Tag: historical happy-ever-afters Page 1 of 16

A Sneaking Reporter

On March 21, 2026

Note to one Shadrack Gumpfile from his sometimes employer, Sam Clemens at the Teatime Tattler

Sparky,

Drop what you’re doing lurking around in Hamstead. I have a better job for you. Turn your tail around and head for Oxford.

We’re getting a whiff of something juicy out of there. Some woman has been causing talk by pretending to be a scholar. She’s irritated some fellows, tried to gain entry to the library (as if they’d let a woman in), and had an altercation with a high class book seller.

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.

This one should be easy. Hang out in the pubs and seamier establishments. Students have notoriously loose mouths and should spill what they know, what they guess, and the worst possible interpretations.

But move quickly. The woman’s brother is the Marquess of Glenaire who will come down on us like a hammer if he finds out. We need to get the article out there before he does.

Sam

About the Book: A Lady’s Honor

She may be skirting scandal in the opinion of some, but Lady Georgiana has her own code of Honor

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.

Some scars cut deeper than others. Major Andrew Mallet returns to Cambridge a battle scarred hero. He dared to love Georgiana once and suffered swift retribution from her powerful family. The encounter cost him eleven years of his life. Determined to avoid her, he seeks work to heal his soul and make his scholar father proud. The work she offers risks his career, his peace of mind, and (worst of all) his heart. Can he protect himself from a woman who almost destroyed him? Does he want to?

Even poetry, with its musical lyrics and sensual traps, is dangerous when you partner with the love of your life. In Regency Cambridge it can lead a lady quickly past improper to positively scandalous.

Preorder it for $1.99 now. It reverts to full retail price after launch March 24. https://books2read.com/aladyshonor

About the Series

Honor at Heart follows an intertwined group of characters, family and friends, in their path to adventure, honor, and above all love.

About the Author

Caroline Warfield – Authorr

Award winning author, Caroline Warfield, grew up in a peripatetic army family, and the need to travel never left her. After a varied career (largely around libraries and technology) she retired to the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania to be closer to family and to write. She remains a traveler and adventurer, enamored of owls, books, history, and beautiful gardens (but not the act of gardening).

Caroline calls her books family-centered romance, and this one is no exception. Family makes her characters what they are, for better or worse. She takes them as they are, scarred and wounded, and sets them on their path to their own happily ever after, because love is worth the risk.

Soli Deo Gloria

Find Caroline on the Web:

Website http://www.carolinewarfield.com/

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Confusion at Woodglen Hall

By Bluestocking Belles

On December 6, 2025

In Teatime Tattler

Dispatch from Nether Abbas, Dorset, November 1818

Confusion reigns over at Woodglen, the duke’s estate. After sitting empty for months, the place is hopping with traffic.

To begin with, our beloved duke, His Grace of Glenmoor, has disappeared. He went off with his father’s (young and very pretty) widow to Wales and hasn’t been seen since. Maud Pritchard put it about that he ran off with the woman, but my nephew in London saw an announcement that the dowager duchess had married some Welshman, a commoner if you can believe it.

With the duke missing and the house empty, we were shocked by the arrival of some dandy claiming to be the heir. Felton Tavernash claims he is a distant cousin, and his pushy mother assures everyone it is true. The man is nothing like our own beloved duke, so I have my doubts. The mother insists the “poor, dear duke” must be dead on the wayside somewhere. Vultures they are, circling for the spoils. My nephew says betting in the clubs is that the duke did himself in, but the good folk of Nether Abbas want proof.

Before we could properly adjust to those two interlopers, another one turned up and moved in. Calls himself Gideon Kendrick. This one claims to be the duke’s older brother, but the old duke said that one had run off and got himself killed as a boy. That was years ago. Besides, the older brother was a bastard and Maud recalls he was some sort of cripple. Well the one at the Hall is a man full grown and very much alive.

What would happen next but Viscount Clavering’s forward daughter Miss Serena Selwyn went and presented herself on the doorstep. One of the maids reported she is after the so-called heir. As we should have expected, that cousin of hers, Miss Euphemia Selwyn took off after her, and they are claiming the first one took sick and the second is caring for her. Does anyone believe that Faradiddle? Not anyone in Nether Abbas I can tell you.

