Author: Bluestocking Belles

Shipwreck All of London has read about the HMS Delphine, the naval ship grounded off the coast of Cornwall a few weeks ago carrying the contract for steel from France. The Delphine’s captain James Dunham is currently under investigation for the ship’s loss, the proceedings have entertained all since the inquiry started.

Such a vital income needed to help recover the country’s finances after the war with Napoleon going missing is a disaster. He claims it was the navigator’s fault, of course. Since none of the officers survived the night after most the crew left in the nighttime grounding, it’s only his word, of course. Being found on the shore stabbed is all that has saved him so far.

The scandal rushing through London of late is nothing to the real story. I have it on the best authority from the captain’s own aunt, Mrs. Belle Quinn, the most well-known of matchmakers in London, there for a house party. The gossip running through the house in the midst of Captain Dunham fighting for his good name and career is he was forced to marry Miss Balaton who saved him from the sea. They were caught in the most delicate of positions which, of course, meant he was unable to form an attachment to any of the other ladies of the house party who were far more suitable.

What else would a shopkeepers’ daughter on St. Michael’s Mount do when presented with a ship’s captain on her front door? Despite the captains’ good friend Mr. Sinclair arriving with his wife and they became such good friends, Mrs. Quinn is certain he regrets the marriage. Why else would he throw Mrs. Quinn out of the house?

Granted, another rumor leaving the house in the last few days is Mr. Sinclair is actually the Duke of Cairnmuir traveling incognito as he visited his friend to try and fix the court martial proceedings. After all, he was the one that secured the contract with the French and sent Captain Dunham back with it to England as he finished his honeymoon to the charming Mrs. Rose Beaufort, as she was. As it was a secret mission, there might be far more politics involved than marriage mart gossip, Mrs. Quinn intimates.

Captain Dunham is after all a well decorated naval officer, running with Cochrane in his impressive haul of ships as well as several on his own merits. The Captain made a fortune in his career up until he washed up on the shore of Cornwall.

Overheard at the house party…

“Could I ask you to introduce us?” Mrs. Quinn asked almost immediately. “It seems that my nephew invited a great many people to the ball without asking my opinion on the matter.”

Without asking her opinion in his house. “Mrs. Sinclair, this is Captain Dunham’s aunt, Mrs. Quinn. Mr. Sinclair is an old friend of the Captains.”

Mrs. Quinn fanned herself hastily. “You’re here for a long visit? James hadn’t mentioned you coming.”

“No, we heard he was in London, but he left town before we could see him. He couldn’t imagine us leaving with a ball so soon. Edward sees him so little what with us up in Scotland. We’ve invited them north to stay with us this fall.”

Mrs. Quinn puffed up. “You’ve become great friends in so short a time, Mrs. Sinclair.” She said. Something in the tone spoke everything. Her friendship was put in the wrong person and she knew nothing of her other than gossip.

“Why, Mrs. Quinn, I should not be embarrassed to introduce her to the Duchess of Cairnmuir herself. The Duchess prefers friends who can hold a thought in their heads. Money can’t buy that.”

“You know a Duchess?” Mrs. Quinn gaped.

“Heavens, the Sinclair’s are related to half of the nobility in Scotland. But that birth doesn’t mean they can hold a good conversation.”

Mrs. Quinn turned red and trounced off. It took a moment, but finally Mrs. Sinclair laughed out loud.

“And they say I have a tongue on me. You’re just wicked.” Tanley murmured and Mrs. Sinclair only laughed harder. It wasn’t hard to notice that the woman steered them further out from the house. They were well in the center of the lawn where no one could jump out from any hedges there.

The Sailor’s Wife

The Sailor's Wife Tanley’s boring life on Saint Michael’s Mount gets a lot more complicated when a man is washed up on the beach. With her father dead, the neighbor smuggling, and a knife wound in the man’s shoulder she’s all alone with a whole lot of trouble.

At least she’s not stuck getting rid of a body when he wakes up at long last, but delivering papers for the government to help pay the debt after the war with Napoleon makes the stakes higher than just a little smuggling. Alone with James, though, temptation is hard to resist, if only getting caught didn’t bring up a whole new set of problems.

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Meet Jennifer Mueller

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya a few years back, I traveled quite a bit and now I just wish I was. A lot of the places I’ve written about I’ve been to, a lot of them I haven’t. Rafting on the Nile in Uganda, living in a Montana ghost town, African safaris, European youth hostels, the Black Hills of South Dakota all fill my scrapbooks. Now a daughter takes up most of those pages, but I still travel in my head every time I write.

