One of our intrepid reporters, while on a walking tour near the coast of Lancashire, came upon a shocking sight. We feel it to be our duty to recount his experience – and thus to remind well-bred English ladies of the consequences of abandoning their virtue.
If, dear readers, you plan to visit that delightful area of the north, do not, we beg you, visit an inn known as the Diving Duck. It is patronized by the lowest sort of common people. Many of them are smugglers, who go to the Diving Duck to drink and carouse after a successful smuggling run. But that’s not the worst of it!
What will make you cringe with horror are not the smugglers, but the lady who plays the piano in the coffee room and sings vulgar songs. As if that were not bad enough, she resides in the Diving Duck and is exceedingly friendly with the patrons. Why, we all ask, would a lady demean herself in such a way?
The answer is sadly obvious. She has lost her reputation. In other words, she is ruined!
Our reporter recognized her as Miss D. W., cousin of the well-known rake, Lord G. He attempted to speak to her, but she ignored him most rudely. He then questioned the patrons of the inn about her, but their response was hostile to say the least. He was obliged to make his escape in a hurry!
What does their defense of the lady mean? We hesitate to conjecture further, but surely a ruined lady should retire to a life of loneliness and penitence, rather than expose her folly to a rightly censorious world! Has she no shame?
It seems not. Poor, foolish Miss D. W.! She serves as a dire warning to any lady tempted to misbehave. In the end, degradation and misery are the fate of those who step off the path of virtue!
Love and the Shameless Lady
Disgraced lady Daisy Warren serves ale in a tumbledown inn, sings crude songs for the smugglers, and writes romantic novels in her spare time. Shunned by her own class, she’s resigned to her lowly life—until someone tries to kill her.
Gentleman spy Sir Julian Kerr noses out seditionists and traitors. When he visits the inn to investigate two suspicious Frenchmen, he meets the lovely but hostile Daisy. He doesn’t intend to get involved with her—but then he learns that someone is threatening her life.
He must find out more—it’s part of his investigation. He needs to protect her—he’s a chivalrous man. More than anything, he just wants her. But will Daisy’s bitter past allow her to risk love again?
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Now we’ve heard rumors she isn’t at all what she should be and is carrying on with a local man just back from the late war. What makes it good press is the woman in question is none other than the daughter of the Duke of Sudbury. Sudbury! As high a stickler as they come.
A little Greek is one thing; the art of love is another. Only one man ever tried to teach Lady Georgiana Hayden both. She learned painfully, a young age to keep her heart safe. She learned to keep loneliness at bay through work. If it takes a scandalous affair to teach her what she needs to complete her work, she will risk it. If the man in question chooses not to teach her, she will use any means at her disposal to change his mind. She is determined to give voice to the ancient women whose poetry has long been neglected.
I’m writing to tell you our papa has overcome the Fever he suffered. You don’t need to travel home, the roads being unpleasant this time of year, and you so far up north. My Edward continues to managing the drapery with the old man ill. While I shudder to be blunt, the business prospers under his care, no matter what you might have heard from Papa who, as I’ve written is becoming queer in his old age.
Recently, one Seth Caulfield, boldly bearing the earl’s surname, appeared in London wearing the uniform of a naval officer of sorts. One gathered he bore the rank of surgeon, a warranted rank, not one of a gentleman to be sure. He had the look of a Caulfield about him, however, and no sooner than he had appeared than he was welcomed to the earl’s table and given full support. It appeared that another one of the, if you’ll pardon our language, Clarion Bastards has appeared on the scene. (I apologize if ladies take offense but we do like to speak the truth, and the man is well, not legitimate at all.)
About the Story
Betsy Carmichael, recently dismissed from one of London’s most prestigious addresses wrung her hands and bit her lip.
Belinda Westcott doesn’t want to injure the Earl of Ridgemont. She merely wants to humiliate him. After all, one good prank deserves a payback. How could she anticipate that it would go so terribly wrong, or that he would turn out to be nothing like she expected?