Word Wenches

Lisbon's Link to the Regency

Cara/Andrea here, I’ve had a very quiet summer, and while a number of my friends have been gallivanting around the globe, I’ve been working diligently on the first book for a new trilogy—which means I’ve haven’t strayed far from home. So as you can imagine, when I recently received an invitation to visit Lisbon later this fall, I jumped at the opportunity.

It’s always exciting to have the chance to see one of the world’s historic cities, but Lisbon is even more alluring because of its ties to Regency England. Now, for those of you who know the era’s history, the Peninsular War looms large in the struggle between France and Britain. Napoleon seemed unbeatable on land, conquering most of Europe with his well-trained armies, while only the heart-of-oak British navy kept him from invading the Sceptered Island and perhaps ruling as a modern-day Alexander the Great.

In 1808, however, Napoleon deposed the reigning monarch and put his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, which provoked a uprising by the Spanish people. Britain decided to send military support, and given the strategic port cities along the Atlantic coast of Portugal, Lisbon became one of the main landing areas for the expeditionary armies . . .

But first, let’s take a short look at the earlier history of this ancient city. Legend has it that it was founded by Ulysses and named Olissopo, which derives from the Phoenician words "allis ubbo," meaning "enchanting port." Its nautical tradition continued from ancient times into the 15th and 16th century, when the Age of Discovery flowered in Portugal. Explorers like Vasco de Gama, whose discovery of an ocean route to India, made Lisbon one of the richest trading centers in the world, led to the establishment of colonies in Africa, Asia and Brazil, making Portugal a wealthy maritime power.

Spain slowly became a more dominant power that its smaller neighbor, but Portugal still enjoyed great prosperity, and the magnificent—and sometimes extravagant—architecture of Lisbon reflected its wealth from spices, silks, gold and jewels. Built overlooking the Tagus River, it was known for its striking beauty.

However, on November 1, 1755, disaster struck. Three major earthquakes devastated the city, setting off raging fires and a tsunami. It’s estimated that perhaps 90,000 people were killed out of the 270,000 inhabitants, and the Royal Ribeira Palace was among the many landmark structures destroyed. The city was slowly rebuilt, but its former opulent splendor was never recaptured. (Which isn’t to say it isn’t beautiful—it is!) The disaster shook the rest of Europe. Voltaire wrote a long poem about it, and his critique on optimism in his famous book Candide, is said to have been partly inspired by the event.

When Napoleon’s armies marched into Spain, they continued on right to the sea, conquering Portugal in 1807 and forcing its Royal court, including Queen Maria I and the Prince Regent, the future John IV, to set sail from Lisbon to set up a temporary government-in-exile in Brazil.

I won’t attempt a detailed history of the Peninsular War here—it’s far too big and complex a subject (those of you who have read the Richard Sharpe books will have gotten a wonderfully vivid picture of the campaigns and the horrors of guerilla warfare, which was a harsh reality of the fighting through Portugal and Spain.) However, here are a few highlights.
In 1808, Arthur Wellesley—later made the Duke of Wellington for his military victories over the French—landed with British forces and marched south toward Lisbon. He won several skirmishes and set up a defensive line to protect the landing of reinforcements. Attacked by Junot, one of the top French commanders, he won the Battle of Vimeiro, which was the first time Napoleon’s offensive tactics of combining, skirmishers, battle columns and artillery fire were repulsed. Wellesley’s victory led to the French withdrawing from Portugal, though Wellesley himself ended up being recalled to England.

Later that year, Napoleon himself came to lead his troops into battle on the Peninsula and the British army was forced to retreat to La Coruna, where it was evacuated n by sea. Napoleon turned commanded over to General Soult and never again fought in Spain.

Wellesley returned in 1809 as head of the British-Portuguese forces. He reorganized the army—including riflemen with each brigade!—and beat Soult at Porto. From there he slowly moved into Spain, where he won the Battle of Talavera. He was later forced to retreat back to Lisbon, where he created elaborate defensive works called the Lines of Torres Vedras, which proved critical in defending the city.

I n 1811, Wellesley—who was now Viscount Wellington of Talavera— forced the French to retreat from Portugal, a turning point in the war. 1812 saw some of the most famous battles of the Peninsular War take place—Ciudad Rodrigo and Salamanca, and by 1813, victory at the Battle of Vitoria helped convince Austria to re-enter the war as a British ally, thus sealing Napoleon’s fate.

I’m looking to spending a lot of time in the museums. So far, I've discovered that there is a fabulous Coaches museum, a military musem with rooms devoted to the Napoleonic period, a Tile museum and a Decorative Arts Museum. (Oh, to have more than a few days there) And then of course there is that staple of Regency excess—port! Stay tuned for a full report on that famous Portuguese wine.

So what about you? Have you traveled to any interesting destinations this summer? Learned any new history about a spot that intrigues you? And lastly, if you could choose one city in Europe to visit, which would it be?

Faking it.

Anne here, bringing you the post on fake jewelry I promised you a few blogs ago.

For years I've read stories where the family jewels had been replaced with imitations, usually by some spendthrift chap or a secret gambler. And the dowager declares in sorrow, or outrage, or horror, or in confidence, depending on the plot, "Paste my dear, nothing but paste."

I don't know what I thought paste was. I took the word fairly literally, and imagined some kind of paste that when hardened, looked like pearls, or jewels of some kind. Somewhere in the unexamined bowels of my mind there was a connection between these fakes and the paste we used at school — a kind of glue, but we called called paste. (Photos above and  below courtesy of The Three Graces)

I imagined layers of some clever and mysterious substance, built up until it had depth and brilliance or at least lustre. I was sure that in some versions, fish scales were used to achieve the latter effect — I must have read that somewhere, I expect in Georgette Heyer. Clearly, going by my fiction reading, there were grades of paste — some were good imitations and could fool all but an expert, others were visible at a glance.

But it wasn't until I was writing my most recent book that I actually thought to research it.  (Yes, there are paste jewels in this story, but it's not a big part of the plot, so I'm not giving anything important away.) I don't know why I didn't look it up before — I even had a paste tiara in one of my books but it never occurred to me to research it before now.

So, let us start with faking pearls. Pearls have always been popular. Queen Elizabeth the first, the Virgin Queen,  had a particular passion for them, not simply because they were pretty, but because they were also symbolic of purity. As you can see from this portrait, she wasn't subtle about getting her message across. Pearls galore.

In the early-mid 1600's, pearls blossomed in popularity throughout fashionable Europe, not simply worn as necklaces and other items of jewelry, but sewn onto clothing and even shoes as an adornment, and to be up there in the fashion stakes, you needed to wear masses of pearls. And the bigger the better.

But pearls were madly expensive — the art/science of cultured pearls was unknown until the 20th century, and pearls were both rare, and exotic, coming from far flung parts of the world. Only kings and queens and a few mega-rich could afford masses of real pearls, so the race was on to produce faux pearls that would fool everyone. Because one needed to appear richly dressed, even if one couldn't afford it—perhaps especially if one couldn't afford it — appearances, then as now, were crucial to social success.

In the 17th century, a man called Jaquin of Paris patented a method of faking pearls. He made tiny glass balls that were hollow inside, filled them with wax to strengthen them and give them the right kind of weight, then lacquered them with a compound made of ground-up iridescent fish scales. His method was so successful that Paris became the centre for the production of fake pearls for more than 200 years.

However, that's not paste. Even though these pearls were made of pasted-on fish scales, paste as a term for jewelry, has nothing to do with faking pearls. Simply speaking, paste jewelry is leaded glass cut and faceted to resemble gems or precious stones, like rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and the like. Even opals could be faked with this method. 

Paste is not the only way of faking precious stones — techniques of enhancing the appearance of genuine stones have long been in place — dyeing, waxing or smoking lesser-quality stones to enhance their color, fusing stones together to make composite stones.

Paste is a compound of glass containing white lead oxide and potash. The mixture of lead and glass makes the compound highly reflective. These pieces are cut — the variety of shapes possible is much more varied than in real gemstones — then the back is coated with a metal coating that enhances the brilliance and sometimes a colored foil that creates the color, like the paste "emeralds" above. (Photo used with permission)

The eighteenth century marked the beginning of what has been called "The Age of Paste." Shoe buckles and hair adornments made of ornate paste, steel and tin were fashionable for many years. The shoes wore out but the buckles were removable. Even paste was quite expensive, so you didn't want to lose your buckles.

Jewelled buttons (of paste) were also fashionable. And of course paste jewels were used for all kinds of jewelry — necklaces, tiaras, brooches, bracelets — you name it. (Above left is a French comb, circa 1840; below paste buttons. Photos courtesy of The Three Graces)

Once again the centre of faking it with paste gems was Paris — and the finest producer was Georges Strass. In fact some people still call paste jewelry "Strass jewelry." As the industrial revolution took off, however, the production of fake jewelry spread to the UK, to London and Birmingham, where they used steel for the settings of marcasite and cameos, particularly Jasperware, which was produced by Wedgewood Potteries to look like ancient cameo glass. Cameos became all the rage after Napoleon wore a cameo decorated crown for his coronation.

