Dls’s Comments (group member since Sep 14, 2010)

Dls’s comments from the Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn group.

I’m reading nonfiction-Judith Flanders book on Victorians and murder. But I’m dipping into Heyer’s these old shades when I need a break.

I just finished the biography of Terry Pratchett. It was great. If you like his books you want to read this.

I’m stacking up books to take on vacation.
I have the new Sarah Addison Allen, the new Patricia Briggs, and I’m looking for more.

I have been reading the Pat McIntosh detective series set on 15 c Scotland which I highly recommend. And I read the new Anne Gracie The Rake’s Daughter

It’s from Only Love, a Mary Balogh short story in It Happened One Season.

This is the last regularly scheduled one. But anyone should feel free to post one on Mondays if you want to share .

Heroine was seated where she had sat yesterday. She was in the process of setting aside her embroidery. She was all cool poise as she got to her feet and indicated the chair where he had sat.


“Good afternoon, Hero,” she said.

It was impossible to read anything in her face.

“Heroine ,” he said, inclining his head.

She sat back down, and he took his seat. She picked up her embroidery again and bent her head to her work.


Good Lord, this was awkward.

“The sun is shining again,” he said. “It is actually quite warm outside. Perhaps you would like—”


She did not let him finish.

“I have thought since yesterday,” she said. “I have thought and thought. But thoughts can move in endless circles and settle nothing. Eventually a decision must be made.”


“I am deeply sorry,” he said, “if—”

“I believe I gave you the wrong impression two evenings ago,” she said. “Indeed, I know I did, because I did it deliberately. I let you believe that I am happy in my widowhood, that my life is busy and fulfilled. That is not actually the case.”


Ah. Perhaps he ought to have guessed it. But he knew so little about her. Indeed, he knew very little about women.


“I am not unhappy,” she said. “And my life is not empty of meaning or activities or friends. I do not need a man in my life. I can live alone with some contentment, for the rest of my days if necessary. But I would like to have a man, preferably as a husband but not necessarily so.”


He gazed at her bowed head in some shock. Had she just said what he thought she had said?


“Heroine ,” he said, “I hope I have not given the impression that my intentions are anything less than honorable?”


She looked up at him, her eyes huge and calm.

“No, of course you have not,” she said. “You need to marry. I do not.”


Her eyes went back to her work, and her hand pushed the needle through the cloth again and drew it back out. They were graceful, elegant hands.


“The trouble with marriage,” she said, “from my point of view anyway, is that it is so very permanent. I cannot try it and then decide that after all it is not what I want. I know that from experience.”


“If you marry me,” he said, “I will spend the rest of my life seeing to it that you do not regret your decision. That is no idle promise.”


“No, I know it is not.” She set her work down in her lap again, the needle still in her hand, and looked at him once more. “But you would be powerless to prevent my regretting the decision if I discovered after a few months that I cannot conceive a child. You could not fail to regret it if that happened, though you would, of course, behave for the rest of our lives with scrupulous honor and courtesy. It would not be a happy marriage, Major Gilchrist, for either of us, and the only type of marriage that could lure me away from my freedom is one that gives some promise of being at least mildly happy.”

“In all probability,” he said, “you can have children, Mrs. Pritchard. In all probability, so can I. But there are no guarantees. There never are. There never can be.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, looking down to thread her needle through the cloth before setting her hands, one on top of the other, over it, “there can be.”

He frowned in incomprehension.

She looked up at him again.

“I realized in the end last night,” she said, “that despite all the arguments against accepting your offer, I would nevertheless say yes except for one thing. Only one of those arguments was a stumbling block I could not see my way past. I may be barren. You cannot know how long five years can seem to a woman who waits in hope at each month’s end before pinning her hope on the next month. I always longed for a child. It would have validated my hasty decision to marry Aubrey. It would have enriched my life.”


He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a staying hand and he closed it again.

“If it could be proved that I am not barren,” she said, “then I would marry you, Major Gilchrist. Gladly. There are two months or so of the Season remaining. If that proof could be made during that time, then I would marry you. Indeed, I would have no choice but to marry you. But if there were no proof, then my answer would be no. For both our sakes.”


He was on his feet, Jack realized. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked, though he would have to be an imbecile not to understand.


“It is really quite the accepted thing, you know,” she said, “for a widow to take a lover, provided the affair is conducted discreetly and does not cause any open scandal. I believe I would like to have a lover for a couple of months. It is four years since Aubrey died. “


“Mrs. Pritchard,” he said, using a voice he had not used since selling his commission, “enough of this. You are suggesting that I debauch you? It is something I would not do in a million years.”


