#bellesbrigade – Page 11 – Home of the Bluestocking Belles

Mr. Clemens Requests

On January 6, 2017

Gentle Readers and Erstwhile Contributors,
We are filled with Gratitude at the response you have given to our Humble Efforts to bring facts and stories of Interest and Entertainment to the people of London.

The response from people of All Stations has been gratifying to say the least. We hope to continue for many years to come. To that end I wish to announce that our Little Paper has openings for Discerning Contributors of all types. We would welcome new contributors as well as added contributions from those who have joined us in the past. We are always looking for:

Purloined letters that may interest the Reading Public
Opinion pieces on the Fancies and Foibles of high society
News that otherwise might go unreported about the Private Lives of the poor and the prominent.
Instructive stories whose morals might serve as admonition to the unwary

As well as (dare I say it) items of a more salacious and titilating nature. Be it noted that those who contribute may also provide our readers with exciting news about their books as well.

Should any of you have an interest in making such a contribution, kindly contact me**. Should you wish instead to seek the advice of our most excellent Aunt Augusta (and receive mention of your book title) there is a form for that as well.

I Remain etc etc

Samuel Clemens, Printer, of London

**Mr. Clemens had deputized this work to staff. If you wish to participate kindly send three Wednesday dates, your name and writer name, and book title to warfieldcaro@gmail.com

A Pirate, A Lady, and A Lord – Part One

By Aunt Augusta

On December 17, 2016

In Bluestocking Belles, Nicole Zoltack, Teatime Tattler

Captain Pershore stood on the deck of his ship, his black hair fluttering in a strong breeze. His hand rested on the hilt of his scimitar attached to his belt holding up his dark breeches. He was feeling rather pleased with himself. After all, a lovely lady was waiting for him in his cabin. For the moment, she might be unwilling, but that would not last long. He would have the lady as his.

***

Annamarie twisted and turned her wrists, struggling as much as she could, but the ropes only burned her, not loosening even a tad bit. Nothing short of a blade could free her of this binding.

The pirate had captured her out of her bedroom last night. At least, she assumed it had only been the previous night. She had no concept of how much time had passed since her abduction.

Her parents had been away, visiting friends, so the chances of anyone knowing she had been captured were nearly nonexistent.

What was she going to do?

***

Lord Barnet approached the manor. He had hoped to call upon Lady Annamarie. With her dark hair and darker eyes, she was a vision to see, but it was her mind and her heart that drew her to him.

To his shock and bewilderment, the butler who answered the door had swollen eyes. The maid scurrying by was crying.

“Whatever is going on?” Barnet asked.

“We are waiting for the lord and lady to return, but… It seems someone has stolen into the house and taken Lady Annamarie.” The butler hung his head.

“What? When?”

“Last night—“

Barnet pushed open the door and rushed to Annamarie’s bedroom. Yes, there had indeed been a struggle here. Annamarie had not left of her own free will.

As he turned to leave, he spied something glittering by her bed. A coin, an old one, the kind he had seen a villain of a man juggling in a nearby tavern.

Captain Pershore, a brutal pirate known for taking all he wanted.

Apparently he wanted Lady Annamarie.

“Should we notify—“ the butler called, but Barnet was already leaving.

He would not allow Annamarie to be in that foul man’s presence. He would do all he could to save her.

He would not fail.

To be continued…

Taken from the notes of one Lady Anna Wycliff

Lady Anna is the heroine in Christmas Kisses, part of the Bluestocking Belles’ boxed set Holly and Hopeful Hearts available now from various retailers. 25% of proceeds will go to the Malala Fund.

About the Book

When the Duchess of Haverford sends out invitations to a Yuletide house party and a New Year’s Eve ball at her country estate, Hollystone Hall, those who respond know that Her Grace intends to raise money for her favorite cause and promote whatever marriages she can. Eight assorted heroes and heroines set out with their pocketbooks firmly clutched and hearts in protective custody. Or are they?