Interestingly, much of this early paste jewelry has lasted intact longer than some of the genuine articles, which was broken up and the stones reset into more modern styles.

The demand for paste continued to increase into the nineteenth and twentieth century and still remains popular, today. I know I had huge fun choosing a variety of paste items to wear when I went to the Romance Writers of Australia costume party dripping with "diamonds" — which as we all know, are a girl's best friend — even many years on. ;)

So what about you — Do you have any paste jewelry? Can you recall a book that contains some reference to paste jewellery? Or tell us about your favorite piece of jewellery — antique, real or paste, or a sentimental favorite.

Forbidden: The Last Scandalous Woman of the Ton!

Nicola here! Tomorrow sees the official publication of Forbidden, the last in my Scandalous Women of the Ton series (although the book has been sighted online and in various retailers already!) It’s been huge fun to write this series and I can’t quite believe that it’s over. I started with the idea – inspired by my research – that during the Regency period there were many women doing extraordinary and exciting things such as travelling and working for a living which would also have been considered scandalous at the time. I also threw in some more “conventional” scandals – a heroine who had been divorced and now, in this final book, a pretender.

The Tichborne Claimant

There have been pretenders to titles for as long as there have been titles. There have been pretenders to thrones: Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be (and may well have been) Richard Plantagenet the younger son of King Edward IV. One of my favourite books, Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, deals with a young man who claims to be the long lost son of a family who thought that he was dead. On Friday, Wench Jo blogged about a different sort of pretender, Princess Caraboo. And there is the case of the Tichborne claimant, which was the case that inspired me.

Roger Tichborne was born in 1829, the eldest son of Sir James Tichborne. In 1854 the ship he was sailing on to the West Indies foundered and it was presumed that all on board were lost. Roger was declared dead and his younger brother inherited the title. Roger’s mother, however, was certain that her son was still alive and placed advertisements in the national and international press seeking information about her son. Eventually in 1866 a man contacted Lady Tichborne from Australia, claiming to be Roger. He said that he had been rescued from the wreck, taken to Australia, where he had become a postman and a butcher. His story seemed very unlikely but was given credence by the fact that Roger Tichborne had suffered from a genital malformation and so did the claimant. Lady Tichborne was certain that he was her lost son.

“Roger” came to England with his wife and child and set out to prove his case in the courts. In both a civil and subsequent criminal trial he was identified not as Roger Tichborne but as Arthur Orton (pictured on the right) son of a ship’s victualler from Wapping. You can read more about the case here. Roger/Arthur ended up as a celebrity and a music hall act!

Would you like to win the lottery?

In Forbidden, Margery isn’t really a pretender to the Earldom of Templemore because she never sets out to claim it for herself. It is other people who identify her as the heir. In fact in the first twist to the story Margery is actually pretty happy with her life as it stands – she may be a maidservant but she is a senior one and she has plans to open a confectioner’s shop when she has saved enough money. One of the ideas I enjoyed playing with was that perhaps being the most sought-after heiress in the Ton isn’t all a bed of roses. Some people have suggested to me that it’s unrealistic that Margery wouldn’t be thrilled to discover she’s granddaughter to an Earl but I’m not sure it’s so straightforward. To me it’s a similar thing to winning the lottery. Yes, it would be great in some ways but it would change your life completely and not all of that would necessarily be good. In Margery’s case as well she had so much more freedom as a maidservant that she does as a closely-chaperoned heiress. Suddenly she is a Regency celebrity, a Cause Celebre, the heiress who has come back from the dead. It’s a huge shock to someone who is a very private person, who has grown up in a close-knit family which turns out not to be her family at all. I think that would be an enormous adjustment for anyone to make and there would be times when you would wish you could just go back to the way things used to be.

 The Fairy Tale

There is also a fairy tale element in the transformation of a maidservant into a Cinderella and I had a lot of fun with Margery’s new wardrobe and all the other trappings of her new life. I gave her a beautiful country house to live in, based on Buscot Park (in the picture) packed full of priceless objects. Margery doesn’t care for it too much because it feels like a mausoleum to her. There’s a twist in the fairy tale, though: in becoming the heiress, Margery displaces Henry, her very own Prince Charming, because he was heir to the estate until she was found. So as her fortunes rise, Henry’s fall. I liked that Henry paid the price for Margery’s social rise (maybe I just enjoy making my hero’s life as difficult as possible!) and Margery's wealth and Henry's fall become a big stumbling block in their relationship because Henry is not the sort of man who wants to appear a fortune hunter.

 A note on titles

I'm expecting some comments along the lines of "a woman can't inherit a British title - can she?" because this does confuse some readers. I made Margery heiress to a title that could be inherited in the female line. Most British titles “remainder” as it is called to male heirs (hence the whole inheritance plot at the centre of Downton Abbey) but it is entirely possible for a woman to inherit if that has been agreed when the title was originally established. In this case a title would pass to a female heir if a peer has daughters but no sons (or in this case, a granddaughter.) Again Wench Jo give more information here.

 To add to the confusion, Margery’s real name is Lady Marguerite and she has the prefix of “lady” because her father was a French Count and so as a courtesy she is granted the same title as the daughter of an Earl would have. Phew!

  Here’s an extract from Forbidden:

“Thank you for your kindness,” she said quickly, “but there was no need-” She stopped abruptly as Henry took her hand. Her breath caught in her throat. Her pulse fluttered.

“No need to see you again?” He said softly. His thumb brushed her gloved palm and she shivered.  She felt hot and melting, trembling on the edge of something sweet and dangerous. “But perhaps,” Henry said,  “I am here by choice. Perhaps I am here because I wanted to see you.”

Margery closed her eyes against the seduction of his words. She wondered if she had run mad. Maybe there would be a full moon tonight to account for her foolishness. For she knew she was being very, very foolish.  There was nothing more imprudent than a maidservant who succumbed to wicked temptation and a rake’s charm. Margery knew exactly what Granny Mallon would say. She could hear her grandmother’s words as clearly as though she was standing there.

“You mark my words, my girl. You’re asking for trouble and you’ll get all you ask for and more.”

Trouble. She knew exactly the sort of trouble that might take place between a man and a woman and it had never tempted her before. Now she craved it.

Her life had always been busy but somehow it had lacked excitement. All the adventures had happened to other people. She had merely watched. But tonight felt different. For a little while at least she was having a small adventure of her own and she was going to enjoy it. She would be careful. And she would make sure she did not get into trouble no matter how tempted she might be.

She took the arm that Henry offered her and they started to walk again, more slowly this time, her hand tucked confidingly into the crook of his elbow. She had thought it would feel like walking with Jem or another of her brothers. She could not have been more wrong. Even through the barrier of her glove she could feel the smoothness of Henry’s sleeve beneath her fingers and beneath that the hardness of muscle. The sensation distracted her; she realised that Henry had asked her a question and that she had failed to answer.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I asked where we were going.” Henry sounded amused, as though he had guessed the cause of her disturbance. She blushed to imagine that he knew the effect he had on her.

“I am going to Bedford Square Gardens.” Margery said. She hesitated and cast him a shy glance at him from beneath her lashes. “I suppose you may accompany me if you wish.”

He slanted a smile down at her and her wayward heart did another little skip. “That,” he said, “would be entirely delightful. Do you go there often?”

“As often as I have an evening free and good weather,” Margery said.

“Alone?” Henry said.

“Of course I go alone,” Margery said. “It is only a step. I am not going to sit inside on a beautiful evening because I lack a suitable escort.”

Henry’s lips twitched. “How very practical of you,” he murmured. “I hope that you are not troubled by importunate men when you are out alone.”

Margery looked at him. “Only tonight,” she said dryly.

His smile was rueful. “Touché,” he said.

“It is not a problem because I do nothing to draw attention to myself,” Margery said. “A maidservant is nothing more than a fool if she does. Besides-” She stopped on the edge of further confession. It seemed fatally easy to confide in Mr Henry Ward.

Henry looked at her. “What is it?” He asked.

Margery blushed. “Oh, it is nothing.”

“You were going to say that no one notices you,” Henry said. “But I do. I see you.”

They had stopped walking, though Margery had not realised. “How did you know?” She demanded. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

Henry smiled. He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his. Margery met his eyes and felt fear as well as excitement shimmer down her spine. There was something in his expression that was as bright and hot and searing as on the night in the brothel. She shivered.

“You are always trying to hide,” Henry said quietly, “but you cannot hide from me. I noticed you from the first.”

I am offering a copy of Forbidden to one commenter between now and midnight Tuesday. The question: How would you feel if your life changed overnight as Margery’s does – if you inherited a fortune, won the lottery or became a celebrity? What would you do with your new-found money or fame? Or would you prefer your life to stay just as it is?

Princess Caraboo

Hi, here's Jo with one of those stories that proves the saying that truth is stranger than fiction. If any of us wrote this as a novel, we'd be ridiculed.

