to turn it to her disadvantage. Hers and Chris’s.

Honestly, why did the pair of them have to be cursed with such conniving selfish vicious old men?

“Yes, Father. He is escorting me to the Sutton ball.”

“Sutton as in the Earl of Sutton? That’s the Duke of Winshire’s heir.”

At her nod, he whistled. “Sutton, eh? You are flying high, Clementine, my girl. When Satterthwaite arrives, tell him I want to talk to you both before you go out.”

Clem could do nothing but agree, and wait with as much patience as she could muster for Chris to arrive.

Hours later—it seemed much longer—evening rolled around and with it came Chris, looking incredibly desirable in his black evening coat and silver-grey breeches and stockings, this time teamed with another waistcoat—this one in a dark blue silk brocade.

He must have chosen it to co-ordinate with her gown, which he had asked about during their afternoon drive. It was silver grey embroidered in dark blue, and was one of two new gowns she had had made. Father had reluctantly agreed to pay for a single new ball gown, but Clem had taken a leaf from Chris’s book and gone off Bond Street. The modiste was so reasonably priced compared to the Bond Street shop that Clem was able to purchase two.

“Father had a visit from your grandfather,” Clem told Chris.

“The vile old villain,” said Chris. “I should have expected it. What did he want?”

“Do you know? Father never said. I just assumed it was that you couldn’t marry me. I told him about Mr. Satterthwaite’s visit to you, and how you dealt with it. He cheered up, then. He wants to talk to us before he goes out, Chris, but he didn’t say what about.”

“We are about to find out, then,” Chris said, “for here he comes.”