About the Stories

A Suitable Husband, by Jude Knight

As the Duchess of Haverford’s companion, Cedrica Grenford is not treated as a poor relation and is encouraged to mingle with Her Grace’s guests. Surely she can find a suitable husband amongst the gentlemen gathered for the duchess’s house party. Above stairs or possibly below.

Valuing Vanessa, by Susana Ellis

Facing a dim future as a spinster under her mother’s thumb, Vanessa Sedgely makes a practical decision to attach an amiable gentleman who will not try to rule her life.

A Kiss for Charity, by Sherry Ewing

Young widow Grace, Lady de Courtenay, has no idea how a close encounter with a rake at a masquerade ball would make her yearn for love again. Can she learn to forgive Lord Nicholas Lacey and set aside their differences to let love into her heart?

Artemis, by Jessica Cale

Actress Charlotte Halfpenny is in trouble. Pregnant, abandoned by her lover, and out of a job, Charlotte faces eviction two weeks before Christmas. When the reclusive Earl of Somerton makes her an outrageous offer, she has no choice but to accept. Could he be the man of her dreams, or is the nightmare just beginning?

The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, by Jude Knight

James must marry to please his grandfather, the duke, and to win social acceptance for himself and his father’s other foreign-born children. But only Lady Sophia Belvoir makes his heart sing, and to win her he must invite himself to spend Christmas at the home of his father’s greatest enemy.

Christmas Kisses, by Nicole Zoltack

Louisa Wycliff, Dowager Countess of Exeter wants only for her darling daughter, Anna, to find a man she can love and marry. Appallingly, Anna has her sights on a scoundrel of a duke who chases after every skirt he sees. Anna truly thinks the dashing duke cares for her, but her mother has her doubts.

An Open Heart, by Caroline Warfield

Esther Baumann longs for a loving husband who will help her create a home where they will teach their children to value the traditions of their people, but she wants a man who is also open to new ideas and happy to make friends outside their narrow circle. Is it so unreasonable to ask for toe curling passion as well?

Dashing Through the Snow, by Amy Rose Bennett

Headstrong bluestocking, Miss Kate Woodville, never thought her Christmas would be spent racing across England with a viscount hell-bent on vengeance. She certainly never expected to find love…

BUY LINKS for HOLLY AND HOPEFUL HEARTS

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Secrets and Lies

By Guest author

On December 14, 2016

In Guest author, Teatime Tattler

December 23rd

An occasional correspondent has sent along information of a most interesting turn. lady-wallingford A widowed marchioness (we shall call her Lady W) has been seen in town this winter after an absence of several years. Instead of taking up residence in her son’s elegant townhouse, she is staying with a certain Lady J and her daughter, Miss J. Our correspondent reports rumors of an impending betrothal between the younger lady and Lady W’s son, the current marquess.

And it has also been supposed that the nuptials will be soon, as we have learned that Lord W has returned from a lengthy sojourn on the Continent. Though, in an interesting turn of events, he also is eschewing his noble abode and staying with friends, the very same Lord and Lady H to whom so much scandal attached a year ago! Yes, and this is the very same Lady H who has been in such a delicate way that the midwife was spotted arriving late yesterday.

Never fear, Dear Reader. We are sending out inquiries and will report on this curious story tomorrow!

December 28^th

Dear Reader, scant days ago we told you about a certain Lady W and her son’s expected nuptials with a certain Miss J. The festivities of the past few days have prevented us from reporting further on this matter, for which we apologize and presume to accept your forgiveness, for as it is, we have news of a most interesting turn that will not disappoint!

j-_t-_mitchell_-_elizabeth_mary_and_augustus_william_hillary_-_google_art_project-11 Lady W has decamped most abruptly from the home of Miss J, moving lodgings to the very residence where her son, Lord W, is staying. And, furthermore, she has been spotted in the park with two children, reported to be the twin daughters of Lady H’s midwife. And, most shockingly, Lord W was seen arriving at Lord H’s one morning, escorting the very same midwife, and has not been seen since. We have learned that Miss J and her parents have left London, some say to travel to their home estate, others say to visit Bath, others, the Continent.