In 1817 a quick-witted, penniless young woman persuaded local worthies and then some of the great that she was a lost princess from a foreign land. I decided to blog about this now not only because it's an engaging story, but because there's an enjoyable movie about it that might be a good choice for the lingering days of the summer holidays.

There's a complete account of the adventure available on googlebooks here and I'll start by quoting the opening.

"On Thursday evening the 3rd of April 1817, the Overseer of the Poor of the parish of Almondsbury, in the county of Gloucester, called at Knole Park, the residence of Samuel Worrall, Esq. to inform that Gentleman and his Lady, that a young Female had entered a cottage in the village, and had made signs, that it was her wish to sleep under its roof; but not speaking a language, which its inhabitants or the Overseer understood, the officer thought it right to refer to Mr. Worrall, a Magistrate for the county, for his advice; knowing also, that there was a man servant residing in Mr. Worrall's family, who was conversant with several foreign languages, and who could probably comprehend that in which the stranger spoke."

A little later we get a clear exposition of the situation of a vagrant in Regency England. "Upon Mrs. W.'s return from church, she summoned the young woman before her; and fearful of imposition, she attempted to interest the stranger by addressing her in the following soothing and compassionate language; "My good young woman, I very much fear that you are imposing upon me, and that you understand and can answer me in my own language; if so, and distress has driven you to this expedient, make a friend of me; I am a female as yourself, and can feel for you, and will give you money and clothes, and will put you on your journey, without disclosing your conduct to any one; but it must be on condition that you speak the truth. If you deceive me, I think it right to inform you, that Mr. W. is a Magistrate, and has the power of sending you to prison, committing you to hard labour, and passing you as a vagrant to your own parish."

The lost princess was in fact Mary Baker, and as best anyone can tell, she'd decided that foreigners had a better chance of being treated gently than English people, and then responded with quick wits to what happened. When shown scenes from foreign countries, she showed interest in Oriental ones, especially those from China.

She was obviously good at what she did, for she gained support from various people with knowledge of the East. Then she got really lucky with a Portuguese man who was clearly the sort to latch onto anything exciting public interest.

"At last a foreigner of the name of Manuel Eynesso, a Portuguese from the Malay country, who happened to be in Bristol, was introduced to her, and he declared that he could undertake to interpret her language. The tale, this impostor pretended to extract from her, was, briefly, that she was a person of consequence in her own country, had been decoyed from an island in the East Indies, and brought to England against her consent, and deserted. That the language she spoke was not a pure dialect, bi>t a mixture of languages used on the coast of Sumatra, and other islands in the East. This Manuel Eynesso in short invented a story so plausible, and one so well suited to the imposition the girl had determined to practice, that Mrs. W. was induced a second time to take her to Knole, intending to communicate the particulars of her history, as far as she could collect them, to some respectable individual at the East India House, and extend her protection to her till the truth of her story could be developed."

However, Mrs. Worrall intended to take the princess to London to be questioned by the East India Company, so Mary decided it was time to disappear. She'd previously intended to take ship to America and booked passage, but didn't have the money. That was why she'd gone wandering, hoping to find the means. Now that she had possessions of some value she took off for Bristol, but the ship had sailed.

Later, reason unclear, she ran away to Bath. Whether she intended it or not, she became a sensation with the great. When Mrs. Worrall tracked her down, she found this.

"The drawing room was crowded with fashionable visitants, all eager to be introduced to the interesting Princess. There was one fair female kneeling before her, another taking her by the hand, another begging a kiss !—The girl afterwards declared, that this was the most trying scene she ever encountered, and that on this occasion she had more difficulty to refrain from laughing, and escape detection, than in all the singular occurrences of her life."

Mrs. Worrall took her back to Knole, for which the princess expressed gratitude, but the true story was beginning to emerge. It's all laid out in the book, but is too complicated to attempt here. Basically Mary was a clever girl who from a young age refused to settle to any position thought suitable for her, and who was both a survivor and a natural confidence trickster.

Probably keen to see the end of her, Mrs. Worrall bought her passage to America, where I'd have thought Mary would do well, but it seems her Princess Caraboo act didn't go so well there. She should have been capable of some other ruse, but perhaps she'd become addicted to life at the top. She returned to England and lived out her life in a humdrum way. The film gives her a happier ending.

As the author, of the book, John Mathew Gutch wraps up:   "That an illiterate girl, unaided by education, in her usual manners and common appearance by no means elegant or striking, and with no apparent object, but an ambition to excel in deceit, should have so conducted herself both in the language she made use of, and in her general demeanour, as to have induced hundreds to believe, that she was no less a personage than an unfortunate, unprotected, and wandering Princess from a distant Eastern Island, cast upon the shores of Britain by cruel and relentless Pirates;—that she should have sustained this character, with a countenance never changed by the most abject flattery, or the most abusive invective, constantly surrounded by persons of superior talent and education, as well as by those in her own rank of life, who were always on the watch to mark any inconsistency, or to catch at any occurrence that could lead to detection ;—and that on no occasion was she found to lose sight of the part she was acting, or once to betray herself;—is an instance of consummate art and duplicity exceeding any occurrence in the annals of modern imposture."

That's true, especially as it's claimed in the book that she was skilled with a bow and arrow and a sword!

The fun aspect of such period narratives is the sidelights to the time. What to make of this, included in the true story of Mary Baker?

"Being at this time very fond of finery, she applied the wages which she received in the purchase of clothes, and then returned to her father's. On her return he was much hurt to see her in white, and her mother insisted on her taking it off, which she would not do. She staid there only six days, during which time she saw her friend, and her old master and mistress; but being dressed in white, they said, that she had dishonestly procured it."

As I've always assumed with reason that shifts etc were white, I can only assume this means a white gown. Would a white muslin gown be so much more expensive, or was it the impractibility of it that ruled it out? Any idea?

Does any of this surprise you? In truth, people still get away with stunts like this if they have panache. We seem willing to believe the bold, and especially eager to believe extraordinary stories, especially about people from distant lands.

And yet, as I said, less forgiving in fiction. If this were written as a Regency Romance, how would you regard it?

Have you read any romances with equally implausible plots, and how did that work for you?

Cheers,

Jo

Veils of Silk: the Long Road Home

by Mary Jo

If you’ve been following the modest saga of the book I’ve been working on and my series of “how I wrote what I wrote” posts about my Silk Trilogy, you will not be surprised to learn that A) Sometimes a Rogue, (Lost Lords #5, September 2013) went into my editor yesterday, so B) This is a good time to write about Veils of Silk, last of the Silk Trilogy. 

For me, a series will usually start with a plot premise, and then I create characters to work with that.  But as a series progress, I find that the characters get the upper hand as I develop stories to maximize their individuality.  And so it was here.

Silk and Secrets, second book in the trilogy, was based on a real rescue mission to Bokhara.  Being a romance writer to the core, in my fictional version of the rescue, the prisoner escaped alive from the Black Well of Bokhara, a horrific oubliette where the Amir of Bohkara dumped enemies he particularly wanted to suffer.

The prisoner, Major Ian Cameron, is a brother of Juliet Cameron, heroine of Silk and Secrets.  An officer in the East India Company’s Army, he was successful, popular, capable, and betrothed to his colonel’s beautiful daughter before he left on his mission to Bokhara. 

He emerges from more than a year’s captivity filthy, barely alive, and broken in many ways.  In the fiercely competitive stakes for my most tortured hero, I think Ian is the winner.  When he returns to his post in India, he finds that the life he’d planned is gone beyond hope of retrieval. 

A few suicidal thoughts float through his mind, but he can’t throw away the gift of life when Juliet and Ross risked so much to rescue him.  So he’ll take the long journey back to his ancestral home in Scotland.  But first, he must deliver the journal of the dead Russian officer who had shared his imprisonment to the officer’s niece, who is living in India with her stepfather.

And so he meets Laura.  Born Larissa Alexandrovna Karelian, she has become very British since her widowed mother married a British district officer.  Newly orphaned, alone in the world, she needs Ian as much as he needs her.  It’s a marriage of convenience and friendship. 

But Laura’s Russian uncle left her an inheritance in the far northwest of India, and together they journey north to retrieve his legacy, and to make their farewells to the sub-continent.  Naturally, all kinds of things happen along the way, including a planned invasion, a secondary romance between a Hindu widow and a Muslim soldier, and a lot of changes in the relationship between Ian and Laura.

VEILS is the longest novel I’ve ever written, and possibly the most research intensive.  It also comes closest to being a mainstream historical, though the core is pure romance.   

Having Ian share a cell with a Russian officer puts the Great Game, the struggle between Britain and Russia for possession of Central Asia, squarely in the middle of the plot.  Lots of adventure, oh, yes!  I’m proud of the book and the way the characters grew and healed—and at the end, I was so tired that I went back to Regency England for the Fallen Angels series.  <G> 

Obviously I have a thing about imprisonment since my most recent Lost Lords book, No Longer a Gentleman, had a hero emerging from ten years of French solitary confinement. 

