Jude Knight's Blog, page 69

Tea with the proud parents

 

Her Grace of Haverford had decided to wait for the final decision at Chirbury House, to keep her goddaughter company and also, incidentally, to spend time cuddling the little boys whose fates were being decided today by the Committee of Privileges.

Stephen, currently Viscount Longford and Stocke, as eldest by thirty minutes and therefore heir to both his mother and his father, had recently learned to push himself up on his knees and then, tenuously, his hands. He rocked back and forth, looking tremendously pleased with himself, until he rocked too far and fell on his chin. While his mother and Eleanor were cooing over him, his brother John had been exercising his talent for exploration, having learned that he could roll to almost every corner of the room, and let out a wail when he trapped himself in the corner between a chest and the wall.

Once both were rescued, comforted, and returned to the rug, the two ladies continued their interrupted conversation. “As I was saying, I want them to have as normal a childhood as possible. I will always be grateful that Daisy had such a long time with no Society expectations on her, and I want that for the boys.” Anne was Countess of Chirbury by virtue of her marriage to Eleanor’s nephew and Countess of Selby in her own right, but had spent nearly a decade in hiding from her usurping uncle, pretending to be a humble widow and living on a shoestring with her sisters and little Daisy.

“They also need to grow up knowing their responsibilities,” Eleanor warned.

“And that is why I hope they can both carry equal honours,” Anne insisted. “If our petition is agreed, then they shall be equals, requiring the same education and training, both heirs to an earldom.”

Eleanor quite agreed. While younger brothers did not inherit in the world of the aristocracy, at least without some tragedy befalling the elder, she had seen much resentment even between those born years apart. The elder wanted the freedom of the younger; the younger the status of the elder. How much more when the twain were from a single birth, only an accident of position putting one before the other? Still, “Good parenting will help, my dear. You will not allow such jealousies in your nursery, and you will love them both equally.”

Anne smiled her thanks and agreement. “We will also help all our children, whatever their birth order and whether they are boys or girls, to find a purpose in life; something they are passionate about and good at doing.”

The nursery door opened and let in Rede, the Earl of Chirbury. “Anne, they have decided. The recommendation is going to the King. John is to be your heir, my love, just as we wanted.”

Anne flew to his arms, and Rede returned her hug as he smiled over her head at Eleanor. “It is a good day, Aunt Eleanor. You will thank His Grace for his support?”

Eleanor nodded. Haverford, like most of the peers involved,  had supported the petition to prevent too much power accumulating in the hands of one earl, even one related to him by marriage. Indeed, Rede had suggested the idea himself, appealing to their self interest. And it had worked!

Rede released his wife and strode to the baby boys, who were grinning and burbling to their father. In moments, they were tossed up, one onto each strong shoulder, to be spun around the room until all three were laughing helplessly. “Hannah!” the earl called to the beloved woman who ruled the nursery, “Meet Lord Longford and his brother, Lord Stocke!”

***

Rede and Anne have their story told in Farewell to Kindness. The twins appear in family scenes in later stories of the Golden Redepenning saga.

Under the Mistletoe on Spotlight on Sunday

 

Margaret’s father means to ensure her safety by finding her a widower with two small children who needs a wife. Not that he’s forcing the match, but he agrees to Margaret acting as the man’s hostess so she has a chance to know him better. But Captain Morledge’s possessiveness gives her pause, and there’s something about him she just can’t like. It’s another guest, a friend from her childhood, that makes her heart pound. But, of course, Freddy is now Lord Beacham and she a lowly vicar’s daughter. A match between them would be impossible.

The more Freddy finds out about Captain Morledge, the more he worries for Margaret’s future. And it isn’t just that he wants her for his own.

Under the Mistletoe is the second novel in Holiday Escapes, a collection of stories republished from the Bluestocking Belles 2015 box set, which has long been out of publication.

Read more about the box set and preorder from one of the buy links here.

The long shadow of war

The battle of Waterloo was touch and go; one of those victories where so many people die, that even the side that wins still loses. The casualty rate (dead, wounded and missing) was around 45% (of a total 185,000), and this was only the culminating battle in a long war with the French that lasted, with only small breaks, from 1789 until that great battle in 1815.