Mark my word, Dear Reader, there is an interesting story here, and we at the Teatime Tattler will uncover it.

January 15

Dear Reader, several days ago we reported on the curious behavior of Lord W and his mother. We promised to get to the heart of this mystery, and we keep our promises! One of our intrepid correspondents has received news that Banns have been posted at Lord W’s home parish announcing the nuptials of Lord W and a bride who is most assuredly not Miss J!

We will have more news for you tomorrow on this story. You won’t want to miss it!

About the Book: The Marquess and the Midwife

Once upon a time, the younger brother of a marquess fell in love with his sister’s companion. He was sent off to war, and she was just sent off, and they both landed in very different worlds.

Now Virgil Radcliffe has returned from his self-imposed exile on the Continent to take up his late brother’s title and discover the whereabouts of the only woman he’s ever loved.

Abandoned by her lover and dismissed by her employer, Ameline Dawes has found a respectable identity as a Waterloo widow, a new life as a midwife, and a safe, secure home for her twin girls. Called to London at Christmas to attend her benefactress’s lying-in, she finds herself confronted by an unexpected house guest–a man determined to woo her anew and win her again.

But, is loving the new Marquess of Wallingford a mistake Ameline cannot afford to repeat?

The Marquess and the Midwife is specially priced at 99 cents through December 31, 2016

Buy Links

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Nook

~Excerpt~

Ye gods, but her ladyship needed more maids, and a couple more footmen with both arms and both legs, at least for this type of fetching and carrying.

Ameline chided herself for being insensitive and balanced the steaming bucket. She set down the lamp momentarily to gather her skirts, along with the lamp handle.

A pair of men’s boots moved into view and the lamp bobbled. Fine boots they were.

She sighed, gritting her teeth. Lord Hackwell’s visits had unnerved his lady, and Ameline had counseled him to leave.

Very well, she’d thrown him out, once almost literally. He would wonder what she was doing below stairs. He might send for the accoucheur he was mumbling about, and his lady would not like it.

“I’ve just popped down to the kitchen for a word with Alton, my lord,” she said. “All is going well, except he’s a bit short on staff.”

“We have noticed that.”

The skin on her back rippled and she shivered. This wasn’t Hackwell—it was him.

Panic flared in her and her hands and ankles began to tingle. He carried no light. She let her own lantern dip lower and stepped to one side. What was he doing on the servants’ staircase in the middle of the night?

If he saw her, he would remember her, but he would not want to, unless he would think to befriend her again. Heat flamed in her.

She took in a breath. “Let me pass, Lord Hackwell,” she said.

“Let me carry that bucket for you.”

“No.” She forced in another breath, willing herself to speak calmly. “That is, no thank you. I shall send a servant for you when it is time.”

Footsteps scurried on the stairs. “Mrs. Dawes?” Jenny called, breathless.

Her heart raced again. She’d tarried too long in the kitchen. “I’ll be right—”

Heat touched her hand as the bucket came out. The lantern, too, lifted higher, and she looked up into the face of Lord Virgil Radcliffe, now the latest Lord Wallenford.

“Mrs. Dawes?” His eyes widened and then narrowed, and his lips curved down.

Anger spiked in her. “Lord Wallenford.”

He moved down to the step below her, putting them at eye level, and crowded her against the hand rail.

“Give me the bucket, sir. I can manage quite well without your help.” Quite, quite well.

“Can you, indeed?” he drawled, sounding just like his brother the day he’d sacked her.

Blast him. Blast the Wallenfords. Blast the Hackwells. “Alton has a bottle set out. Best go and fetch it.”

His lips quirked.

She gritted her teeth. “Give me the blasted bucket, Virgil.”