I found this interesting to write because the characters react so differently.  Ian’s captivity is much shorter but much uglier, and he emerges profoundly depressed.  Grey in NLAG is also changed greatly, but he emerges semi-feral and hungry for life.  Different men, different reactions.  Very different heroines, too. 

Here’s an excerpt of Veils of Silk:

Ian Cameron has delivered her uncle’s journal to Laura Stephenson, born Larissa Alexandrovna Karelian, and finds himself charmed by the young woman’s kindness, beauty, and good sense.  Though he had thought marriage impossible, Laura is uniquely suited to be his wife.  This scene is when he has proposed to her in the ruins of an Indian temple to Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of fortune.

    “If I had common sense,” Laura said tartly, “I would not be considering your proposal.”
    “Then I must hope that sometimes you’ll have sense, and other times you’ll have none at all.”  Ian sighed.  “As I said earlier, I want to be honest with you, Laura.  I can provide for you in a material sense, but I’ve changed for the worse in more ways than one.  Though I used to have an amiable disposition, I’ve been living in a black fog for months.  On a bad day it takes every shred of will I have to just get out of bed, and the good days aren’t much better.  Sometimes I feel like a dried husk that will blow away in the next strong wind.”  
    She considered his words calmly, her slanted golden eyes thoughtful, then said simply, “Melancholia.”
     Startled, he said, “I’ve never been melancholic.”
     “You were never imprisoned and tortured before, either,” she pointed out.  “Melancholia is not uncommon, you know.  My father’s father suffered from terrible spells of it.  He would stay in bed for days on end.  When he did get up, he drifted about like a body searching for its lost soul.  But always the darkness passed, and then no one could match his high spirits.  In your case, the melancholy was surely brought on by your experiences.  When it lifts, you may never suffer from it again.”
    Ian thought about that.  Both Juliet and David had counseled patience, saying that things would improve.  Laura went one step further; by matter-of-factly naming his condition, she had made it easier to understand.  Perhaps he wasn’t uniquely cursed.  “I hope you’re right.  But if you are and I improve much in the future, I might become very different from the man you would be marrying.”
     “Everyone changes with time, Ian.  I like you very well the way you are—if you learn to laugh again, I think I would like you even better.  So much for melancholia.”  She made a dismissive gesture with her hand.  “Are you an agreeable man?”
    Startled by her abrupt change of direction, he said cautiously, “Probably not.  How do you define agreeable?”
     “In the literal sense of being willing to accommodate the wishes of others,” she explained.  “My mother once said that the most comfortable marriages are between two people who are both easygoing, who do not always insist on having their own way.  When two such people do disagree about what to do, the one who cares most about the result will get his or her way, and the other accepts it good-naturedly.”
 Intrigued, he said “Your mother sounds like a wise woman.  But what if there is a difference of opinion and both parties care greatly about how the issue is decided?” 
     “Then they fight,” she said, eyes twinkling.  “But I am an agreeable person—most of the time—and you seem to be also.  I don’t think we would fight often.”  
     “I think I’m agreeable in the sense you mean, if not always in other ways.”
    “Very good.”  She cocked her head to one side.  “Do you have any other dark secrets to reveal?”
    “One more, and this may be the worst,” he said with wry humor.  “The lords of Falkirk were border bandits for centuries, so the family seat is built for defense, not comfort.  It’s one of those frightful medieval castles with twelve-foot thick walls, smoking chimneys, and ancient weapons lurking in dark corners.”  
     “Ghosts?” she said hopefully.
     “Three or four, but they’re a harmless lot.  Far worse are the drafts.  When the wind blows from the North Sea, it could freeze the ears off a stone elephant.”
     “You should not say such a thing in front of our friend Ganesha,” she said with mock reproval.  “And don’t think you can frighten a Russian with tales of cold.  Compared to St. Petersburg, your Falkirk will seem like Calcutta.  We Russkis are very good at creating warmth in a frozen land.”  
     Though her words were teasing, they were also absolutely true, for Laura had already created warmth in Ian’s frozen heart.  “I think I’ve covered the worst of my dark secrets,” he said.  “Do you have any to confess?”
    Her levity faded and she glanced away, her absent gaze falling on the bas relief next to her.  “I haven’t your ability to be honest about things that are deeply painful, Ian.  That isn’t a dark secret, but it certainly is a flaw in my character.”
     “If that’s your worst failing, I’ll be a lucky man.”  He smiled a little.  “Are you ready to make a decision, or will you need more time?”
     Laura reached out and rubbed Ganesha’s round, jolly belly with her palm.  Ganesha, the happy god, who removed obstacles from the paths of mortals.  “Laura Stephenson is a calm, rational Englishwoman who thinks that what you are proposing is mad,” she said slowly.  “But Larissa Alexandrovna is a demented Russian, and she says I should grab this opportunity with both hands, for I’ll never have another like it.”
    Hope welling in his heart, he rose to his feet and walked toward her.  “Then by all means remember that you are Russian.”

When going through the manuscript to prepare Veils of Silk for the e-edition, I remembered just how much I like the characters and the story.  I don't know if I ever want to work so hard on a book again--but I've very glad I did for Veils!

I've asked about exotic settings before.  Is India too exotic?  Or are Russians, for that matter? 

Mary Jo

Handsome Heroes . . .

Cara/Andrea here,

I’ve just sat down this week to start a new trilogy. It’s hard to say goodbye to the characters from my previous trio, for they’ve become dear friends throughout the course of writing the three books. (Cameron's story. TOO DANGEROUS TO DESIRE, will be out in November.) After all, we’ve had coffee together every morning for quite some time (not to speak of numerous breaks for chocolate and other butter-laden treats to feed the Muse.)  At this point, I know their minds better than they do <G>

But it’s also fun to make—and I mean that quite literally—new friends.

It’s also challenging.  Now, I tend to start with my hero. (Or I this case heroes, as I have to think ahead to the three sinfully sexy rogues who will play a starring role in each of the three stories.) But more on that in a minute. First a little more backstory on the general creative process.

I have an overview of the series, and a short synopsis for each story, so I know the bare-bones facts about who the heroes and heroines are. (In this case, the working title of the trilogy is “The Hellions of Half Moon Street,” and it will revolve round three sisters who have a secret passion for writing.) But fleshing them out takes a lot more than a few paltry scribbles on the pages. Especially since I’m a total “pantser,” and rarely have any more than a vague idea of how they are going to get from Page One to the HEA.



So the first few chapters are always slow going as I begin feeling out what makes each of the characters tick. (Trust me, some are more introverted than others and are shy about sharing their secrets.)  Now, I’ve found that having a picture helps me —you know, seeing the shape of a mouth, the strength of chiseled features, the expression swirling beneath the hue of the eyes reveals a lot about a person.

So one of the first things I do is to start collecting photos of faces I find  . . . inspiring. And as I said, the first characters I focus on are my heroes. So without further ado, let’s look at a few men who have caught my eye for this new project. I’ve decided my three heroes are going to be dark and a little dangerous. Tough, yet sensitive. Mysterious. Handsome as sin.

A young Timothy Dalton from Wuthering Heights seemed like a good place to start. (I have to confess, he’s been a big favorite for quite a while. He made very dashing James Bond too. ) Then there’s Ioan Gryffudd from the Horatio Hornblower series. The hero in the first book of this new series is a former military officer, so that struck me as a good match. So did Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe. (okay, okay, he’s not dark-haired but I’m allowed a little artistic license, aren’t I?) 

I also came across a rather attractive fellow who’s the son of a princess, (His name is Andrea) and as my heroes are nobleman, I figured there’s nothing wrong with having a little blue blood flowing through their veins.

And then there is Johhny Depp in his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. Because honestly, how can we not love a pirate? (And he looks pretty alluring without the mascara and braid as well)

Now, given that’s it’s still summer here in the States, and many of us are indulging in a last swirl of frivolous play time before buckling back down to business after Labor Day, let’s have a little fun. Who would you suggest as the model for a devilishly dashing hero? Anyone goes—actors, celebrities, princes sports stars from the recent Olympics! So let’s hear who makes you heart go pitty-pat!

Georgian and Regency Mayhem, Oh My

Because I write about spies — some of them women — and because spies have a not-totally-unmerited reputation for violence, I decided to look into acts of violence and mayhem Regency women might have got up to. 

Prior to considering this subject, I hadn't noticed all that many references to women duking it out or poking each other with fencing foils or shooting holes in each other with pistols at dawn in a formalized way. 
I though maybe this was common sense on the women's part.
Researching further, however ...

London's Central Criminal Court, the Old Bailey, is where perpetrators of Regency violence tended to end up.  Here's some glimpses into the unfortunate and violent side of life in Regency London.