One of the most moving museum exhibitions I’ve ever been to was the Maori Battalion exhibition at the Rotorua Museum. The exhibits included diary notes and letters from military personnel, and video clips of interviews with them. In World War 1, over a third of those who served in the Battalion were killed or injured. In World War II, of 16,000 men who enlisted, 3,600 joined the Maori Battlion. Close to two-thirds were killed, wounded, taken prisoner or reported missing. The impact of the loss of two generations of young leaders (to death or to the after-effects of war) has been argued about for most of my lifetime. I remember one clip where the soldier interviewed talked about how, in the heat of war, he didn’t think about the number of his brothers-in-arms left behind buried in enemy soil. Then he came home, and saw the gaps in his community; saw the memorials in his wharenui (meeting house).

Deaths attributed to that long war involving France, the British and the rest of Europe are somewhere in the region of three plus million (military and civilian). What did that do to Europe, an area that, in 1800, had an estimated population of 150 million? Great Britain wasn’t fought of over, but it lost a staggering number of military personnel. It started the nineteenth century with not quite nine million people, and lost more than 300,000 soldiers and sailors in the next fifteen years. Think of it like this. Out of every 15 men, one died. That number doesn’t include the ones that keep turning up in my books–maimed, scarred, afflicted with nightmares.

My own generation was raised by people who went through the second world war, and theirs by the survivors of the first. On 11 November, when the military were left fighting right up to the time appointed for the armistice–even though peace had been more or less agreed for three days and signed for six hours–we do well to remember that the long shadow of war continues after the war ends.

 

Best friends on WIP Wednesday

Best friends are a great help to a writer. They give the hero or heroine someone to talk to, someone to support them, even someone to act on their behalf. In this week’s WIP Wednesday, I’m inviting authors to show us all an excerpt from your WIP with a best friend in it.

In mine, my heroine’s twin is meeting with the man who deserted her sister seven years ago, and who has suddenly reappeared in their lives.

The butler unbent enough to say, “Lady Sarah left for the country this morning, my lord.”

Nate knew it was no use, but he asked anyway, where she had gone and how long should be away.

As expected, the butler refuse to answer. “It is not my place to say, sir.”

Nate was turning away when he had another thought. The butler had said Lady Sarah had left. “Perhaps you could take my card up to Lady Charlotte? Tell her I would be grateful if she could spare me a moment of her time.”

He more than half expected the butler to explain that Lady Charlotte was also out of town. However, the man merely bowed, and asked him to wait. He ushered Nate into a small parlour, and carried off the card.

Nate tried to remember what Lady Charlotte was like. He had barely noticed her yesterday evening, his attention all on not embarrassing Lady Sarah or, for that matter, Libby, by staring at his long-lost love like a gawky youth. He had a vague impression that she was much of a size with her sister, but brown haired where Sarah was fair. In that golden summer when he and Sarah had become friends and then lovers, Charlotte had been ill with some embarrassing childhood illness; mumps, he thought. Sarah—at a loose end without her twin—had wandered the estate and come across the vicar’s son in the woods, rescuing a rabbit from a trap.

Nate had met Charlotte once before the day he was plucked from everything he knew, but he remembered little. Thoughts of Sarah had filled his every waking moment and fueled his dreams, and when he was with her, he was blind to everything else. No wonder Elfingham, the twins’ brother, had guessed what they were about.

He knew her most through Sarah’s descriptions. Loving, loyal, the best friend a sister could have. If she would talk to him, he could, perhaps, find out what he most needed to know.

“Lord Bencham. Have we met, sir?”

Nate spun round to face the lady who had just entered the room. A maid crept in behind her and took station in the corner, but Nate’s full attention was for Lady Charlotte. She was similar in size and build to Sarah, but on the surface, little else was the same. Except that, as she tilted her head to the side to examine him as he was examining her, the gesture and her thoughtful expression brought powerful memories rushing back.

“She used to look at me like that when she was irritated with me,” he blurted.

Some of the tension went out of Lady Charlotte’s shoulders, and one corner of her mouth twitched as if she suppressed a smile. “She, so our old governess used to say, is the cat’s mother.”

Nate felt his cheeks heat. “Lady Sarah, I mean. I beg your pardon. And yes, we have met, though it was many years ago.”

Lady Charlotte considered him for a moment longer, then waved to the chairs set around a low table. “Sit down, Lord Bencham. Tell me what brings you here.”

The answer was the same two words. “Lady Sarah.” Nate had so many questions he wanted to ask that he couldn’t think what to say first.