What we do know is there are two young unmarried women up at the Hall with single gentlemen in residence, and that is a fact. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Milly Sheldon, Correspondent.

_____

Duke in All But Name

Secrets and lies threaten to pull them under, but a forced marriage may be their salvation.

Gideon Kendrick grew up as the despised bastard son of the Duke of Glenmoor. Exiled to the mines by his father, he has not only survived but thrived and prospered. He lives apart, wanting nothing to do with the duke, the estate—or anything in his past, except his younger brother Phillip, the new duke.

When Phillip disappears, leaving behind a letter asking his brother to care for his affairs, Gideon can’t refuse. Armed with authority making him the duke in all but name, he returns to the scene of his worst memories, facing vicious rumors and his family’s past. He also finds a grasping would-be heir, a steward with secrets, and a woman who stirs in him a desire he thought buried with his beloved wife.

Mia Selwyn lives in the shadows, an unwanted poor relation in the house of her viscount uncle. When her cousin’s hoydenish attempt to meet the supposed heir sees her drenched, ill, and in need of nursing, Mia is sent to care for her. Though warned to stay clear of the despised Kendrick, she is drawn into the dark undercurrents among the mismatched collection of residents and enthralled by the enigmatic Mr. Kendrick.

She quickly realizes he is not the monster he is rumored to be, twisted in body and mind. Instead, he is a resilient resourceful man with a deep love of family. As family, household servants, and villagers take sides on whether Gideon is the source of all the estate’s problems or its salvation, Mia and Gideon forge a partnership. Together they struggle to unravel secrets and the tangle Phillip left behind, and in the process, find a future for themselves.

Free with Kindle Unlimited or purchase the book at https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Name-Entitled-Gentlemen-Book-ebook/dp/B0BJS3GDN7/

And where is the duke? Find out in Duke in Name Only https://www.amazon.com/Duke-Name-Only-Entitled-Gentlemen-ebook/dp/B0C1L3L968

The Author

Caroline Warfield, Bluestocking Belle and author of books featuring cheeky lads, resourceful ladies, and heroes of the loyal and protective variety who need the occasional push in the right direction.

https://www.carolinewarfield.com/

Another Encroaching Caulfield

By Bluestocking Belles

On November 8, 2025

In Caroline Warfield, Teatime Tattler

Dear readers, new events have brought an old scandal, one you may have thought had faded into the shadows, back into the light.

You remember no doubt the immense uproar caused by the Earl of Clarion’s outrageous will, that named his, shall we say, “informal”, offspring. Worse was the furor caused when his son, the new earl, appeared to welcome the lot of them as if they were true siblings.

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.)

Loyalty is well and good, but really, should such a blot on the family escutcheon be been pushed forward? For that is what the earl did, introducing the man to some of society’s best as his brother and inviting him to social events and house parties. One even heard the family pushed him toward a university, no doubt to raise his status from mere surgeon to physician.

The highest sticklers did not, of course receive him. But then, the highest don’t approve of Clarion himself. The earl’s radical politics caused more outrage in recent years, quieting the old scandal.

At least the newest Caulfield seems to have done society a favor by withdrawing from London. Rumor has it he has gone off to some obscure village in the north to practice medecine. We can only hope he stays there!
*****

Seth Caulfield is the hero of “The Angel’s Announcement, a Holiday Homicide,” in Merry Belles, the Bluestocking Belles’ newest collection.

You can order it here: https://books2read.com/u/mvRGPj

About the Story

Sybilla Somer was seventeen when Seth Caulfield disappeared without a word. For nine long years she wondered why. Now he’s back and she needs his help to solve a murder. There is no one else to do it.

Seth hadn’t been much older when Sibby’s father and brother drove him out with shouts of “bloody presuming bastard.” They delivered him to press gangs in Great Yarmouth. He assumed she knew. She didn’t, and she certainly didn’t care that his birth was irregular. The navy set him to helping the ship’s surgeon, a stroke of luck. He has returned a warranted surgeon himself.

They found the shepherd eight days before Christmas. Dead. When Sybilla and Seth are thrown together to solve the murder, to care for a small angel with a broken ankle — and to face the hurt between them, will the work and the season heal what lies between them?

