Dear Readers,
Life in the country is perhaps not as idyllic as we are led to believe. A letter has fallen into our hands with a most interesting report.
Read on!
Dear Daughter,
I hope the receipt I sent you was useful and that Baby is recovering from the croup. I was so sorry it stopped you coming here during the festive season.
What a story you missed, my dear! It all began in church on Christmas Eve. I wore my new bonnet with the blue ribbons, and you should have seen Clarissa Mountjoy’s face! Jealousy written all over it! But that is not what I have to tell you. You remember Elisabeth Wilberforce – the young woman who lives with her father on the outskirts of the village, keeps mostly to herself but gives you a smile and a hello when she meets you in the street? Well, everyone thought she was all set to be an old maid, but Christmas Eve in church she comes down the aisle with a young man no one has ever seen before. Ever so tall and good-looking, I must say! Not a moment later, in totters old Lord Brookstone with the whole family, including that Anthea, her nose in the air as usual. She stops right by him and says “James! What are you doing here?” Well, that’s the question we were all asking, naturally. Couldn’t hear his answer, though.
Of course, I asked around after the service, and one of the carol singers said as how the man had been at the Wilberforce cottage when they stopped off there earlier. But not a soul knew who he was or where he’d come from.
I was out for a stroll on Christmas morning (I left Mary to baste the goose and when I got home the scullery floor was awash in grease. She’ll drive me mad, that girl!), and who should drive by me but Anthea, going like the clappers and with a look on her face as would strike anyone dead. What’s got into her, I said to myself, and when I got home, I found out.
Mary’s sister – the one that’s kitchen maid in Brookstone House – had been by and she told her the place was in uproar. Anthea had come home in a fit, screaming and crying that Elisabeth Wilberforce had stolen her beau, she was going to sue him for breach of promise, and I don’t know what else. That’s when Mary spilled the grease – silly wench was listening to her sister and not paying attention to what she was doing. But it turned out that James Whoever-he-is never offered for her in the first place! Well, who would, nasty temper as she’s got?
Now we’re all wondering what’s going to happen next. Oh, I forgot to say, the Curate’s going around looking as if he’d lost a shilling and found a half-crown. There’s a story there, too, I’ll be bound. I’ll write and tell you as soon as I know anything more.
Kiss Baby for me, and look after yourself, my dear. You don’t want to be doing too much of that (if you get my meaning), while your first one is still so young. Plenty of time for number two!
With best wishes for a Happy New Year from your fond Mama.
A Winter’s Romance: A Regency Anthology
A collection for all who enjoy romance that blooms despite a touch of scandal at Christmas! Including stories by Audrey Harrison, Judith Hale Everett, Penny Hampson, Christina Dudley, Jayne Davis, and the following by GL Robinson.
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
It’s late afternoon on Christmas Eve and in the dark village there’s a knocking at the door. Elisabeth Wilberforce thinks it’s the carol singers. But when she opens it, her face smudged with flour from getting the mince pies ready for them, she sees a tall stranger on the doorstep. His carriage has run off the icy road and is lying in a ditch with a broken wheel.
The wheelwright is a bellringer and, as the sudden pealing from the village church testifies, he is unavailable, and the only local inn is closed for the holiday. There is no chance of anything happening till Boxing Day. But if strangers should be welcome at any time of the year, it’s at Christmas. Elisabeth invites him and his diminutive tiger to stay with her and her father.
Thus meet two very different people. Can the magic of the season cast its glow over a relationship which seems at first unlikely and then impossible? Will it indeed be a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year?
Excerpt
By the light of the moon that had now risen, the cottage looked so much like an illustration one might find in a children’s story book, that to anyone of an imaginative turn of mind it must have been laughable. Since this was true of neither of the visitors, they saw but didn’t appreciate either the thatch roof over the old stones or the rambling rose around the front door. Now leafless and brown, in the summer it showered with scented petals those going in and out. The travelers ignored both, as well as the neatly cut back flower beds that had surely been a riot of color a few months earlier.
Tethering the horses to the fence, the mis-matched pair walked up the garden path. The tall gentleman, whose head would certainly have been in the roses, knocked briskly at the old oak door with the head of his cane. He waited a few minutes, and receiving no response, knocked again. This time he was rewarded by the sound of the door being opened and a female voice saying, “It must be the carolers, Papa, though they are a little early. The mince pies are only just out of the pan. They’ll be too hot to eat!”
The speaker now came fully into view. The lantern showed her to be a handsome young woman with a smudge of flour on her cheek, and curls that were springing from a loose braid around her head. She was wearing a voluminous apron that she was attempting to untie with one hand, while she held the door open with the other.
“Oh!” she said, looking up into the tall man’s face. “You aren’t the carolers!”
“No,” he said. “I’m afraid not. I’m… I’m Fortescue.” He executed a bow, almost knocking over Wilf, who was standing closely behind him. “And this is Wilf, my tiger.”
“Your what?” the young woman looked puzzled. “He doesn’t look very fierce, for a tiger. He’s very small.”
“He isn’t usually fierce, except when he thinks he has to protect me,” admitted the visitor. “But his sort of tiger is not hired for fierceness but for being good with horses and not weighing a lot. Rather like a jockey. Talking of which, we tethered our horses to your fence. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I see.” She gurgled with laughter, “Though the idea of his protecting you seems idiotic. It should be the other way round. But why are you standing on the doorstep like that? Come in, for heaven’s sake. Leave the horses, by all means, though the poor things shouldn’t be outside long in this weather.”
“Thank you. We will only disturb you for a moment. ” The visitor removed his hat and, bowing his head so as not to knock it against the lintel, stepped in, saying, “Wilf, wait with the horses.”
“By no means!” cried the young woman. “It’s freezing out there! And aren’t tigers used to warmer climates?”
She laughed again, pulled Wilf into the cottage and closed the door. Taking off the apron had revealed a worn round gown in a brown and yellow windowpane check. It was in no way modish, or even flattering. She was still holding her apron, and, catching sight of herself in the small mirror next to the door, she used it to scrub the flour from her cheek. The tall man found himself unaccountably disappointed. He had rather liked the smudge.
About the author, GL Robinson
I was born in Portsmouth, England (no, I won’t tell you the date!), but I’ve lived in the USA since 1978. My American husband came to Europe in 1970 for 6 weeks with two suitcases and ended up returning eight years later with a wife and three children!
During the 50’s and early 60’s my sister Francine and I were at a convent boarding school in southern England. I began writing Regency Romances after she died unexpectedly in 2018. I can still see us in the convent under the bedcovers after lights out with a flashlight reading the Romances of Georgette Heyer! All my Regencies are dedicated to her.
So far, I’ve written 17 Regency Romances including two Amazon Best Sellers. The most recent came out at the end of August: I Have Always Loved You, a Second Chance Regency Romance. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CQKPKQVM
I’ve also written a contemporary Romance, two Crime Romances and two children’s travel books. I can write anywhere at any time. I love it! For me, writing is an escape, especially my Regencies: handsome gentlemen handing you into and out of carriages, changing for dinner, polite conversation and innocent fun!
Please visit my website (http://www.romancenovelsbyglrobinson.com) to read about my books, listen to the first chapter of all of them, sign up for a free short story or get a token for a free audiobook (I record them myself). I love hearing from my readers!
You can follow me on all the usual social media (God bless ‘em!)
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Bookbub.com/authors/glrobinson
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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.
