Laurie Alice Eakes - Vanessa Riley's Regency Reflections

Tag: Laurie Alice Eakes

19
Mar
2025

When Did You Fall In Love With Reading?

Most authors have a love affair with reading. The written word, compelling story, and fictional characters are the constant companions that light the fire to create our own stories and characters on paper.

So this month we asked our authors when they knew they loved reading. Was it a particular book? A series? A person?

BookStack

Susan Karsten

I have loved reading since early childhood. One of the strengths of my family of origin was reading. So I was blessed in that way. One of main family activities was trips to the library where we’d all go our separate way. The James J. Hill Library in St. Paul, MN has a splendid children’s room – lots of marble, built-in puppet theatre. Visit it if you’re ever in that city. I can picture myself in one corner with small Beatrix Potter books at age 6 or so.

Naomi Rawlings

I’ve loved reading since I was a kid, but I did go through a spell when I stopped reading for fun. I was an English Education major in college, which gave me a lot of literary fiction to read and didn’t leave time for any fun reading. After college, I never really picked the reading habit from my younger years back up until I visited my grandma one summer. She had a Lori Wick novel sitting on her table. I picked it up, started reading, and was immediately sucked in. It was a giant Aha! moment for me. I suddenly remember how much I loved reading romance novels and other fun books. And I’ve been thoroughly addicted to romance novels ever since!

Laurie Alice Eakes

I knew I loved reading as soon as I realized that those stories I loved was the act of reading.

Kristy Cambron

Classic literature is a funny thing. I find that either you love it, or it’s an assigned chore in high school. And unfortunately, I’d always viewed it as the latter. But something clicked when I entered college and began doing research for Art History. I remember sitting on the edge of my armchair at home, trying to fit in any extra moments in the day to read just one more line of ‘Jane Eyre’. An as they say, I was gone… hook, line, and sinker. It’s not just the classics now – I always have a book in my hands. (Right now I am reading ‘The Heiress of Winterwood’, by Sarah E. Ladd.)

Kristi Ann Hunter

I don’t remember the name of the book but I remember that it was about a Native American boy and the cover was blue with a picture of the boy riding a galloping horse with a spear in his hand. What I remember about this book is that it was the first “real” book I checked out from my elementary school library. It had chapters and no pictures in it. When I finished it in less than a week and took it back, I realized I loved reading. From there I remember moving to the Boxcar Children series and the rest, as they say, is history.

What about you?

Are you a reader? When did you realize that you loved books?

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Originally posted 2013-04-17 10:00:00.

17
Mar
2025

Tansy Pudding ~ Recipe for a Dangerous Tradition

categories: Cookbooks, Food

Wednesday, I shared some history of traditional Easter and spring cooking. Today, I am sharing a couple of old recipes for tansy pudding, as well as links to contemporary recipes for tansy pudding.

Again, tansy is a purifying herb. Used sparingly, it can be healthful. But always do your research on the effects of an herb before using.

Tansy Pudding

Beat twelve eggs, keeping out four whites, a quart of cream, the crumbs of an halfpenny roll grated, a little orange flower or rose water, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt, a spoonful of tansy juice, half a pint of spinage juice, half a pound of sugar.

Butter your dish, and bake it.

The Lady’s, housewife’s and cookmaid’s assistant by E. Taylor, 1769

To make a Tansie the best way.

Take twenty eggs, and take away five whites, strain them with a quart of good thick sweet cream, and put to it grated nutmeg, a race of ginger grated, as much cinamon beaten fine, and a penny white loaf grated also, mix them all together with a little salt, then stamp some green wheat with some tansie herbs, strain it into the cream and eggs, and stir all together; then take a clean frying-pan, and a quarter of a pound of butter, melt it, and put in the tansie, and stir it continually over the fire with a slice, ladle, or saucer, chop it, and break it as it thickens, and being well incorporated put it out of the pan into a dish, and chop it very fine; then make the frying pan very clean, and put in some more butter, melt it, and fry it whole or in spoonfuls; being finely fried on both sides, dish it up, and sprinkle it with rose-vinegar, grape-verjuyce, elder-vinegar, couslip-vinegar, or the juyce of three or four oranges, and strew on good store of fine sugar.

The Accomplished Cook by Robert May 1660

Tansy Pudding.

Beat sixteen eggs very well in a wooden bowl, leaving out six whites, with a little orange-flower water and brandy; then add to them by degrees half a pound of fine sifted sugar; grate in a nutmeg, and a quarter of a pound of Naples biscuit; add a pint of the juice of spinach, and four spoonfuls of the juice of tansy; then put to it a pint of cream. Stir it all well together, and put it in a skillet, with a piece of butter melted; keep it stirring till it becomes pretty thick; then put it in a dish, and bake it half an hour. When it comes out of the oven, stick it with blanched almonds cut very thin, and mix in some citron cut in the same manner. Serve it with sack and sugar, and squeeze a Seville orange over it. Turn it out in the dish in which you serve it bottom upwards.