About the Author

Caroline Warfield, former army brat, librarian, traveler, history-lover, and storyteller is a Bluestocking Belle. The story of the Earl of Clarion’s Bastards, the new earl’s radical politics, and his reconciliation with his siblings was told in the Ashmead Heirs Series. “The Angel’s Announcement” brings a lovely addition to their ranks.

Be Wary of What You Read in the Paper

By Bluestocking Belles

On November 11, 2023

In Teatime Tattler

The Teatime Tattler September 1813

Letters to The Teatime Tattler October 10, 1813

To the editor,

I write to alert you to a misleading advert that has appeared in this paper frequently this autumn, to wit the one entitled “Governess Wanted.” I am one of the foolish women who responded. I therefore can knowledgeably warn any gently-bred lady who considers the position to run the other way.

While the county in question may appear pleasant in the brief summer, its bleak landscape grows drearier with every mile north and every month,closer to a dark, cold winter. The “gracious manor” saw better days under one of the earlier Georges perhaps. Grim and neglected, it is woefully understaffed forcing a governess to activities not expected of one in her position. The mentioned accommodations might be considered comfortable but were hardly attractive. Shabby describes much of the manor.

Description of his lordship’s wards as “bright” fails to mention that they lack manners. The little demons are as civilized as savages. As to the viscount himself, a more grim and taciturn oaf I have yet to meet. That is, he is taciturn until his intemperate anger gets out of control. I would shudder to report the words he said when we parted ways.

Tilly Wilkins, unemployed governess

PS Return fare was provided as promised

About the Story

Duncan Laidlaw, newly and expectantly raised to Viscount Mildrum, is in trouble. He’s been saddled with a neglected estate, an equally neglected and shabby household, and three wild and undisciplined children, his cousin’s step-children. They may not be his blood, but they are his to care for.

After several failed attempts he has concluded that what he needs first isn’t a governess, it is a wife, someone who can help him bring order to his home. He turns to his friend, vicar Micah Turner, to send one.

What an outrageous request! Yet, Micah happens to know just the woman. She’d be perfect for Duncan, if he can convince her. The only way to find out is to plunge her into the middle of the chaos.

“Duncan’s Twelfth Night Miracle” by Caroline Warfield appears in the next Bluestocking Belles’ holiday collection, a bundle of sweet and saucy romances for your holiday leisure, Boxing Day and beyond. Each is a short tale perfect for an evening’s quiet read over hot cocoa and candlelight. Watch for it later this month.

The gossip we learn when we travel…

By Sherry Ewing

On October 21, 2023

In Sherry Ewing, Teatime Tattler

Prudence and Abigail Danvers glided down the stairs of the Book & Bell Inn and entered the dining area looking for a place to sit. The place was crowded for this evening but luckily, they were able to find an empty table. A young woman of perhaps four and twenty years with blonde hair and blue eyes, came to take their order for their dinner. Soon, a soothing pot of tea was placed before them. It was welcome after their travels.

“Whatever are we doing here of all places, sister? You know how I detest the country,” Prudence complained to her sibling and glanced about the room.

Abigail patted her hair, not that even a strand was out of place. “You know how much I love the Harvest Festival they have here every year. Besides, we just might find a new piece of juicy gossip to send Mr. Clemens.”

“Do you not grow tired of writing for the Teatime Tattler? Once of these days, we shall be the topic of gossip and then what will you think of that paper,” Prudence huffed looking around the room.

“Samuel Clemens pays well for the gossip we supply. We are hardly the only reporters who provide fodder for his rag.” Abigail took a sip of her tea until the door to the inn opened. Two handsome gentlemen entered along with a young boy. They went to one of the booths near the back of the room. “This place just became a little more interesting.”

Several minutes later, the door to the inn opened again. This time the man entering drew the attention of both sisters. Black hair in need of a trim and amber eyes that would cause any lady to swoon swept the room until they found his companions. His limp as he began making his way toward the table was unmistakable.

“Is that not―” Prudence began with wide eyes.

“Yes. I think it is. I wonder where he has been for all these years,” Abigail said with a wicked grin.

A man came from the kitchen and welcomed his newest guest, and it was clear Lord Brandon Worthington was known in these parts. But when the same lady who had recently served their table took hold of Lord Brandon’s ale and dumped it over his head, Abigail’s squeals of delight were muffled by the gasps that echoed in the room from the other diners.