It's 1804.  This is a man visiting a house of what he believes to be extremely hospitable women.  Little does he know ...
"I was walking in a street; I do not know the name of it; I was called by the signal of a young lady; she was standing before her door. ...  I went into the house with her, and the mistress of the house ... said, if I would speak to the young lady, I had better go up stairs.  After I had been up stairs, I came down again, and  ... I said to the ladies, if they would give me the change of a one-pound note, I would give them half a pound.
"Mrs. Beard ...  gave me a punch in the guts, a push, and a blow on the stomach; then they all fell on me at once, striking and beating me; the tallest woman, Ann Johnson, took me by the coat, and they all took me by the coat, and tore the part, where the pocket-book was, off; with that they all fell upon me ... after they had beat me well, I sung out so badly, that they were obliged to open the two doors, and then they shoved me out in the dirt, all four of them." (Proceedings of the Old Bailey)

Which sounds like a lively time was had by all.

Or this, from a woman walking home in the evening.  "I was coming from Bishopgate-street, I had a gown and umbrella with me; I was tyeing up my shoe at a corner of a street in Bishopsgate-street, there were three women came up to me, one seized me round my neck, another gave me a knock of the head and knocked me down, and the other took my bundle and ran away."  (Proceedings of the Old Bailey)


And:  "On the evening in question, I had been to Covent Garden Theatre; I was returning in company with Mrs. Hill. In the narrow part of Rathbone-place, I was suddenly without any provocation knocked down by the prisoner Paget, with her fist; she struck me on the face; while I was on the ground, I was severely kicked and bruised; I was stunned by the blow I received on my face; she took the shawl from my shoulders as I lay; I had it round my shoulders very close, and she pulled it to get it away; she did get it away at last."  (Proceedings of the Old Bailey)


Ah, the good old days when women were nurturing and gentle creatures. 

Besides this unfortunate tendency for mugging with violence, at least some small portion of the female population indulged in professional fisticuffs.

This match in 1723 was advertised: "There has not been such a battle for these twenty years past, and as these two heroines are as brave and as bold as the ancient Amazons, the spectators may expect abundance of diversion and satisfaction, from these female combatants."

The Morning Chronicle of March 24, 1807 reports:  "There were several fights amongst the lower orders on Sunday morning near Hornsey Wood; but the one which afforded the most diversion, was between two women; the opponents were Betty Dyson, a vender of sprats, and Mary Mahony, a market-woman. These Amazons fought in regular order upwards of forty minutes, until they were both hideously disfigured by hard blows. Betty was once completely blind, but the lancet restored her sight; and Mary was at length obliged to resign to her the palm of victory. The contest was for five guineas."

This to the left is a later prizefight.  Late Nineteenth Century.  The fights in Georgian and Regency rings would be bareknuckled.

When half-dressed females boxing got to be dull, sometimes they fought with swords.  Cesar de Saussure wrote in 1725:

"I witnessed an extraordinary combat, two women being the champions. As soon as they appeared on the stage they made the spectators a profound reverence ; they then saluted each other and engaged in a lively and amusing conversation. They boasted that they had a great amount of courage, strength, and intrepidity. One of them regretted she was not born a man, else she would have made her fortune by her powers; the other declared she beat her husband every morning to keep her hand in, etc. Both these women were very scantily clothed, and wore little bodices and very short petticoats of white linen.

"One of these amazons was a stout Irishwoman, strong and lithe to look at, the other was a small Englishwoman, full of fire and very agile. The first was decked with blue ribbons on the head, waist, and right arm; the second wore red ribbons. Their weapons were a sort of two-handed sword, three or three and a half feet in length; the guard was covered, and the blade was about three inches wide and sharp only about half a foot of it was, but then that part cut like a razor.

"The spectators made numerous bets, and some peers who were there some very large wagers. On either side of the two amazons a man stood by, holding a long staff, ready to separate them should blood flow. After a time the combat became very animated, and was conducted with force and vigour with the broad side of the weapons, for points there were none.

"The Irishwoman presently received a great cut across her forehead, and that put a stop to the first part of the combat. The Englishwoman's backers threw her shillings and half-crowns and applauded her. During this time the wounded woman's forehead was sewn up, this being done on the stage; a plaster was applied to it, and she drank a good big glass of spirits to revive her courage, and the fight began again, each combatant holding a dagger in her left hand to ward off the blows. The Irishwoman was wounded a second time, and her adversary again received coins and plaudits from her admirers.  ... The surgeon sewed it up, but she was too badly hurt to fight any more, and it was time, for the combatants were dripping with perspiration, and the Irishwoman also with blood. A few coins were thrown to her to console her, but the victor made a good day's work out of the combat." 

Brawls in brothels, mugging with violence, or public boxing and swordfights would have involved women of the lowest classes.  In Romance, our heroine shoots pistols and fences.  How wild is this idea?  Did women of the respectable classes train and fight for sport, the way their brothers, husbands, and cousins did? 

Seems so.

The Eighteenth Century Duchess of Queensbury, Catherine Hyde, was a notable fencer and trained at Angelo's School of Arms in London, the famous fencing studio. The print to the right, from 1816, is Rowlandson showing another woman fencer, Madame Collie of Rome, in white jacket and skirt. 

So training with the foil would not have been outlandish and incredible. In 1815 a traveller to Geneva can say, "Neither is it rare for mothers to have their daughters instructed in fencing till they are ten or twelve years old, for the purpose of giving flexibility to their limbs." (The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 3)

There are a few famous woman-woman duels in the period.  If they seems fairly silly, I suspect most male-male duels were silly too.

In 1792 Lady Almeria Braddock and Mrs Elphinstone fought what was referred to in the press as the "petticoat duel".

"A certain Mrs Elphinstone paid a visit to Lady Almeria Braddock and was rude to her hostess.  'You have been a very beautiful woman,' declared Mrs Elphinstone in the somewhat unflattering past tense.  'You have a very good autumnal face even now, but you must acknowledge that the lilies and roses are somewhat faced. Forty years ago, I am told, a young fellow could hardly gaze upon you with impunity.'

"Lady Almeria, not surprisingly, was furious and demanded satisfaction in Hyde Park in central London.  They began with pistols at ten yards, Mrs Elphinsonte putting a bullet through Lady Almeria's hat.  They then set to with swords, and Mrs Elphinstone was lightly injured.  Lady Almeria declared herself satisfied, Mrs Elphinsonte agreed, and both women curtsied to each other before departing the field."  (James Landale The Last Duel)

Here's another one.  Aristocrats behaving badly, as it were. 
In France, in 1721, the Comtesse de Polignac and the Marquise de Nesle, both lovers of the Duc de Richelieu, indulged in a most undignified scrap in the gardens at Versailles. 

"Lady de Nesle, losing all control of herself, had sprung like a tigress upon her rival, and attempted to tear a diamond necklace from the Countess's neck. Failing in this, however, she snatched the blush roses from their nest in the snowy bosom, and flung them in the face of her rival. ...  In a moment jewels and flowers and ribbons and laces strewed the floor, and there is no telling to what extent the extraordinary exhibition would have gone had not the enraged amazons been separated by the Marquis de Malbuisson and Mademoiselle Nathalie de Condacet.

"Out of this grew the duel, the Countess of Polignac being the challenging party. The ladies met at six  in the morning, in July, 1721, and fired one shot at each other without effect. Their seconds (the Marquis de Malbuisson and the Comte de Penthievre for Polignac and M. de Remusac and Vicomte D'Allagne for de Nesle) then rushed in to prevent further hostilities; the fair demons, however, would not be appeased, but called for a change of pistols, and again blazed away—this second time with satisfactory effect, for the Marchioness fell dangerously wounded by a bullet in her left side, while the Countess was just quietly touched in an ear." (The Field of Honor, Benjamin Truman)

Whenever I hear, 'history is dull', I always wonder what these folks have been reading. 

So, what's your most memorable fighting moment -- as spectator or participant? 

Ask A Wench - After the Happy Ending

Nicola here, with our Ask A Wench for August. A while ago Kathleen Hendeson asked: 

“I read somewhere that Jane Austen had told her family where all her major characters ended up after she had written the ending of her books… I wonder when you’re done with a book or series of books are you done with those characters or do you too know how their lives played out?”

Kat wins a copy of one of my books for her question, which has provoked some very interesting replies from the Wenches. Jane Austen may well have known what happened toall of her characters and she did of course parody the fashion for Gothic romances in Northanger Abbey but as one of the Wenches said: “I'll bet Jane didn't know there would be a zombie infestation!”

Over to the Wenches:

Cara Elliott: Unlike Jane, I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about what the future holds for my
hero and heroine. I’ve worked really hard (<G>) to get them to their HEA, and I figure I’ve given them their perfect matches, have helped them work through their conflicts, and now it’s up to them to make the most of it!

What intrigues me more are my secondary characters. Now, many of them do get their own books, but a few in particular who were meant to be background “wallflowers” have come out of the woodwork, as it were, and whispered in my ear that they had a very interesting story, if only I would listen. This recently happened in the book I just finished. Too Dangerous To Desire, which will be out in November. The heroine’s younger sister turned out to be such a fun character—and as she’s engaged to a dashing young army officer (who never actually appears in the book) I can imagine some very intriguing adventures for them. Hmmm . . .