“Well, then,” she said, “my answer must be no.”

He might have turned and stridden from the room and the house had not her eyes filled with sudden tears a moment before she hid them by lowering the lids over them.


Fatally, he hesitated.

Tears?

Why?

“I thank you for your kind offer,” she said. But her voice was no longer the calm, flat sound it had been until now. It shook. She stopped and swallowed. When she spoke again, she sounded breathless. “But I must decline it, Major Gilchrist. I do wish you well in your search for a bride. I am quite sure you will have no trouble at all. I wish you happy.”


He frowned down at the top of her head, hesitated again, and then closed the distance between them. She did not look up. He went down on one knee before her and possessed himself of one of her hands. It was, as he expected, as cold as marble. He dipped his head and saw that her eyes were still swimming with tears.


“You were serious?” he said.


“Yes,” she agreed. “And it had nothing to do with debauchery or immorality. It is not immoral for a widow to take a lover. Whom would I be likely to harm? It is not as if you are a married man. And it would be over before you married someone else.”


“Or,” he said, “it would result in our marriage if I were to impregnate you.”

“Yes,” she said.

“I would feel as if I were insulting you,” he said, “and treating you like a broodmare.”

“Nonsense.” She sniffed. “The suggestion was mine, not yours.”

He handed her his handkerchief and waited while she dried her eyes and blew her nose. She crumpled the handkerchief, hesitated, and then shoved it behind her on the chair.


“Will you not reconsider?” he asked her. “Will you not marry me without conditions? I really do wish to marry you, you know. There is no one else, and I would really rather there not be.”


“You are kind,” she said.

“I am not offering out of kindness,” he told her as he got to his feet.


“No, I know.” She seemed more in command of herself again. “And it is for that reason I would need to be sure.”


She was looking steadily at him now. “I would like to be married to you, Major Gilchrist,” she said. “But only if I were sure that I could offer you sons or at least the chance of sons.”


He wished he had never mentioned to her his reason for marrying.

Anyone else ?

Oh Ilaine how awful! I’m so sorry to hear that

Hm. The first quote seems familiar. I will ponder …

Hi
I’m debating whether to keep this going. Let me know if you want to be on the schedule
Deb

This is really interesting and I definitely haven’t read it

Did anyone else get a notice that someone named Anna Campbell had posted here? I don’t see a post by her but I got a notice

It’s Scandal wears Satin by Loretta Chase.

I reported it. We will see what happens

Ok I’m trying it here. If it works here could someone post a note in the puzzler saying look for it here ?

She is just pretending to be his cousin—she is in disguise for her mission.