Lady Charlotte spoke before he could. “My sister is in the country. She is seeking a husband this Season, and hopes to narrow her short-list.”

A short-list of potential husbands? The room spun for a moment and Nate spoke before his brain connected with his tongue. “Me! I should be on her short-list.” Lady Charlotte raised her brows at him, and he realized he was shouting. He lowered his voice, but he couldn’t retract anything he had said. “Just me.”

 

Tea with Theo

Her Grace of Haverford paused in her journey at a property just outside of Oxford. Rambling and comfortable, and small by the standards of the houses where she was lady and chatelaine, it was a place she stopped at as often as possible. Dr and Mrs Wren always made her welcome. Dr Wren had been Jonathan’s tutor during that boy’s naughty career at Oxford, and Eleanor had taken to him and his wife from the moment she met them.

As always, Theodora Wren made her welcome, ushering her into the informal drawing room and sending a little maid for tea, refreshments, and her husband. “Theo, I must apologise for arriving unannounced,” Eleanor said. “I must be back on the road in half an hour, but I could not pass by your door without calling in.”

“I should think not indeed!” Theo replied. “You are looking well, Eleanor, if a little tired. How are your sons? And the dear little girls?”

They exchanged family news, and Eleanor was mightily entertained to hear of the romance of Theo’s niece Mary, who had come to escape one suitor, and finished marrying another. “Rick Redepenning,” Eleanor exclaimed. “I had not heard, Theo, and he is the son of my dear friend Lord Henry Redepenning, and cousin to my sister’s son, the Earl of Chirbury!”

Both women chuckled as Theo elaborated on the romance, including a rescue from a bird loft and the interesting incident involving a bride shape cut from gingerbread and a hungry horse.

***

You can meet Dr and Mrs Wren in Gingerbread Bride, a story in the collection Holiday Escapes, coming soon and currently on pre-order.

The Ultimate Escape in Holiday Escapes

On the eve of her wedding, Julia overhears a conversation that gives her doubts about why Oliver wants to marry her. Needing time to think things through, she uses a family secret to flee to the future. Oliver thinks her mother mad when Lady P. explains what Julia has done, but he follows her anyway. It’s his fault Julia is distraught. Besides, he cannot imagine life without her.

Two people from Regency England find adventure in modern London, but the greatest adventure will be learning one another’s hearts.

This delightful novella is the first story in Holiday Escapes, a collection of stories republished from the Bluestocking Belles 2015 box set, which has long been out of publication.

Read more about the box set and preorder from one of the buy links here.

Rotton boroughs and voting reform

The term ‘rotton borough’ was used in England from the eighteenth century. It meant an electoral district where population changes meant a tiny population that had a disproportionate number of Parliamentary representatives for its size. For example, Old Sarum, a borough on the land of the Pitt family, had three houses, seven voters and three Members of Parliament. William Pitt the Elder was one of those MPs. Another rotton borough was Appleby, which William Pitt the Younger was elected to represent when he was 21. The rotton boroughs were valuable properties, and sold for well over market price, since they included the right to more or less elect any Member of Parliament they chose.

At the same time, huge cities had no voters at all, since they had grown in places that historically had tiny populations.

At the time (and through until the late 19th century), voting in England was confined to men who own a certain amount of property. From the fifteenth century, all owners of land worth more than forty shillings were able to vote. Women weren’t specifically excluded, but for the most part they didn’t own land; it belonged to their fathers and husbands.

Voting was regarded as a public service. Those with the responsibility would make their vote known in public, and might expect to be rewarded (or treated)–or threatened, if the vote wasn’t what the strong men of the borough wanted. The secret ballot didn’t come in until 1872.

Rotton boroughs disappeared earlier, in the Reform Act of 1832. Fifty-six Parliamentary Boroughs lost their Members of Parliament, their remaining voters becoming eligible to participate in County elections. The idea that the House of Representatives should be occupied by… well… representatives had taken a great step forward.

 

First Meetings on WIP Wednesday

In fact, in my next two Works In Progress (To Reclaim the Long-Lost Lover and To Tame the Wild Rake), the first meeting in the book is not the first meeting of my couple. But that’s the one I’m sharing, since that’s the one on the page. Can you share one of yours in the comments?

First, To Reclaim the Long Lost Lover. Nate has come to London to find Sarah. Sarah has decided to marry at long last, eight years after she lost Nate.

