Tag: Scandal Page 1 of 17

Message From Afar

On June 27, 2026

The Teatime Tattler has it on good authority (Lady Z, currently temporary resident of Rome and long time subscriber of this publication) that odd goings on are occurring. She writes,:

“Odd behavior is as one might expect in this papist kingdom, and one fears that our young men abroad are not always as they should be. One need only look at that Byron fellow. He fled England in scandal and brought his outrageous behavior with him.”

While visiting the offices of one Arthur Wentworth, a “middling sort who is nevertheless the closest thing we have to British officialdom in this city,” she encountered a suspicious character. She might have ignored the man, poorly dressed and shabby as he was, except Lady Z was quite certain she had met him before. In London. Could he be a gentleman underneath all that? Is it a disguise? This thought was further confirmed by his speech, which “insofar as one could hear through the door,” was that of a gentleman.

What man, known to the government agent and familiar from the drawing rooms of London, could be dragging about Rome looking like an out of work laborer. Why would he not make his presence known to the wider English community?

Intrigued, Lady Z has made it her business to keep track of him for us. She last saw him entering a Papist convent of all places with a plain sort of English woman. Shocking!

About the Book, Tattered Honor

He languishes in Rome, his honor in tatters. Will love and promises help him piece it together again?

Jamie can’t let Nora know the secrets he has hidden from everyone, even his closest friends. Nora can’t trust any man who drinks. She had enough of that in her marriage. Either one, however, will dare anything for her niece, the little imp that keeps them together, even enter a sham marriage to protect her.

Formerly entitled Dangerous Secrets. The first editon was an award winning best seller. The new edition is fully edited and enlarged with new material.

Pre-Order Now https://www.amazon.com/Tattered-Honor-Heart-Book-Four-ebook/dp/B0H4HLPQDN

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.

Wallflower Sister of London’s Famed Golden Sisters Ends Fourth Season Following Incident with Duke’s Daughter

By Susana Ellis

On March 23, 2024

In Teatime Tattler

7 May 1817

Almack’s Assembly Rooms

King Street

London

Rebecca MacPherson took a step back to avoid the couple waltzing perilously close to her refuge near the potted palm outside the refreshment room. If her mother hadn’t insisted on attending the assembly rooms tonight, she could be at home re-reading her favorite of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, A Sicilian Romance. Instead, she had been duly dressed in her least-favorite gown, the pink silk with the pintuck bodice that made her bosom seem even larger than it was, and the white embroidered overdress with three rows of pink flounces sprinkled with rosettes that made her feel like an overgrown ten-year-old at a birthday party.

“You must make the most of your assets,” her mother had fussed, not for the first time. “You don’t have your sisters’ height or elegant figures, but some men prefer ladies of more generous proportions.”

Did they? Rebecca doubted it. After four Seasons, she was the only one of her presentation group who hadn’t married. Or even come close. Well, there had been Tommy Huddleston, who had paid her some attention two Seasons ago, but dropped her like a hot potato when he fell in love with a lovely singer at Covent Garden. Rebecca, who couldn’t sing a note, and learned more Italian from her music teacher than how to play the pianoforte, had only her connections and fortune to recommend her. The fair Bianca, the daughter of a butcher whose career was pushed forward by her late protector, an Italian conde, had neither, but Tommy wed her in spite of it.

Rebecca fanned her face to hide the flush she felt creeping up over her cheeks. Everyone knew Rebecca’s connections, being the daughter of a wealthy Scottish father and a mother distantly related to the Duke of Devonshire. They also knew that she had two older twin sisters, Arabella and Alice, both considered diamonds in their presentation year, who had each snapped up an earl before the end of the Season. “Poor Rebecca” was a phrase she should be accustomed to hearing, after failing to “take” four Seasons in a row.

Her mother insisted that she should “put herself out more” for the older gentlemen, widowers in need of mothers for their children. Rebecca was fond of children—she was an indulgent aunt to her own niece and nephews—but she wanted more than that from marriage. Perhaps love was too much to expect for someone like her, but surely there should be some affection between a husband and wife. Trust as well, since marriage was for a lifetime, and one didn’t wish to be married to a monster, after all. The fiasco of the Prince Regent’s marriage should serve as a lesson to all, she thought.

The music stopped and a mob of overheated dancers made a beeline to the refreshment room. Rebecca found herself pressed backward by them until she collided with someone behind her.

“Look what you’ve done! My gown is ruined!”

Rebecca whirled around, only to see the haughty Lady Alicia Howland with a sizable stain on the bodice of her ivory taffeta gown, an empty glass in hand. Her escort glared at Rebecca as he pulled out a handkerchief and made a move to use it to mop up the liquid before the impropriety of doing such a thing occurred to him.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there… I was pushed, you see, and… Here, allow me to help you, my lady,” Rebecca stammered, seizing the handkerchief and making a move toward the angry duke’s daughter.

Lady Alicia drew back. “Don’t touch me! Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

A maid appeared to escort her to the ladies’ withdrawing room, but her next words could be clearly heard by all in the vicinity.

“Such a nuisance, that girl. Not at all like her charming sisters. Someone should tell her to hold back on the bonbons, for the safety of us all!”

If she could have dropped through the floor, Rebecca certainly would have done so. A tingling swept across her face and the back of her neck. For a long moment the room was quiet, and she looked around to see a sea of faces directed at her, some showing sympathy, some disapproval, and some—including her own sister Alice—with pursed lips, apparently trying not to laugh.