Original Receipt from ‘The Lady’s Own Cookery Book, And New Dinner-Table Directory’ of 1844

*The full text of the two recipes reproduced here are available for free on Google Books, as they are in the public domain.

Here are some links to contemporary tansy puddings. As you will notice, contemporary cooks add other flavorings and even sugar to counter the bitterness of the herb.

http://www.allfoodsnatural.com/recipe/tansy-pudding.html

http://www.elephantrestaurant.co.uk/tansy-pudding

Originally posted 2013-04-05 10:00:56.

16
Mar
2025

Purification or Poison?

categories: Easter, Food, History

“Mince-pie..is as essential to Christmas, as..tansy to Easter.”

(Quoted from The Connoisseur’” Magazine in 1767, by http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/tansy,ortansypudding.htm)*

Besides the deep spiritual significance of Easter lies the cultural traditions that arise from every holiday and holyday possible in every culture. Most of these traditions center around specific foods. Yet why these foods?

Ham One common Easter tradition is to serve ham. Yes, it makes a great deal of sense in that it’s easy to prepare for a large crowd; however, the reason why ham became a traditional Easter meal is that, after a long winter past harvest and slaughter, ham was one of the few meats still edible in the larder.

Likewise we have the lamb. The lamb being slaughtered and consumed holds numerous spiritual aspects with Jesus being the Lamb of God, who was slain for our sins. It is also a Passover food. And spring lambs would have been abundant in a country like England awash in sheep.

I won’t get into the coloring and consuming of eggs at Easter. Eggs do symbolize life, which is the entire meaning of Easter—eternal life through the Resurrection; however, the coloring of eggs in spring holds its roots firmly in pagan culture.

tansies One Easter tradition that seems to have died out—and with rather good reason—is the consumption of tansy.

Tansy is an herb with yellow flowers and lobed leaves that closely resemble ferns. Tansy holds some disputed medical benefits. And tansy is also a poison.

At first, tansy was eaten during lent to symbolize the bitter herbs. Later, it was baked into a pudding. I have found numerous recipes for tansy pudding from ancient housekeeping books, and included a couple in Friday’s upcoming post. These look rather like baked omelets.

Why tansy? For one thing, it was usually in leaf by Easter. More importantly, though, tansy is a purgative, a purifying agent. In small doses, it cleanses the system of parasites and other unwanted guests like bacteria. After a winter of eating salt-preserved and smoked meats, dried apples and root vegetables, people probably had collected a worm or two in their systems. (I know—ee-ew.) A slab of tansy pudding, and a body would feel far better. Two slices of tansy pudding, and a body would quite possibly be dead.

Be sure to come back Friday and see what it actually took to make the Tansy puddings.

Photos from Wikimedia Commons

Originally posted 2013-04-03 10:00:00.

12
Mar
2025

Silk in the Regency and Its Connection to Computing

categories: Fashion, History

Inspired by Kristi’s post on wool last week, I set out to choose another fabric popular during the Regency—silk. While researching this topic, however, I ended up down several fascinating rabbit holes. For example, did you know that a silk loom influenced computing? Neither did I, but it’s true. So while I am going to talk about various forms of silk in this article, I will also take you a few yards—or should I say ells?—down this particular rabbit hole—and maybe one or two more.

Silk Cocoons — Empty silk cocoons. (Wikimedia)

I expect entire books have been written about the history of silk. Many legends exist as to how someone in China discovered that unwinding the cocoon of the silk worm created a soft and lustrous cloth. The Chinese held a monopoly on the product for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. Then the Japanese, Koreans, and Indians learned the secret, and caravans carried it west to the Persian empire, the Greeks, the Romans. . . The Italians were the first Europeans to produce silk in quantity, but Louis XI of France changed that.

By the Regency, France, Lyon in particular, was a leading manufacturer in silk. A couple centuries before this, however, the Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, took their skills to England, and Spitalfield became a center for silk production.

Raw Silk — Strands of raw silk (Wikimedia)

England’s climate is not conducive to silk manufacturing, so it has never become an important center of the fabric manufacture. Likewise, the industry never made inroads in North America either. (One rabbit hole: The wife of a governor of Virginia thought to start a silk industry in the colony, but imported the wrong kind of mulberry tree to support the worms. Now the MidAtlantic region is covered in trees that drop useless and rather nasty-smelling berries every year.)

My fashion plates of numerous years during the Regency show that silk was popular for those flowing, filmy gowns so fashionable at the time. This takes us to another rabbit hole—if England and France were at war most of this time, and England didn’t produce much silk, then where did all that fine, Lyon silk come from? I expect many a dressmaker claimed she had stock-piled the stuff before the war, as she would never confess that she had purchased it from the “gentlemen” AKA smugglers.

Now to the different types of silk.

Shot silk suit - 1790 (Wikimedia) — Shot silk suit – 1790 (Wikimedia – click for larger resolution)

Shot silk: This is where the face is one color and the warp is another, so the color shifts with the light.