Ow, you ugly bitch!” a voice shrieked close to his ear. “Let go of me, you sodding sow!”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Heroine said.
Hero glanced that way.
A ragged boy half hung over the back of the seat. Heroine had him by the arm, and she was regarding him with amusement.
Hero could spare them only a glance. His team and the traffic wanted all his attention. “What the devil?” he said. “Where did he come from?”
“Nowhere!” the boy snarled. He wriggled furiously, to no avail. “I wasn’t doing nothing, only getting a free ride in back here, and the goggle-eyed mort tried to take my arm off.”
This, at least, was what Hero presumed he said. The Cockney accent was almost impenetrable. Nothing was “nuffin,” and aitches were dropped from and attached to the wrong words, and some of the vowels seemed to have arrived from another planet.
“And you were trying to keep your hand warm in the gentleman’s pocket?” she said.
Hero choked back laughter.
“I never went near his pocket! Do I look like I’m dicked in the nob?”
“Far from it,”Heroine said. “You’re a clever one, and quick, too.”
“Not quick enough,” the boy muttered.
“I wish you could have seen it, Cousin,” she said. “The two who ran in front were meant to distract you while this one jumped on and did his job. The little devil almost got by me. It took him two seconds to leap onto the groom’s place. Probably he would have wanted only another two to get your pocket watch—perhaps your seals and handkerchief as well—while you had both hands busy with the horses. I daresay he thought I was a gently bred female who’d only stare or scream helplessly while he collected his booty and got away.”
She reverted to the boy. “Next time, my lad, I advise you to make sure there’s only one person in the vehicle.”
Next time?
Hero nearly ran down a pie seller.
“What next time?” he said. “We’re making a detour to the nearest police office, and leaving him to them.”
The boy let loose a stream of stunning oaths and struggled wildly. But Heroine must have tightened her hold or done something painful, because he stopped abruptly, and started whimpering that his arm was broken.
“As soon as I get out of this infernal tangle, I’ll give you a cuff you won’t soon forget,” Hero said. “Cousin, will you give him a firm thump or something to stifle him in the meantime?”
“I don’t think we should take him to the police,” she said. “I think we should take him with us.”
Hero and the boy reacted simultaneously.
The boy: “Nooooo!”
Hero : “Are you drunk?”
“No, you don’t,” the boy said. “I ain’t going nowhere with you. I got friends, and they’ll come any minute now. Then you’ll be sorry. And I think my chest’s got a rib broke from being bent like this.”
“Stifle it,”Hero told the boy. He needed a clear head to find his way through Heroine’s rabbit warren of a mind. He couldn’t do that and translate the boy’s deranged version of English at the same time.
To Heroine he said, “What exactly do you propose to do with him?”
“He’s wonderfully quick,” she said. “He could be useful. For our mission.”
Occupied with horses and traffic, Hero could give the urchin no more than a swift survey. He looked to be about ten or eleven years old, though it was hard to tell with children of the lowest classes. Some of them looked eons older than they were, while others, small from malnourishment, seemed younger. This boy was fair-haired under his shabby cap, and while his neck was none too clean, he wasn’t an inch thick with filth as so many of them were. His clothes were worn and ill-fitting but mended and only moderately grimy.
“I don’t see what use he’d be to anybody, unless someone was wanted to pick pockets,” he said.
“He could hold the horses,” she said.
“Could he, indeed?” he said. “You suggest I put my cattle in charge of a sneaking little thief?”
The boy went very still.
“Who better to keep a sharp eye out, to watch who comes and goes, to give the alarm if trouble comes?” she said.
The mad thing was, she had a point.
“You don’t know the brat from Adam,” he said. “For all we know, he’s a desperado wanted by the police, and due to be transported on Monday. He tried to steal my watch. And climbed up behind the carriage to do it! That wants brass, that does—or something gravely amiss in the attic—and if you think I’m leaving a prime pair of horseflesh in the grubby hands of Mad Dick Turpin here, I suggest you think again. And take something for that brain injury while you’re about it.”
“Oy!” the boy said indignantly. “I ain’t no horse thief.”
“Merely a pickpocket,” Hero said, egging him on.
“What’s your name?” heroine said.
“Ain’t got one,” the boy said. “Saves trouble, don’t it?”
“Then I shall call you Fenwick,” she said.
“What?”
“Fenwick,” she said. “If you don’t have a name, I’ll give you one, gratis.”
“Not that,” the boy said. “That’s a ’orrible name.”
“Better than nothing,” she said.
“I say, mister,” the boy appealed toHero. “Make her stop.”
Hero couldn’t answer. He was working too hard on not laughing.
“That is not a mister,” she said. “That’s an actual lord whose pocket you tried to pick.”
“Yer lordship, make her stop. Make her stop breaking my arm, too. Which this is a monstrous female like nothing I ever seen before.”
Hero glanced at Heroine . She was regarding the ghastly little foul-mouthed urchin, her expression speculative—or so it seemed. He couldn’t be sure. For one thing, he could spare only a glance. For another, the spectacles dimmed the brilliance of her eyes.
But he saw enough: the smile playing at the corner of her mouth, and the angle at which she held her head as she regarded the boy, like a bird eyeing a worm.
“Now you’re really in trouble, Fenwick,” he said. “She’s thinking.”

I have now tried three times to post a Monday puzzler for the week. I get a notice that its posted, but then I can't see it. Does anyone else see it? Thanks!

I have definitely not read this. And so far… I’m hoping she doesn’t end up with him

No idea . But I like that it’s community ball …

This is Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh. For those who like to read in sequence it’s the sixth in the slightly series.

Aside from Jane Austen this may be the best rejection of a hero’s proposal to a heroine that I have read.

“Mrs. Heroine ,” he said, removing his hat and holding it at his side while the sunshine tangled in his dark hair. His voice was haughty and abrupt. “I wonder if you will do me the honor of marrying me.”

Heroine gawked. Thinking back afterward, she was sure she had not just stared in genteel surprise—she had gawked.

“What?” she said.

