The village of Marplestead has an unusual, some would say scandalous, tradition. On Christmas Day, any woman who finds a silver coin in her slice of the Christmas pudding is appointed Lady of Misrule for the duration of the Christmastide Feast.

In itself, that is harmless enough, provided the winner is a woman of character. But New Year’s Eve in Marplestead is known as the Festival of the Lady of Misrule. On that day, and particularly on that evening, the women defy the dictates of their nature, and rule the town. Woe betide any man who is abroad on that fateful day, for he is likely to find himself the butt of many a sly joke and merry jape.

Still worse fares any man who has offended a woman during the previous year, for by Marplestead tradition, women are free to take their revenge on that one day, as the old year passes into the new, provided that the Lady of Misrule approves. No magistrate of Marplestead will say them nay, or take any action against them.

Are you scandalized yet? If not, read on, for the most dire of circumstances occured in Marplestead on the New Year’s Eve that has just been, and it brought about circumstances that its perpetrators and its victim could never have forseen.

A Gift to the Heart

(A Twist Upon a Regency Tale Book 11)

by Jude Knight 

When the Queen of Misrule takes over the town, sins are laid bare, and brothers lose their hearts.

When Cilla Wintergreen supports her sister’s plans to punish the man who ruined their friend, she helps in a miscarriage of justice, for they catch the wrong man. But no harm is done, except to her imagination. She cannot forget the sight of their victim, half naked, his torso shining in the candlelight. Just as well she is unlikely to meet him again. Until she does.

When Drake Sanderson is mistaken for his licentious older brother Colin, he readily forgives the women who captured him. After all, they release him when they realize he isn’t Colin. But the event changes his life, for one of those women captures his heart, and he won’t give up until she agrees to be his wife or marries another.

When Livy Wintergreen tries to take revenge on a cruel seducer, and catches the wrong man, she puts in train a series of events she could not have imagined. For she had long thought she was too old, too contentious, and too independent to find a man to love her.

When Bane Sanderson rescues his brother from female revelers out for retribution, he did not expect their queen to consume his heart and mind, until courting her seems the only sensible course of action. If she is not put off by his scars, his irregular birth will disgust her. But he must try.

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An excerpt from A Gift to the Heart

A shaming. Bane had never seen one, but he had heard about the last one. The man had been a serial fornicator, seducing one girl after the other with meaningless promises. After being led through the whole village and around the major farms and manors all one Misrule Night, he had left town and had never returned.

The object at the end of the ropes was plodding into view. It was a donkey, stolidly ignoring the ropes, the noise, and the murmuring of the onlookers. That, Bane saw at a glance.

What took his attention was not the steed but the rider. He was male. Since he wore nothing but knee breeches and a head-concealing mask in the form of a goat’s head, his gender was beyond a doubt. The broad shoulders and the muscular torso, arms, and thighs also bore witness.

He sat backward on the ass, bound to the saddle with rope, swaying slightly as if he was drunk.

With a jolt of shock, Bane realized he knew that torso, those arms! He narrowed his eyes as the rider drew level, and was aided by one of the dancers, who lifted her lamp so it shone on the rider’s elbow.

“It is Drake,” Bane said.

“Really?” asked the blacksmith. “What has Drake done to deserve a shaming?”

“Nothing,” Bane said, grimly, and took a step forward, but the blacksmith grabbed his arm.

“If you go out there, you’ll be joining him.”

“I can’t leave him there,” Bane protested, but the blacksmith was right. He’d not get Drake free without using his brain instead of just reacting. “I need my horse,” he said. “And a good knife. I’ll grab him when they take him off the donkey to throw him into the pond.”

“They’ll overpower you,” the blacksmith warned. “There are what? Fifty of them? One of you.”

“I can’t fight them. Not women,” Bane admitted. “But I must try. If I get dunked alongside Drake, so be it.”

The blacksmith pursed his lips. “Cut the goat mask off,” he advised. “Let them see they’ve got the wrong man.”

That might work. Bane left for the barn, where he also stabled his horse.

He wanted to merely bridle the horse and be off after his brother, but his common sense told him that he might need the stability of saddle and stirrups. It took several minutes, even with the blacksmith’s help, but at last he was in the saddle and galloping after the Misrule party.

They had reached the pond and were dragging Drake from the saddle, none too gently. Fortunately for Drake, only a few of the women—ten at most—were involved in the dismounting. The rest were not even watching. Rather, they waited on the edge of the pond for the next event in the night’s entertainment. Bane grinned. He would give them something to watch.

He set the horse at a gallop, straight at the cluster around Drake, pulling up only at the last minute. They had, as he’d hoped, leapt out of the way, and Bane reached down and grabbed the rope that bound Drake’s arms to his body. “Mount behind me,” he shouted, and heaved as Drake jumped and scrambled until he was seated behind Bane.

The horse danced and skittered. Nightshade was skittish at the best of times, and he was taking exception to the torches, the masked ladies, the noise, the load, and the whole situation. That was a help, for the women who might have objected to losing their prisoner were keeping their distance.

“This is my brother Mandrake Sanderson,” Bane shouted. “He has done nothing worthy of a shaming.” He was pretending with his hands to be attempting to control the horse, but in truth, his calves and heels encouraging its jittery behavior.

A woman with the crown and staff of the Lady of Misrule stepped forward—an Amazon with dark curly hair. He could not see much of her face behind her half-mask, but what he could see distracted him for a moment. She was stunning.

“Mandrake?” she asked. “Not Colin?”