Prudence reached over and took hold of her sister’s arm. “Abigail… no,” she warned.

Abigail’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Oh, Prudence, do not be such a ninny! This is just what the Teatime Tattler needs in their next edition, and you know it.”

The sisters would write their note to Mr. Clemens once they had finished their dinner knowing a few coins would once again be lining their reticules. It was always amazing what sort of gossip you could find when you traveled!

********************************

This is an original piece by Bluestocking Belle Sherry Ewing. Lord Brandon Worthington and Miss Hannah Pownell are the current characters in A Love Beyond Time: A Family of Worth, Book Three. This novella is Sherry’s contribution to the Belles’ latest boxset Under the Harvest Moon. Abigail and Prudence Danvers are Sherry’s revolving characters that write and report gossip for the Teatime Tattler. Perhaps one day, they’ll get a story of their own. Read on for an excerpt from Sherry’s novella and to learn more about the boxset.

Excerpt:

Hannah stared out across the pond and beyond to the field of dying flowers. She hugged her shawl around her shoulders for comfort. It had taken her four days to come to terms with Brandon Worthington’s return to the area. Four days of crying. Four days of suppressed anger from all the hurt that rose to the surface at one glimpse of him. Four days of listening to bits and pieces of gossip of his war service and subsequent injury when the locals came to dine at the inn. She hadn’t hung around long enough after she dumped his ale over his head to see him limping for herself, but someone always seemed to be talking about Captain Brandon Worthington’s return.

Hannah sighed. Four days… Such a small amount of time considering he had kept her waiting six long years for him to come back to her. She could hardly say he had actually come back to her! She closed her eyes remembering how she had cherished the letters he had sent the first two years after he left. She had read them so many times, that she had memorized each and every word. And then…nothing. No word. No more letters. Just silence. After six additional years of waiting, she had given up hope. After all, how long was she supposed to wait for a man’s return?

After she had dumped his drink over his head, she refused to apologize to the man despite her parent’s anger that she had treated a guest in such a manner. He deserved it and more! She supposed her sudden actions had been immature and childish but at the time her behavior had seemed appropriate. But even when Brandon sent a note asking for her to meet with him, she had refused to answer his message or give him the satisfaction of knowing she been pining away for him all these years.

So, what was she doing waiting for him to show up in their spot? He hadn’t sent another message for her to meet him here, after all. She just assumed the man would show up and maybe this was the crux of her problem. She had missed him terribly and no other man, including Randall or Gilbert, had held even an ounce of her affection since the day Brandon Worthington left Reabridge. Her love had been wasted on a man who hadn’t even given her any sort of an explanation as to his long absence. Yet here she was… waiting for him on the off chance he would know her well enough to realize she would be here… waiting… The anticipation was going to kill her!

Hannah was just about to forget this whole foolish idea when the sound of carriage wheels on the gravel road reached her ears. They came to a halt a few moments later and soon the sound of someone’s uneven gait walking across the small wooden bridge announced his arrival. Squaring her shoulders, she took a deep breath to calm her already frayed nerves before she turned.

A Love Beyond Time: A Family of Worth, Book Three
By Sherry Ewing

Can love at first sight be reborn after heartbreak, proving a second chance is all you need?

Miss Hannah Pownall fell for a young lord years ago, only to see him leave. After no word from him in eight years, he returns to their small town, wounded and broken. Now, Hannah must reconcile her old feelings with the heartbreak he caused, knowing he plans to stay.

Captain Brandon Worthington returns to the town of Reabridge to recover from the war. He never expected to find the girl he once loved still unwed. Now, he must prove to her that he never forgot her.

Hannah and Brandon’s journey is complicated by their respective pasts, but ultimately, they must decide whether second chances are worth taking a risk. Will they be able to navigate the obstacles thrown their way to find the happily ever after they both deserve?

Under the Harvest Moon:
A Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends

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.

Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/UnderHarvestMoon

About the Author:

Sherry Ewing picked up her first historical romance when she was a teenager and has been hooked ever since. An award-winning and bestselling author, she writes historical and time travel romances to awaken the soul one heart at a time. When not writing, she can be found in the San Francisco area at her day job as an Information Technology Specialist. You can learn more about Sherry and her books on her website where a new adventure awaits you on every page at www.SherryEwing.com.

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