Nate smiled and nodded, keeping his reservations to himself. Not unless my Sarah is present. But she is not yet in town, so it won’t be tonight. And even if she was in town, she would surely not be visiting the Hamners. Lady Hamner had been a ward of the Duchess of Haverford, and the Dukes of Haverford and Winshire had been feuding since Winshire arrived back in the country with a whole quiverful of foreign-born children.

He allowed day dreams about their next meeting to while away the carriage ride and the wait in the street for other carriages to move out of the way. Libby continued to chatter, but she seldom required a response beyond ‘Is that right’ and ‘If you say so’.

It must have been a good thirty minutes before they were being announced by Lord and Lady Hamner’s butler. Libby led him over to the Hamners to be introduced, and Nate looked around as he crossed the room.

A profile caught his eye. He shrugged it off. He had been Sarah wherever he went for the past eight years, and a closer look always disclosed a stranger. This stranger turned towards him, and he stopped in his tracks, cataloguing changes. The hair was slightly darker. The heart-shaped face he remembered had matured into a perfect oval. The slender body of the long-remembered girl had ripened to fulfill its promise. But, beyond any doubt, Lady Sarah Winderfield stood on the other side of the drawing room, a smile on her lips as she talked with her friends.

Her gaze turned toward him just as Libby tugged on his arm. “Bencham! Are you well?” He let her pull him along, and Sarah’s gaze drifted away. He wanted to cross the room to her; accost her; demand that she recognise him and all they’d once meant to one another.

Some modicum of sense kept him stumbling after his step-mother. Men change between seventeen and twenty-five, he reminded himself. And people who have been through experiences like mine more than most.

Still, of all the meetings he’d imagined, he’d never thought of one in which she didn’t know him.

And then To Tame the Wild Rake.

Aldridge stood as she entered the parlour. He’d chosen a seat on the far side of the room for the door, and he now ordered the footmen to wait outside. “I require a few moments of privacy with my betrothed.” After a moment’s hesitation, they obeyed, leaving the door wide open.

As she took a chair, he murmured, “Are there servant passages near us? Can we be heard if we keep our voices low?”

So that is why he’d chosen a seating group by the outside wall. “Not if we are quiet,” she confirmed.

He was examining her in the way that always made her restless — a steady look from intent hazel eyes, as if he could see her innermost thoughts. “You asked to see me,” she reminded him, to put an end it.

That broke his gaze. His lids dropped and he laughed, a short unamused bark. “And you would like to see me in Jericho. Straight to the point, then, Lady Charlotte. Your mother told my mother that you are being threatened with dire consequences if you do not marry me.”

He leaned forward, meeting her eyes again, his voice vibrating with sincerity. “I have never forced a woman, and I don’t plan to do so. I will not take an unwilling wife.”

Lola tried to hide the upwelling relief, but some of it must have shown, for he sighed as he sat back, his shoulders shifting in what would have been a slump in a less elegant man. “It is true, then. Given a choice, you will not have me.”

Lola had not expected his disappointment, the swiftly masked sadness. Before she could measure her words, she leapt to reassure him. “It is not you. I do not plan ever to marry.”

He grimaced. “So my mother tells me. Is there nothing I can say that would change your mind? You would be an outstanding duchess.”

No. She really wouldn’t. Like everyone else, he only saw the duke’s granddaughter, not the woman within. Perhaps, if he had been a man of lesser estate, if he had spoken about affection and companionship, she might have risked it. Not love. Lola didn’t trust love.

Again, he read something of her mind, for he sighed again, and gave her a wry smile and the very words she wanted. “We were friends once, my Cherry, were we not? Long ago?”

Her resolve softened at the nickname he had given her that golden summer, before it all went wrong.  “I was very young and you were very drunk,” she retorted.

He huffed a brief laugh. “Both true. Still, we could be friends again, I think. I have always hoped for a wife who could also be my friend. Is it my damnable reputation? I am not quite the reprobate they paint me, you know.”

Lola shook her head, then rethought her response. His reputation might outrun his actions, but he was reprobate enough, and the lifestyle he brushed off so casually had destroyed her brother. “Not that, though if I were disposed to marry, I would not choose a rake. Marriage is not for me, however.” Should she tell him? “I cannot be your duchess, Aldridge.”

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.”

Holiday Escapes on Spotlight on Sunday

Have you seen this yet? On preorder now, and available in just over a week. More information and links on the Bluestocking Belles project page.