About the Author

Award winning author Alina K. Field earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and German literature, but her true passion is the much happier world of romance fiction. Though her roots are in the Midwestern U.S., after six very, very, very cold years in Chicago, she moved to Southern California and hasn’t looked back. She shares a midcentury home with her husband, her spunky, blonde, rescued terrier, and the blue-eyed cat who conned his way in for dinner one day and decided the food was too good to leave.

She is the author of the 2014 Book Buyer’s Best winner, Rosalyn’s Ring, a 2015 RONE Award finalist, Bella’s Band, and a 2016 National Reader’s Choice Award finalist, Liliana’s Letter, as well as her latest release, The Marquess and the Midwife. She is hard at work on her next series of Regency romances, but loves to hear from readers!

Visit her at:

http://alinakfield.com/
https://www.facebook.com/alinakfield
https://twitter.com/AlinaKField
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7173518.Alina_K_Field
https://www.pinterest.com/alinakf/
https://www.instagram.com/alinak

Hoodwinked! Blackmail!

By Guest author

On November 23, 2016

In Guest author, Teatime Tattler

Dear Mr. Clemens,

I am no one important, truly, but I do have a place in Society as the companion of the Marchioness of H—. Her sight is not up to snuff, as most know, and so I act as her eyes and report on the wardrobes, manners and activities of the guests at the events we attend.

henriettebrowne It is in this capacity that I have noticed something odd, sir, and I think that you and the readers of the Teatime Tattler deserve to know—that I believe the members of the ton are being hoodwinked!

I say this because I witnessed a strange occurrence at the theatre some weeks ago. The well-known debutante Miss P— was in attendance and arrived in the carriage just before ours. I saw a street urchin approach the young lady. An unusually long exchange occurred, one that did not sound at all convivial—and at the end Miss P— gave the audacious waif one of her earrings. Since Miss P—a is not known to be of a charitable bent, my employer and I speculate that the young lady had been blackmailed!

All well enough, although the young miss’s mother later denied it. But then I happened to catch a glimpse of . . . let me just say, someone who looks very like that street urchin—at Lady Dayle’s soiree! Well! And the plot thickened further when the urchin was introduced as a certain infamous earl’s betrothed—and it began to be noticed that Miss P— has been spending an inordinate amount of time around said earl—at a time when her own betrothed has been called to the country.

Such goings on! All very suspicious to both myself and my employer. You may rest assured that I will watch very closely this evening at Lady Feltham’s ball—and will report again if I notice anything untoward.

Ever Watchful

A concerned wallflower

Readers can sample that blackmail scene at my website: http://www.debmarlowe.com/the-earls-hired-bride.html

About The Earl’s Hired Bride

Because an unmarried Earl must be in want of a bride . . .

Every debutante in the ton wants to be the Countess of Hartford—and mistress of Hartsworth Castle. Never mind that Hart has no interest in marrying just yet, the young ladies hunt him as ruthlessly as a pack of hounds after the elusive fox. What he needs is a hired bride—one who is guaranteed to call it off at the end of the Season.

Because a girl with no prospects will do what she must to help her family . . .

Miss Emily Spencer must do something. Her mother’s health is failing and the notorious Duke of Danby is growing dangerously close. Why not hide in plain sight and pretend to be the Earl of Hartford’s betrothed? And getting paid for her troubles? It’s just what she needs to make her family comfortable again.

Because love comes when you least expect it . . .

Sparks fly when the two put their plan in motion—and deeper emotions grow. But how can they be together when the path they’ve forged only leads to their inevitable separation?

iBooks – http://apple.co/2dfSzDc
Amazon – http://amzn.to/2dqDDCQ
Nook – http://bit.ly/2dkeRmr
Kobo – http://bit.ly/2dKTQDn
Google Play – http://bit.ly/2dIBmnP

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling Author Deb Marlowe loves History, England and Men in Boots. Clearly she was meant to write Regency Historical Romance!