Joanna Bourne: I am so very curious what happens to my characters after the book ends that I write up year-by-year lists of where everybody goes and what they get up to.  It's all very interesting and exciting.  My books wander up and down a thirty-year timeline, being written in no particular order, so the end of one book is often the beginning of another.

Maybe I return to the same folks and the same fictive world because I never want to say goodbye. 

 Anne Gracie: An interesting question. Usually when I've wondered about where my characters have ended up after the story is finished, it's been because a) I'm writing a connected book or b) a reader has asked me about them.

 In both cases, I find I'm perfectly confident about how they are. By the time I finish a book my heroes and heroines have usually had to work pretty hard to earn their happy ending, and that happiness doesn't end with the end of the book. Otherwise I only think of them in general terms, not specific.  I know, for example that most of them go on to have children, though unless I need to put it in a book, I don't always work out how many, which gender, or name them.

Mostly the questions I get from readers are about the minor characters — for instance people want to know what happened to the children the heroine was caring for at the beginning of TALLIE'S KNIGHT. This message was sent to me only a couple of weeks ago:

 "Please please make up a story to help little Georgie and his sisters escape or revenge their horrid mother, Laetitia. A little, short story will do! It's just that, time and again, I reach the end of Tallie's Knight and think - what about Georgie?? Help him, poor mite!” 

 Apart from reassuring readers that Georgie and his sisters are fine and Georgie is growing up to become a fine hero, I have no further details. I've had similar questions about the hero's little sisters in PERFECT KISS — Cassie and Dorie — and my PERFECT KISS book was actually written in response to reader requests for the story of Grace, the youngest of the Merridew sisters. And I can't tell you how many requests I've had for Marcus's story, from the Devil Riders series. 

But in those cases, though I might have an idea of what happens to them after the book, it's not until I come to write the story that I really know what happens. I just hope I get to write those stories one day and then I'll find out — and let you know.*g*

I think most authors have experienced similar things — readers bond with characters and want to know more — they don't want to leave the world. I'm the same. I reread Eva Ibbotson's Countess Below Stairs (aka The Secret Countess) recently and found myself hoping little Ollie grew up to marry a really wonderful hero — and I wondered if it might be Peter, the heroine's young brother. It's irresistible, I think.

  Pat Rice: "One of the truly brilliant elements of a series is the ability to see what the characters are doing in the years after they get together! I loved writing the Magic series and playing with the possibility of what kind of children the magical Malcolms and genius Ives would produce. And now I can write about the children of their children in the contemporary Magic series. I really don't know how their lives play out unless I write them."

 Mary Jo Putney: I have a generalized sense that my characters lead long, happy, and healthy lives, and die peacefully in bed together in their 80s or something like that.  They love each other deeply, are happily monogamous, and while life will toss them some curve balls, they have the ability to deal with whatever comes their way.

But they don’t all just sit around on an estate for the rest of their lives.  The heroes who are in the House of Lords work for reformist legislation like child protection laws and Catholic Emancipation bills.  The heroines are probably starting schools on their estates.  In the case of the heroine of No Longer a Lady, she’s founding battered women shelters through the Methodist Church because she was a battered wife, and the Methodists were (and are) famously involved in social welfare.

In other words, my characters are part of the life of their times.  They grow, they learn, and they care about their communities.  As has been said by other Wenches, a series does give one a glimpse of what other characters are doing.  This was most noticeable in my Circle of Friends contemporary trilogy, where the characters had well defined careers: Kate continues to blow up buildings, Rainey is still producing movies, and lawyer Val is still providing justice for little guys against big guys.

But as Anne said, the most queries come from people who are interested in what happens to secondary characters.  (Being romance readers, they understand that the heroes and heroines are living happily every after.  <G>)  I’ve lost count of how many readers who are wondering rather anxiously if there will be more Lost Lords books, and surely I wasn’t going to stop with a trilogy, was I?  No, of course not. I’m just as interested in finding out what happened to those secondary characters as they are!

Jo Beverley:  As all but one of my books are in linked series, I clearly do like to see how my characters go on, and as I've not finished a series yet, I haven't had to deal with that. I only follow them as far as the next books take them, however. I'm not interested in imagining their middle age or death, or following their children.

 As a reader I often play out the story a little bit longer, imagining how it might go on.

 Susan King: I'll finish a book and keep on thinking about the characters, though to be honest, I don't wonder too much about my romance characters -- I feel certain that they'll all live happy, productive, unique and wonderful lives together. In subsequent stories, a peek in their direction always shows that they're content and doing just fine. I guess it's the characters who aren't doing fine, the current heroes and heroines of stories, that capture my attention a bit more -- though it's fun to bring in the others to advise the newer book couples!   

I did wonder what became of Lady Macbeth, as it's anyone's guess with no documents in existence. So I continued her story in Queen Hereafter, Margaret's book -- and still was left thinking about her. I imagine that she remained a bit of a rebel in that tough world, never giving in to convention. Maybe she finally married Ruari, the warrior who had stayed loyally and quietly by her side through her two marriages -- he was always straightforward with her, and she trusted him with her life (and I did my best to push them together in the sequel!). Maybe she studied more magic -- I'm sure she would have delved deeper into that. 

As for Queen Margaret, we know what became of her, though my novel ended sooner rather than later in
her life: she had more children with Malcolm Canmore for a total of eight healthy kids (remarkable for back then), and she continued to push herself in every way, compromising her health with rigorous fasts and long, prayerful nights without sleep.

Nicola: The other Wenches have just about said it all. I too have a general feeling that my characters will all live long and happy lives – although not without bumps along the road because which of us don’t have those? I love writing linked series and developing the stories of the secondary characters and I love it when readers ask for these. Lady Emma’s Disgrace, the short story that is currently being serialised on my website, arose directly as a result of so many readers writing to tell me that Emma, a secondary character in Notorious and Desired, definitely deserved her own happy ending.

As a reader I do sometimes speculate about the fate of the characters, particularly if a book or character makes a very vivid impression on me, and when I was an aspiring author I did the fan fiction thing of developing the stories I loved in my own head, in my own way!

What about you? Do you ever wonder about the future lives of the hero and heroine of a particular book? Do you have favourite secondary characters whose stories you would like told?

Fairy Tales

Anne here, talking about fairy tales. I've been indulging myself lately, reading fairy tales for adults — and no, I'm not talking about Fifty Shades of anything, just the usual fairy tales most of us grew up with, only retold for adults of today. (The pic. on the right is Fairy Tales  by Mary Gow (1851—1929)

I'm also not talking about stories that riff off old and beloved tales, like the many romances spun around the Cinderella, or the Beauty and the Beast theme, which I've done in a number of my books; I'm talking about the retelling of the original stories more or less as is.

It started when I was talking to my friend Jenny and the conversation drifted to what we've been reading, as it usually does. She told me that a few days earlier she'd reread Robin McKinley's Beauty for the umpteenth time and had wept reading it, as she usually does.

 "Sad ending?" I asked, being a terrible wimp about such things.

"No, it's lovely," she said, secretly shocked that I hadn't already read Robin McKinley. "I'll send you a copy."

So she did, and I read it and I loved it. It's a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast tale, and though it sticks pretty much to the original story, it's wonderful—a lush and evocative tale that's told with a freshness and energy that kept me reading far into the night.

Next I read McKinley's Spindle's End — a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story, and once more, even though you already know the story, and she doesn't depart radically from it, she brings it to life in a vivid and unexpected way.

I now have her Sunshine to read on the plane when I head up to the Romance Writers of Australia Annual National Conference (where, incidentally Honorary Word Wench Eloisa James is the keynote speaker—and won't that be fun?) Sunshine isn't quite based on the kind of fairytale I grew up with — it's a vampire story. I'm looking forward to it.

So all this reading of fairy tales retold has started me thinking about other fairytale retelling. I was entranced with fairytales when I was a kid even though I hated the way most of them ended — I still boil with resentment that the poor little girl who wanted the frivolous red shoes was so horribly punished, and every time I buy yet another pair of red shoes, I'm making a gesture of solidarity with that poor child and her desire for something pretty to wear. And as for the Little Match Girl, the image of her burning her matches one by one in the freezing night haunts me still. (pics following are by Arthur Rackham)

Strangely, though I disliked so much about fairy tales, I really enjoy the romance novel retellings of Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast, The Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty and one of my favorites, The Ugly Duckling. The main difference is that in modern versions of fairytales, we prefer the heroine to rescue herself, or at least to have a major role in her own rescue. And the hero and heroine get what they deserve in the end. I love the Jennifer Crusie essay where she talks about this:
 
"As a child, I’d been looking for myself in fairy tales and finding only disappointments. If I’d been a boy, I could have found great role models in stories like “Jack & the Beanstalk,” with a protagonist who climbed to the top to get what he wanted, grabbed the prize, killed the giant, and came back home a hero. Jack’s story remains a great model for little boys, telling them to be active and quest for what they want in life and they will be rewarded. But what did I have as a girl? Well, I had Sleeping Beauty, who got everything she’d ever wanted because she looked really good unconscious. Or there was Snow White, who got everything she’d ever wanted because she looked really good unconscious. Or there was Cinderella, who should be given some credit for staying awake through her whole story, but who got everything she’d ever wanted because she had really small feet. The fairy tales I read as a child told me that boys’ stories were about doing and winning but that girls’ stories were about waiting and being won."

