Dear Mr. Clemens,
It would serve you well to send one of them writers of yours to Reabridge here in Cheshire. Since Waterloo we have odd folks of all sorts traveling through and also those soldiers that the Crown cut loose. Our own boys are straggling back home too.
One couple wandered by and left a baby at the vicarage. A baby! They claim it has a connection to Reabridge and now we have two families feuding over it. Of course, the Buckleys and the Pownalls have been feuding for decades so that is nothing new. Now we have others sticking their spoon in to see if they have a claim.
There would be plenty to keep that reporter busy this fall. Even the Vicar has some women staying at the vicarage and even he seems to be up to some sort of shenanigans.
Gwen Hughes has taken up the blacksmithing now her brother is gone. We think she’s hiding something too, and now some stranger—one of those footloose soldiers—has taken up residence.
We have a drunken doctor, a marriage minded Scotswoman, and two hoity toity French women—if rumors are to be believed, another one has been invited up to Barlow Hall. The vicar’s son doesn’t know what to do with himself, and even Martin Bromelton, who has always been a steady sort of fellow, is acting jumpy. He and his sister took in some woman wandering the roads up at the farm.
You can see, Mr. Clemens, there is plenty to dig up here in Reabridge. Send someone soon, before the Harvest Festival. This will get even more loony then.
Yours Sincerely,
Eunice Fillmore, spinster.
About the Book: Under the Harvest Moon
As the village of Reabridge in Cheshire prepares for the first Harvest Festival following Waterloo, families are overjoyed to welcome back their loved ones from the war.
But excitement quickly turns to mystery when mere weeks before the festival, an orphaned child turns up in the town—a toddler born near Toulouse to an English mother who left clues that tie her to Reabridge.
With two prominent families feuding for generations and the central event of the Harvest Moon festival looming, tensions rise, and secrets begin to surface.
Nine award winning and bestselling authors have combined their talents to create this engaging and enchanting collection of interrelated tales. Under the Harvest Moon promises an unforgettable read for fans of Regency romance.
Story blurbs here: https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/under-the-harvest-moon/
Preorder now: https://books2read.com/UnderHarvestMoon
enough to give the Tattler an interview about the latest—and possibly the greatest—scandal in the ton.
illustrious Hound of the Cavalry, decorated as he is and a newly minted earl, weds a widow today!
The Lyon’s Share, the story
First a bit of background. Betting has raged the better part of summer and into autumn about the fate of the Duke of Glenmoor who went missing quite suddenly. Dukes do not, as numerous well-connected people have pointed out, “go missing,” yet this one has. This has led to rampant speculation about his heath, his sanity, and even about his survival.
The Honorable Eustace is known to be what one wag called, “a dunderheaded drunken rattle,” and his claims could be easily dismissed but for one fact. Eustace Selwyn had just returned from his home in Dorset, a home that is known to be the neighbor of Mountglen, the duke’s primary seat. He claimed that, while there, he actually observed the brother or a man claiming to be he. Selwyn believes him and asserts that the brother, now calling himself Gideon Kendrick, is not only alive, but much brighter than reported. The Honorable Eustace proposed “cunning,” as the better descriptor. London is not certain what to make of it, but men are lining up on both sides of the bet nonetheless, as young men are prone to do.
Madelyn assumed marriage as an old man’s ornament would be better than life with her abusive parents. She was wrong.