For more by this author visit

http://www.jennifermuellerbooks.com

Scandal and Murder in Eastbourne

By Bluestocking Belles

On August 17, 2016

In Guest author, Teatime Tattler

the-mediaeval-walled My Dear Mr. Clemons;

You would not know my name but suffice it to say that it is of little concern, as I wish to keep my family’s name protected. I shall therefore be writing under the assumed name of Miss Avamund and will henceforth be providing you with information, such as to be considered scandalous, from the city of Eastbourne where many of our prominent London citizens take in sea bathing. With that in mind, I present to you the following.

On or about 1 August of this year, a “Miss J”, a respected spinster of St. Aubyn’s Road, was seen with a certain man in her garden. That is not a scandal within itself but the man, a very big and strange-looking man, has lately been seen in her garden daily with “Miss J”. She always seems disturbed when he is near. Because my family lives within proximity of Miss J’s” home, I have seen this occurrence daily and, being curious, waited one day for “Miss J” to do her marketing before slipping into her garden and confronting the man. The story he tells is shocking, as I shall relay forth. After identifying myself politely, I asked of him the following:

Miss Avamund: Good sir, are you a relative of “Miss J”?

Man (identified himself only as ‘de Russe’): I am not, my lady.

MA: If you are not a relative, then why are you here? You do understand that the neighbors are whispering about your ‘visitations’ with “Miss J”. You threatened to ruin her reputation, sir.

DR: It is not my intention, my lady. Be it known that “Lady J” has been most helpful to me under… confusing circumstances.

MA: Confusing? May I inquire as to the nature of these circumstances, sir?

DR: It should not concern you.

MA: Please, sir, as I vow I shall not repeat what you tell me. My concern is for “Miss J”. She is a friend.

DR: Then I shall tell you the truth, since you are her friend. I still do not know how it happened, but the circumstances are this – Henry is my king. I was in battle at Ludgershall Castle in the midst of a driving rain storm when, in the course of battling an opponent, I fell backwards into the well. The blow to my head rendered me unconscious and when I managed to emerge, it was out of the well in “Lady J’s” garden. I do not know how I got here, by what devilry or dark magic, but all I want to do is return to my wife and time from whence I came. I do not belong here.

MA: You… you climbed out of “Miss J’s” well?

DR: I did, my lady.

MA: And you said that your king is Henry? But our ruler is young George!

DR: Henry of Bolingbroke is mine.

My Dearest Mr. Clemons, I did not believe him. I am sure he was quite mad.

Although I will admit that de Russe did not look like any man I have known, as he was quite large and his hands were terribly ruined, I will say most emphatically that I believe him to be “Miss J’s” lover. I told him so and shamed him and ran to tell my mother, who did not believe me until she, too, saw him in “Miss J’s” garden the next day. He was by the well and “Miss J” was with him. I fear that “Miss J” was weeping.

This is where the story becomes frightening – when my mother went to “Miss J’s” home to confront both her and her lover, “Miss J” informed my mother that de Russe had returned home to his wife. She said that he returned the way he came and would say no more. We, my mother and I, believe that not only did “Miss J” have a scandalous love affair with a married man, but that she killed her lover and disposed of the body! She is a murderess as well as an adulteress, but fear keeps us silent. That is why I have written to your paper, sir, to tell you of the terrible things that are happening in Eastbourne today.

Proper citizens beware!

With kindest regards,

Miss Avamund

The Iron Knight

KathrynLeVeque_TheIronKnight_800 Read Lucien de Russe’s story in THE IRON KNIGHT, due to be released August 23, 2016 on Amazon. Time-travel to Regency England notwithstanding (or included), it’s a beautiful English Medieval Romance of an older knight and a widowed woman who both have a second chance at life. We will assume Lucien’s brief transportation 400 years into the future happens AFTER his story takes place – and it would make for a wonderful novella!

The Iron Knight on Amazon

Meet the author

KATHRYN LE VEQUE is a USA TODAY Bestselling author, an Amazon All-Star author, and a #1 bestselling, award-winning, multi-published author in Medieval Historical Romance and Historical Fiction. She has been featured in the NEW YORK TIMES and on USA TODAY’s HEA blog. In March 2015, Kathryn was the featured cover story for the March issue of InD’Tale Magazine, the premier Indie author magazine. She is also quintuple nominee (a record!) for the prestigious RONE awards for 2016.