(Read the rest of the essay here and another of her essays dealing with fairy tales here.)

 So I like the fairy-tale elements in stories, but with a modern day slant toward active heroines and justice prevailing. It might not be as true to life — but it's what I enjoy in my escapist reading. Apparently it's also what I enjoy in my own writing. I just made a list of my own books and tried to work out what fairy tale they were most similar to — some I couldn't categorize, but I did discover that Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast and The Ugly Duckling featured more than once, and Cinderella is a theme I've revisited quite a few times. (Pic on the left is from The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault )

It reminded me of a writing exercise Jane Porter did many years ago when she came to Australia for a conference. In it she asked us to list our favorite fairy tales, and later on she told us the themes in those stories, might well be themes we'd revisit in our own stories. I can't remember which my favorites were when I was a child, but I think I can see the pattern emerging.

So what about you? Did you enjoy fairy tales as a child? Were there any you hated? What modern day writers' version of fairy tales do you enjoy — romances or other kinds of books. Do you have a favorite fairy tale romance, or maybe a movie or even TV show? Share your favorites. 

And So to Bed

Nicola here. 

“Margery slipped from the vast bed – it had almost engulfed her and the mattress was so soft…”

Last night as I was lying in my bed with soft feather pillows but a very hard mattress, I thought about beds in general and beds in historical romances in particular. I almost always model the beds in my stories on ones I’ve seen in stately homes so they are usually grand testers or fourposters with embroidered hangings. I tend to make them huge as well, which isn’t strictly accurate since the beds I’ve seen in the majority of grand houses are pretty small, possibly too small to share comfortably and so high you might roll out if you indulged in any strenuous activity!

Margery, the heroine of my new book Forbidden, out later this month, is a former maidservant. As such she has been accustomed to sleeping in a narrow bed in an attic room shared with other maids.
When she was promoted to be a lady’s maid she had her own small bedroom near that of her mistress. It is only when Margery goes to her grandfather’s stately home, Templemore, that she is given an entire suite of rooms of her own, and a bed like a huge galleon that she, a small woman, almost gets lost in. I used the suite of rooms that I stayed in at Coombe Abbey to inspire me. This was the bed (in the photo on the right) and I didn't get a wink of sleep because I fully expected the ghosts of previous occupants of the house to waft past at any moment!

 

In contrast, I’ve seen servants’ bedrooms at Ashdown House and they were tiny. In fact they weren’t really bedrooms at all, just narrow strips of space partitioned off from one large open attic. There was little privacy, but then no one expected it. This servant's bedroom in another National Trust house is palatial in comparison.

 The Tudor Bed

In Medieval and Tudor times the bed was one of the most valuable items in a household so when
Shakespeare left his best bed to his daughter and heir and only his second best bed to his wife that would have been totally understandable to his contemporaries. Beds from this period were usually “box beds” with rope stretchers that supported boards on which the mattress would lie. They had to be tightened regularly (from which we get the saying “sleep tight” and the bed itself was too complicated a contraption to move so it remained in the chamber whilst all the movable pieces – hangings, mattresses, pillows, bed linen – travelled around with the family. Servants tended to have pallet to sleep on in the same room or a truckle bed that pulled out from beneath the main bed. The hangings started off separate from the bed, hanging from hooks on the ceiling, but soon became a part of the bed structure. This is a picture of Mary Queen of Scots' bedroom from my recent visit to Holyroodhouse Palace. (Incidentally the "state bed" of a monarch was not a functional bed as such, but a representation of royalty. No one, whatever their rank, was allowed to lean on Henry’s VIII’s bedpost because it represented the royal person. The state bed was used for the ritual of going to bed in the evening and rising in the morning, but then the monarch would often slip away to a smaller, more comfortable bed elsewhere!)

The best mattresses were sacks of wool that were stuffed with down and feathers, although other stuffings including straw, gorse, seaweed and wigs (yes, really) have all been found in medieval mattresses. I’ve tried straw mattresses and found them very prickly. Gorse, I imagine would be unbearably scratchy and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to lie on it and even the best feather mattresses I have sampled from this period were very lumpy but then I am like the Princess and the Pea, a very poor sleeper.

Of course the average person had only a pallet on the floor of a cottage to sleep on. Babies slept in drawers and people shared beds not from choice but because they had no choice. I do wonder if I had been a medieval peasant whether I would have got used to sleeping in very cramped conditions. I suspect I would probably have been so tired all the time that I would have been able to sleep anywhere!

The Great Bed of Ware

One of my favourite beds is the "great bed of Ware", which was built in the Elizabethan period. It is almost ten feet wide and was probably built not to sleep in but as a tourist attraction for an inn in Ware, Hertfordshire. Shakespeare used is as a byword for hugeness in Twelfth Night and 26 butchers and their wives allegedy spent the night in it for a bet in 1689. It was made of oak and was therefore considered only "middling grand" because the best beds of the time were made of walnut.

 

The Regency Experience

 In a previous blog post I noted how surprised I was that when I visited the Georgian House in Edinburgh the main bedchamber was on the ground floor and also doubled up as a parlour for receiving guests. I also visited Newhailes, a Georgian country house on the outskirts of the city where the "best bedroom" was also on the ground floor in a room off the drawing room.  By the Regency period, however, most houses had all their bedrooms upstairs and had moved away from the idea of bedrooms as public spaces to ideas of privacy. (The photo shows one of the interconnecting bedrooms at Ashdown, built in the 17^th century when you would still expect someone to wander through your room on their way somewhere else!) Regency beds tended to be high because of the very fat mattresses and feather bolsters, and steps were provided to help you climb in.

A word about marriage beds (most appropriately for a historical romance blog.) The colour green was associated with Venus, the goddess of love, and therefore many bridal beds were hung with green. I also love the tradition of decorating the marriage bed with violets and jasmine. That would have smelled beautiful.

The last word on bedchambers goes to Margery, who is driven out of her bedchamber at Templemore when her bed hangings catch fire after she falls asleep reading in bed. The terrifying Dowager Lady Wardeaux offers her a new bedchamber:

"Eventually Margery was installed in the North Tower room, a circular chamber with walls covered in yet more family portraits and a spiral stair leading down to the ground.

“I wanted something smaller,” she wailed, feeling like a marble rattling around in a huge box.

“I’ve explained that there is nothing smaller,” Lady Wardeaux said with barely concealed exasperation. “We do not have small rooms here at Templemore.”

I hope I am not being too personal when I enquire into your sleep preferences! Do you sleep like a log or catnap lightly? Are you a feather mattress sort of person or would you like to try gorse (perfect for Scottish heroes and heroines?) Do you prefer Victorian brass or wooden fourposters?  

Silk and Secrets: Into the Great Unknown

by Mary Jo

Two weeks ago, drowning in deadline madness, I blogged about Silk and Shadows, a backlist book that was first of my Silk Trilogy, and which is now available in an edition.  I told you some of the story-behind-the-story, and threatened to do more such posts in the future.

That threat is being fulfilled very quickly!  I’m still slogging through Lost Lords #5, though I think I’ve found a plot thread that will take me to the grand finale.  And I still enjoy talking about some of the elements that went into spinning a particular tale.  Hence, here’s some of the background of Silk and Secrets, book II of my Silk Trilogy. (This is the new Kim Killion e-book cover.)

The inspiration for the story came when I was researching the background of the exotic hero of the first book of the trilogy.  Here’s an excerpt from the Author’s Note in Silk and Secrets which briefly describes what I found:

During the nineteenth century the expanding empires of Britain and Russia confronted each other across the broad wastelands of Central Asia, constantly skirmishing and scheming for advantage in a conflict that came to be called the Great Game. The British spread northwest from India while the Russians moved south, eventually annexing the independent Central Asian khanates of Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokand into what came to be called Soviet Central Asia.
    The Great Game produced many true stories of high adventure. Silk and Secrets was inspired by a real rescue mission that took place in 1844, after the Amir of Bokhara had imprisoned two British army officers, Colonel Charles Stoddart and Lieutenant Arthur Conolly. The British government believed that both men had been executed, but reports were confused and contradictory and a group of army officers decided that something more should be done for their fellows.
    An eccentric Anglican clergyman, Dr. Joseph Wolff, volunteered to go to Turkestan to ask for the release of Stoddart and Conolly. As a former missionary to the Middle East and Central Asia, Wolff was uniquely qualified for the journey, so the concerned officers raised money to pay his expenses."