And that was the end of her fourth Season.

The Third MacPherson Sister is a wallflower story that first appeared in Sweet Summer Kisses, a 2014 anthology. The story of Lady Alicia Howland, the duke’s daughter whose scathing remarks effectively ended Rebecca’s fourth London Season, can be found in the Bluestocking Belles’ most recent Christmas anthology, Christmastide Kisses.

The Third MacPherson Sister

Christmastide Kisses

About Susana Ellis

Susana Ellis is a retired teacher, part-time caregiver, sewist, cook, and fashion print collector. Lifelong reading and a fascination with history led her to writing historical romances. She is one of the original Bluestocking Belles and a member of Regency Fiction Writers and the Maumee Valley Romance Authors Inc.

Social Media

You can contact Susana Ellis at these social media links:

A new woman seeks to marry from an advert! She shall not have him!

By Cerise DeLand

On October 28, 2023

In Cerise Deland, gossip, Historical Period, Regency (19th century Britain), Teatime Tattler

I write to you today, dear Tattler, to tell of an outrage in my village. What do you say to a lady who sails all the way from London to the south shore of Wales, all to get a husband?

And to take one who has advertised to get you to come hither?

Is that not a ridiculous venture?

Sight unseen to agree to travel hundreds of miles to a sordid little town and devilihs house like the tumbledown Rambles of the barons of Rhouse and Gary? This is a sprawling, ugly monstrosity built by Normans, kept by men who made their living stealing what bounty floated up from the shores.

A wicked house it is too. Filled with wicked men who take women for their money and their land. Hollow men who fill themselves up with the dowries of naive girls and who ravaged them…and any others they wish.

The barons of this house and this lineage are thieves and charlatans. What woman would want such a man as husband?

I didn’t. Yet I had to. My father demanded it of me and where else was I to go, sicne my fiance’s father had already defiled me, eh?

Now this girl comes. Silly thing. She will not have this new baron to wed. I will see to it.

Warn your female readers not to accept a man’s hand if they know him not. It is not wise. It is not safe.

I warn you. Do not answer an advert to become a wife of a Welsh baron. He had only danger and heartache in store for you.

Sincerely,

~ Desperate Lady

*****

When a young widow wishes to marry again, will the man she grows to love ask more than she can give?

Mrs. Tynley Wallingford yearns for a quiet, comforting marriage to a man whom she can respect. She’ll go to any lengths to find the best candidate who can respect her, in turn. Even correspond with one fellow at length before she agrees that Kendryck Hollens is the man whose words awaken her desire for a husband she might grow to love.

Tynley takes a risk and sails to Wales with the best intentions. She finds in Kendryck a man with a noble ambition—and a family filled with age-old conflict and despair.

Kendryck Hollens returns home to Wales after fifteen years abroad, a stranger to his cantankerous family. He assumes his rightful title as baron of the legendary house of Strade and attempts to change the dastardly reputation of his ancestors, and put his siblings on the right path to a purposeful life.

Thrilled that Tynley has come to his home, he notices that her presence creates challenges among those in his family. But he feels assured she can help him obtain what he wants most in this world.

When a tragedy threatens to ruin his ambition and his family, he fears the price of endurance will ruin Tynley’s personal objective too—and drive her from him.

How much can one ask of one whom they love? Are any prices too high?

*****

Kendryck put his two hands to her cheeks. “I told myself I would not take you like a villain.”

“Hmmm,” Tynely said as she considered that with a tip of her head this way and that. Then she pulled at the end of his beautifully tied cravat and said, “You aren’t.”

He took her by the shoulders. “Not against the stables, not in a carriage. We must be in a bed.”

“I do agree.” She sank to lick the skin of his corded neck. “But one must have a few bites of bliss before the main course.” She undid the button of his soft linen shirt and kissed the hollow of his throat. “Otherwise, one’s appetite is not prepared.”

He laughed, he groaned, then he pressed her flush to his chest. “You should have told me you were a tease.”

She rolled her eyes. “Why? Isn’t this more fun?”

He hooted. His grip on her was mighty and seductive. “What should I know, my darling?”

“About…?”

“Making love to you.”

She bent to his mouth and licked his bottom lip. “That I will be as needy as you.”

“Thank God.”

“That I will want all of you as mine.”

“I rejoice at it. And? Anything else?”

“That I am yours completely and you may have me at your will,” she whispered and took one of his fingers and nipped the end, “as long as I may have you at mine.”

BUY LINK: https://books2read.com/u/4jBX90

Cerise DeLand is the USA TODAY Bestselling Author who believes love brings rich rewards from a life lived with honesty, valor—and a functioning funnybone.

Known for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail, she’s won awards for many of the more than 70 novels she’s written.

Her work has been nearly life-long! First published in 1991 by Kensington, then Pocket Books, St. Martin’s Press and independent presses, she is now published by DRAGONBLADE PUBLISHING. Plus her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild.

To research, she’s dived into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She travels abroad taking good walking shoes, big notebooks, trusty pens and a camera! She visits chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.

And at home every day? She cooks. (Every night.) Never dusts. (That can be a problem.) She goes swimming or pumps iron once a week and tries (desperately) to grow vegetables in her arid backyard in south Texas!

Website:

https://www.cerisedeland.com

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Cerise-DeLand/e/B0089DS2N2/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cerise.deland/

Blog: https://cerisedeland.blogspot.com/