On Amazon: https://goo.gl/zXhv5s
Facebook: https://goo.gl/bHir6s or @kathrynlevequenovels
Twitter @kathrynleveque
Website: www.kathrynleveque.com

A shocking experience at St George’s

By Bluestocking Belles

On July 23, 2016

In Jude Knight, Teatime Tattler

1e783f2b96b2e344ec2dbe8b51346b36 Honoured Sir

The wedding between Miss Caroline Thrushnet and Mr Lewis Colbrooke, which you sent this correspondent to report on for The Teatime Tattler proved to be rather more exciting than expected.

When your humble servant arrived, the groom waited in St George’s. Fashionably dressed and spectacularly handsome, he looked every inch the picture of maiden’s dream.

Many would say Miss Thrushnet was to be envied. She was to marry wealth, good looks, and even a title, after the wheels of the law completed their grinding and declared his missing cousin dead and Mr Colbrooke the Earl of Fenchurch.

Appearances can be deceptive, however. Mr Colbrooke has a dark reputation, and this correspondent has heard a number of stories that no wise paper would print while the gentleman is alive to exact retribution.

Suffice it to say that his predilections and vices make him no match for an innocent lady. And it appeared to all in the church that Miss Thrushnet agreed, for when she arrived, not a minute past the appointed hour, she was as white as the lilies she carried, and as grave as if she attended her own funeral rather than what some have called the happiest day of a woman’s life.

She took her place beside the groom, who took her hand, and not gently. He spoke out boldly, loudly enough that those in the front of the small crowd of attendees could hear him, urging the Reverend Chilhurst not to waste time, but to splice him to the damned chit, as he had other business to transact that afternoon and a wife’s maidenhead to breach before he could attend to it.

Miss Thrushnet could get no paler, but she grayed at those words, Sir. She grayed. But when the Reverend gentleman expressed horror at Mr Colbrooke’s coarseness and counselled Miss Thrushnet not to proceed, she said, so quietly that her voice could barely be heard, “I have no choice. Do it quickly, please.”

Whether that plea was to the Reverend or to Mr Colbrooke, who can tell?

And so the wedding began, and proceeded without a hitch until the Reverend spoke to the congregation, almost, it seemed, begged the congregation. “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony, ye are to declare it.”

He fell silent and waited. Mr Colbrooke cursed him with foul words, calling on him to proceed, but Miss Thrushnet turned to the crowd, and if ever eyes pleaded, hers did.

Honoured Sir, her pleas were answered.

The door to the church crashed back, and a large angry man shouldered his way past the ushers, shouting, “Stop the wedding!”

He wore the clothing of a gentleman, but beat those who would have prevented his progress with a walking stick carved in barbaric flourishes. One side of his face was almost a twin to that of the groom, but hard where Mr Colbrooke’s had softened with riotous living. The other was carved as ornately as his stick, in whorls and dots of black ink etched into his skin. He was half English, half savage, and wholly furious. Nothing and no one stood between him and the wedding party; or at least not for long.

A soft sigh turned our attention back to the unhappy couple. The bride had fainted, and who can wonder.

Lest you and your readers be bored with the long and loud discussion that ensued, suffice it to say that Magnus Colbrooke, the lost Earl of Fenchurch, had returned to claim Miss Thrushnet to whom, he said, he had been betrothed before he left for the other ends of the earth.

You will not be surprised that Mr Colbrooke refused to recognise him. But Miss Thrushnet, when she recovered consciousness, said that she had known him immediately, and as witness to that fact would marry him this very day, if the Reverend would conduct the ceremony.

He would not. The name on the license must be changed. But if Miss Thrushnet and Fenchurch are not husband and wife before the week is out, it will not be for want of action on the part of the earl.

Meanwhile, Mr Colbrooke left in a rage. This correspondent ventures to suggest that his cousin refrains from going out on a dark night unaccompanied, although if ever a gentleman looks as if he can take care of himself against criminals and bully boys, the returned Earl of Fenchurch is that man.

Where will it end, Honoured Sir? This correspondent will watch with great interest, of that you can be sure.

This vignette precedes the events in Magnus and the Christmas Angel by six months. Magnus and the Christmas Angel is a short story that tells about the final reconciliation of Magnus and his wife, after months of misunderstanding.

Jude Knight is giving away Magnus and other stories to new subscribers to her newsletter (four of which are only available by gift from Jude). Jude’s newsletter goes out several times a year, and with news about new releases and other writing related events and activities. And Jude always includes a link to short stories, collections of character interviews, or other ebooks that are not available to the general public.

To subscribe, go to http://judeknightauthor.com and fill out the subscriber box in the right margin.

You can read more about Jude Knight and her books on her website, or on her author page here on the Belles site.

Because history is fun and love is worth working for