“I find myself unable to stop thinking about you,” he said. “I have asked myself why I offered to make you my mistress rather than my wife and can find no satisfactory answer. There is no law to state that my position demands I marry a virgin or a lady who has not been previously married. There is no law that states I must marry my social equal. And if your childless state after a marriage of several years denotes an inability to conceive, then that is no prohibitive impediment either. I have three younger brothers to succeed me, and one of them already has a son of his own. I choose to have you as my wife. I beg you to accept me.”

She stared at him, speechless for several moments. She gripped the back of the seat with both hands. Her head always seemed to fill with the most ridiculously absurd thoughts at the most serious of moments. This occasion was no exception.

She could be the Duchess of_____, she thought. She could wear ermine and a tiara. At least she thought she could. She had never really investigated the privileges of being a duchess, having never expected to be offered the role.

And then she found herself being restored to cold sanity as some of his words fell into place in her mind.

. . . a virgin . . . my social equal . . . your childless state . . . an inability to conceive. I choose to have you.
She gripped the back of the seat more tightly as anger welled in her and almost broke free.

“I am honored, your grace,” she said, her nostrils flaring. “But, no. I decline.”

He looked arrested, surprised. His eyebrows arced upward. She expected his infernal quizzing glass to materialize in his hand—and that would have made her temper finally snap—but he appeared not to have it about his person today.

“Ah,” he said. “I daresay I offended you when I offered you something less than matrimony.”

“You did,” she said.

“And when I allowed you to believe after we had coupled that it was the same offer I was about to make,” he said.

Her brows snapped together. It had not been? He had been about to offer her marriage then? She did not believe it. A man did not propose marriage to a woman who had just freely given him everything he wanted of her. But why had he come back now to do just that?

“You offended me,” she said.

He looked at her with what appeared to be cold disdain. “And an apology will not suffice to soothe your wounded pride, ma’am?” he asked. “You are resolved to reject my marriage offer because you cannot forgive me for the other? I do apologize. I did not mean to offend.”

“No,” she said, moving around the seat to sit on it before her legs gave way under her and she sank to the ground in an ignominious heap from which he would have to rescue her again. “No, I suppose you did not. It is a marked distinction to be offered the position of mistress to the Duke of ———.”

His eyes pierced through her own to the back of her skull.

“I have already begged your pardon,” he said.

“I could do another woman a great favor,” she said. “I could be your wife and leave the position of mistress vacant for someone else.”

She was being worse than ill-mannered. She was being vulgar. But she was only just getting launched.

. . . a virgin . . . my social equal . . . your childless state . . . an inability to conceive. I choose to have you.

His eyes hardened, if that were possible.

“I believe in fidelity within marriage, Mrs. Heroine ,” he said. “If I ever take a wife, she will be the only woman to occupy my bed for as long as we both live.”

She was glad she was sitting then. Her knees became boneless.

“Perhaps,” she said. “But she will not be me.”
She had nothing but ancient, faded, and patched clothes to wear, she had scarcely two ha’pennies to rub together, she was almost totally dependent upon her mother, she lived a rather tedious life, she had no dreams left to dream—and yet here she sat refusing the chance to be a duchess. Did she have a whole arsenal of windmills in her head?

He turned as if to leave. But then he paused and looked back at her over his shoulder.

“I did not think you indifferent to me,” he said. “And contrary to popular belief, one coupling does not kill physical attraction. Your prospects of living a fulfilled life here seem slender. Life as my duchess would offer you infinitely more. Do you say no, Mrs. Heroine, only to punish me? Will you perhaps punish yourself too in the process? I can offer you everything you can ever have dreamed of.”

The fact that she was tempted—drat her, she was tempted—fanned the flames of her anger.

“Can you?” she asked sharply. “A husband with a warm personality and human kindness and a sense of humor? Someone who loves people and children and frolicking and absurdity? Someone who is not obsessed with himself and his own consequence? Someone who is not ice to the very core? Someone with a heart? Someone to be a companion and friend and lover? This is everything I have ever dreamed of, your grace. Can you offer it all to me? Or any of it? Any one thing?”

He pierced her with those eyes of his for so long that she had to exert great control over herself to stop from squirming.

“Someone with a heart,” he said very softly then. “No, perhaps you are right, Mrs. Heroine . Perhaps I do not possess one. And, if I do not, then I lack everything of which you dream, do I not? I beg your pardon for taking your time and for offending you yet again.”

And this time when he turned away he kept going.