Dr. Joseph Wolff, who made the real rescue mission to Bokhara, was a fabulous character.  Son of a German rabbi, he became a fervent Anglican and was known as the Eccentric Missionary because of his travels through the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. 

Wolff made the very dangerous trip to Bokhara only to find that the British officers had indeed been executed, and claimed that the only reason he wasn’t executed himself was because the Amir of Bokhara (a crazed and brutal ruler) burst into uncontrollable laughter when Dr. Wolff presented himself to the Amir in his full canonical dress.  He made it safely back to England—barely—and wrote a bestselling memoir of his heroic, if unsuccessful, journey. (The picture of the central fortress above is a Creative Commons photo by Stanislav Kozlovskiy)

Lord Ross Carlisle, my hero for Silk and Secrets, is in that same adventurous mode, and also has more than a dash of Sir Richard Burton, the famous Orientalist, traveler, and writer.  Like Burton, Ross is a scholar, traveler, and writer, but he has another reason for traveling: to forget the wife he’d married too young, and whose abandonment left him with a hole in his heart that has never healed.  (On one of those journeys, he found Peregrine, hero of Silk and Shadows.)

If Ross resembles Burton, his wife, Juliet Cameron, is more like Lady Hester Stanhope.   The daughter of a diplomat, Juliet had grown up living the exotic life Ross yearned for, so when they met, it was love at first sight.  She had her reasons for leaving him, and knows she can never go back.  Here’s the prologue, which shows her state of mind:

"Night was falling rapidly, and a slim crescent moon hung low in the cloudless indigo sky.  In the village the muezzin called the faithful to prayers, and the haunting notes twined with the tantalizing aroma of baking bread and the more acrid scent of smoke.  It was a homey, peaceful scene such as the woman had observed countless times before, yet as she paused by the window, she experienced a curious moment of dislocation, an inability to accept the strange fate that had led her to this alien land.
    Usually she kept herself so busy that there was no time to think of the past, but now a wave of piercing sorrow swept through her.  She missed the wild green hills of her childhood, and though she had made new friends and would soon dine with a surrogate family that she loved, she missed her own blood kin and the friends who were now forever lost to her.
     Most of all, she missed the man who had been more than a friend.  She wondered if he ever thought of her, and if he did, whether it was with hatred, anger, or cool indifference.  For his sake, she hoped it was indifference.
     It would be easier if she felt nothing, yet she could not regret the pain that was still, even after so many years, a silent undercurrent to her daily life.  Pain was the last vestige of love and she was not yet willing to forget love; she doubted that she ever would be.
     Her life could, and should, have been so different.  She had had so much, more than most women ever dreamed of.  If only she had been wiser, or at least less impulsive.  If only she had not succumbed to despair.  If only…
     Realizing that her mind was sliding into a familiar, futile litany of regrets, she took a deep breath and forced herself to think of the responsibilities that gave her life meaning.  The first lesson of survival that she had learned was that nothing could change the past.
     For just a moment she touched the pendant that hung suspended around her neck, under her robe.  Then she turned her back on the empty window and the darkening sky.  She had made her bed and now she must lie in it.
     Alone."

Ross travels not only to learn and test himself against dangerous challenges, but also with the deep, never acknowledged hope that someday he might discover his long lost wife and at the least, learn why she left him. 

His fictional rescue mission to the heart of Central Asia begins in the British embassy in Constantinople when he meets with his mother-in-law.  Juliet’s mother is trying to persuade the British ambassador to send someone to Bokhara to learn the fate of her son, Major Ian Cameron, an imprisoned Indian army officer. 

Even though Ross is on the verge of returning to England to take up his responsibilities, he lets her twist his arm because he’s also fond of Ian.  If Ian is dead, as seems likely, perhaps Ross can at least bring his bones back to Scotland. 

This being a romance, on the journey he does find his long lost Juliet.  She insists on accompanying him, partly because she’s also concerned about her brother, and more because she figures her presence gives Ross a better chance of survival. (She’s right.)

As they face deserts, danger, and desire, Ross and Juliet peel away the layers of pain, guilt, and regret to arrive at the core truth: that they still love each other desperately.  But is there enough redemption and reconciliation in the world for them to build a new life together?

I love reconciliation stories because the intensity of the emotions heightens the power of the romantic payoff.  I tend to do at least one reconciliation story per series, and in the case of my contemporary Circle of Friends series, I did two. 

Not everyone shares that taste, of course.  What about you?  Do you like stories where characters come together with a great clash of history and baggage?  Or do you prefer the hero and the heroine to start their relationship with blank slates?

Mary Jo, already plotting her reconciliation story for the Lost Lords series

 PS: If you have time, I recommend clicking on some of the links about the real people.  They were amazing characters!

Guest Author Mary Hart Perry

Today we welcome guest blogger Mary Hart Perry, whose new release, The Wild Princess: A Novel of Queen Victoria's Daughters, is a July 2012 mainstream historical from Avon Books. The novel focuses on the Princess Louise, perhaps the wildest and most free-spirited of Queen Victoria's daughters -- and it's a fascinating story. 

Mary Hart Perry is the pen name of Honorary Word Wench Kathryn Johnson, who has visited Word Wenches before to talk about her novel The Gentleman Poet. The author of over forty books, Kathryn is an award-winning, experienced career writer -- when Kathryn/Mary talks about books, we all listen and learn! She's here today to tell us a little about how she discovered the story of Princess Louise -- and how she transformed the story into a romantic Victorian thriller.

A headstrong English princess. A dashing American Civil War veteran. Add a scandalous secret and threats against the queen by Irish terrorists, and you have a deliciously sensual Victorian thriller. Mary Hart Perry brings you the first of a series of stunning romantic novels starring the five daughters of Queen Victoria.

I was one of the authors lucky enough to read the ARC of this book for a quote and I loved it: 

"Romantic, exciting, historically accurate and deliciously imaginative, Mary Hart Perry's THE WILD PRINCESS is a lush and entertaining read that truly delivers. Perry creates a fascinating portrait of Princess Louise -- artist, wild child and modern thinker caught in the confines of her mother's strict court -- and immerses the reader in a vivid Victorian setting."  

~ Susan Fraser King

From Mary Hart Perry: Summering Like Royalty

Are you heading off to vacation at the beach, a lakeside cabin, or in the mountains this summer to get away from the heat? Did you know you have a lot in common with Queen Victoria’s family?

Victoria was the British monarch who reigned for over 60 years, and whose name gave us the term: the Victorian era. She and her husband, Prince Albert, had nine children. (Buckingham Palace must have been a lively place!) When the royal kids were young the whole family trekked off to their summer retreat, Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. Although Albert, who oversaw their education, kept the children on a very strict study schedule when in London, on the island they had more freedom, more time to play. Some of their “play” still doubled as a teaching tool though. They learned where the food served to them in the nursery came from by cultivating a garden. The princes and princesses also spent a summer trying their little hands at mundane tasks normally handled by servants—such as sweeping up or scrubbing the floor, doing laundry, and baking bread in a little cottage on the property.

One of the princesses, the fourth, was Louise. She became known in Court as the “wild child” of the family for her stubbornness and insistence on doing as she liked. Whether she went along with her father’s teaching games at Osborne, we’ll never know. But she didn’t grow out of her independent streak when she reached her teenage years. She insisted upon enrolling in art school in London, to be trained as a professional artist. The queen refused, thinking the request outrageous. After all, girls simply weren’t educated in the same ways as boys; they were thought to be too fragile and might be influenced in unhealthy ways, if exposed to such things as nude models. The horror! Besides, royals didn’t socialize with commoners. “No, Louise! Absolutely not.” But the princess persisted and won out. Louise became a talented sculptress, one of the few acclaimed female artists of her time.  

All of this explains why I so admire this woman and wanted to write a story about and for her. I love her pluck, her courage, her work throughout later years on behalf of the less fortunate. And so Princess Louise became the star of my latest novel, The Wild Princess. And, because this is a very different sort of story (a romantic Victorian thriller) than those I’ve written before, I’m using a new pen name: Mary Hart Perry—my grandmother’s name, actually. Grandma was a Vermont farmer’s wife and closet poet, and she was born in 1881, in the Victorian era. I think of the summer picnics she packed for us to take to the lake, outings not so different, perhaps from Victoria’s family’s picnics. I like to think that she’d have been excited to meet Louise, and also pleased to see her name on my novels. Love you, Grandma!

Happy summer days, everyone, no matter where you’re spending them!

Kathryn Johnson, aka Mary Hart Perry

Thank you, Kathryn! Much good luck with The Wild Princess -- we're all looking forward to this gorgeous read.  My own summer vacation is lakeside this year -- though not the Isle of Wight, it's lovely downtime. What about you, dear readers -- where are you spending your summer vacations? Remember to bring The Wild Princess in your Kindle or your bookbag, wherever you may go! 

Susan

BOOK GIVEAWAY!  For a chance to win a copy of Mary Hart Perry's The Wild Princess -- or a Kindle copy if preferred -- be sure to comment on this blog. A winner will be chosen at random!