Deb grew up in Pennsylvania with her nose in a book. Luckily, she’d read enough romances to recognize the true modern hero she met at a college Halloween party—even though he wore a tuxedo t-shirt instead of breeches and tall boots. They married, settled in North Carolina and produced two handsome, intelligent and genuinely amusing boys. Though she spends much of her time with her nose in her laptop, for the sake of her family she does occasionally abandon her inner world for the domestic adventure of laundry, dinner and carpool. Despite her sacrifice, not one of the men in her family is yet willing to don breeches or tall boots. She’s working on it. Deb loves to hear from readers! You can contact her:

on FB at https://www.facebook.com/pages/DebMarlowe/70397149702
and
https://www.facebook.com/d.m.marlowe
on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DMMarlowewrites
and as @DebMarlowe
on her website at www.DebMarlowe.com
and
http://www.dmmarlowe.com
on Pinterest at https://www.pinterest.com/DebMarloweWrite/

Gossip from a Taproom Vagrant

By Caroline Warfield

On November 19, 2016

In Bluestocking Belles, Regency (19th century Britain), Teatime Tattler

jan_baptist_lambrechts_attr-_-_at_the_tavern I can only say that it is a good thing Mr. Clemens located a prime investigator inside the Duchess of Haverford’s Hopeful Hearts house party because I, intrepid reporter, find myself a marooned at a third rate inn along a road that has become impassible with mud and rutted beyond use. My post chaise broke an axel in the stuff. Here I sit. Tomorrow being Christmas I will go no further for now.

The ale here is poor but abundant, and, with naught else to do, I have stationed myself in the taproom to pick up what miserable crumbs I might. I have not come up empty handed.

I no more ordered my third pint when a horseman swept in, grimaced over a mug of rancid cider, and left. Folks on horseback may travel as they will, but carriage traffic has all but disappeared. I tried to hire a horse with the pittance Clemens gives me for expenses and could not. (More about that later) This man’s horse, a peculiar specimen, stood in the courtyard looking so cool I would have thought it a fresh mount, not one that had been given water and sent on its way again.

The innkeeper acted in awe of the man who stood well over the common height and possessed both dark skin as well as hair. Unlike the innkeeper, I knew the man: he who pretends to be Elfingham, heir in waiting to the Duke of Winshire. He chases the Belvoir chit no doubt, or her brother’s consequence rather, his own being not worth a pittance. Everyone knows he is after her in hopes to shore up the family’s pretense of legitimacy. He swept from the place like the furies pursued him, dark robe flapping in the wind.

Not three hours passed when a groom came in to say a carriage lumbered up the road putting a lie to everyone’s belief that none might make it through. The greedy publican hastened to the door and the rest of the room to the windows to see who had made it so far. I watched it go by with my own eyes, a top of the trees equipage if ever I saw one. I saw the ducal crest as well: The Duke of Haverford. I doubt the old duke bothered to attend his wife’s do. Aldridge, on the other hand, can never resist a party full of beautiful women. It was he, I am certain, and there will be delicious stories to uncover, if only I can get to the Hall and insinuate myself through the kitchen.

Just when the taproom began to settle for the night, yet another carriage arrived, this one less well fated, and obviously unable to go further. A frantic young man, a cit as I live and breathe and a Hebrew—one with a French accent at that— began to berate the innkeeper, obviously desperate to get to Hollystone Hall. Why, I don’t know. No young woman of gentle enough birth to attend a duchess’s house party would entertain such a one as a suitor. I did hear him mention Baumann, the banker. Perhaps he has business with the duchess or with Aldridge. That must be it. Our readers might like to know what.

Here is the odd part. He demanded a horse, and I knew well there were none. Had the innkeeper not refused to hire one out to me? Money talks. Horses were found. Before too long he left with two nags, one a miserable hack and the other, obviously a carriage horse, with his bags loaded on it. Off he went, while I, good Christian citizen of His Majesty’s fair land that I am, remained here with naught but a bench to sleep upon.

franz_adam_-_the_stable_lad

_______________________________________________________

What happened to these holiday travelers? Find out in Holly and Hopeful Hearts, available now from various retailers. 25% of proceeds will go to the Malala Fund.