Chine: This has the pattern printed on the warp before weaving, so the design comes out blurred.

Satin and Taffeta: These are familiar fabrics to us. They were heavier silk weaves, with satin lustrous on one side, so not as popular in most of the Regency.

Lustestring: A ribbed and lightweight silk that would have rustled a lot and been quite lustrous.

Sarsnet: A fine weave silk, light and airy. Sometimes twilled-looking.

Silk gauze: a little heavier than chiffon.

Watered silk dress (Wikimedia – click for larger image)

Moiré or watered silk: This is an example of ingenuity of the time. They ran wet silk through rollers with a pattern that impressed that pattern into the fabric.

Brocade and Damask: These are textured silks where the pattern is raised. Sometimes these appeared in linen or wool, but generally brocade and damask meant silk. Brocade only has the pattern on one side; damask is reversible. The patterns are formed using a jacquard loom, which brings us to computing.

Joseph Marie Jacquard improved on the ideas of Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon, who used holes punched in tape and a series of needles to make the pattern. Inn Jacquard’s looms, cards were punched with holes then strung together. Threads were fed through these holes so that hooks on the loom knew ehen to grab a thread to create the pattern. Thousands of threads were often involved, and stringing a loom took days. Creating the punch cards took some serious skill as well.

Charles Babbage used similar punch cards to store information in his mechanical analytical machine in the late 19^th century, and Herman Hollerith used punch cards for storing data from the 1890 census. If anyone knows something about computers from before the 1970s, they have seen the old-fashioned punch cards still being used for programming.

This is not the entire list. Each area of the world that produced silk produced its own sorts. These are just some of the ones most common in clothing fabrics of the time.

Originally posted 2013-03-13 10:00:00.

10
Mar
2025

The Romany (Gypsies) in Regency England

categories: History, Regency Hero, Regency Romance, Uncategorized

Laurie Alice here: Today, I invited Josie Riviera to present the Monday history post, for gypsies, “travelers” as they are called today, have played rolls in many Regency romances over the decades of the genre.

Josie has also offered to give away a copy of her e-book, Seeking Patience. Leave your comment, and let’s talk about your impression of gypsies.

Note: Only comments on this post are eligible to win. I will announce the winner when I next post on Regency Reflections on March 15, 2013.

“Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa.” This is a Romany (Gypsy) saying that means “Gadje with Gadje, Rom with Rom.”
or
“Mashkar le gajende leski shib si le Romenski zor.”
“Surrounded by the gadje, the Rom’s tongue is his only defense.”

So what is a gadje? A gadje in the Romany language means “not one of us.” Many Rom prefer to not allow outsiders (us) into their lives. It’s no coincidence that in my hours, days, and months of researching the Romany for my novels, little information was available. Odd, because the Rom have lived in many places throughout the world for centuries. They’re a widely-traveled people. Yet there is little written history regarding their origins, although recent evidence points to an emigration from India 1500 years ago.

Some believed that The Rom originated in Romania, but they didn’t. “Rom” means “man” in the Romany language.

I believe the reason there is little information available is because the Rom simply prefer it that way. They are a proud people who keep to themselves. And they are nomads, forever on the move, traveling by horse and wagon in caravans. In one of my novels, a bender is described in detail. It is a tent, easily constructed using bendable twigs and any available materials on the side of the road.

The first recorded mention of a Romany in England was 1514.

In England and Wales in the year 1530, King Henry VIII forbid Gypsies from entering the country, and the death penalty was imposed if they didn’t leave within the month. In 1822, the Turnpike Act was introduced, fining any Gypsies camping along the road.

It is no secret that the Rom have suffered persecution, prejudice, exclusion, and discrimination for centuries. The “Gypsy” stereotype includes a criminal, fortune-teller, blacksmith, thief, and musician, a dark-complexioned, shadowy figure. But why do so many of us harbor this unfair prejudice? Perhaps because of the Rom’s nomadic existence, lack of a solid religious belief, and exotic clothes and lifestyle. Their dialect is distinct and related to Sanskrit. Their tradition is oral, for they didn’t have the luxury of building libraries.

I explore many of their beliefs in my novels. One shared by all Rom is cleanliness. Mahrime means unclean or polluted. To avoid mahrime, clothes covering the top half of their body are washed separately from clothes on the bottom. Certain parts of the female body are considered unclean, and doctors are sometimes avoided because they deal with illness. And, a Rom can become polluted by being too close to a gadje.

Beng is a Rom word meaning devil. This evil force continually seeks to dominate a Rom’s life. The dreaded mulo are spirits, always watching, ready to mete out curses and punishments for wrong-doing.

My latest release on Amazon.com, Seeking Patience, is a Regency inspirational romance featuring a half-Romany, half English hero named Luca.

Do people prove their self-worth by strength, or by character?

Luca’s father is an English nobleman, although Luca was raised as a Gypsy. He struggles with his heritage throughout the novel, seeking hope, seeking forgiveness, and yes, Seeking Patience. He is forced to depend on Lady Patience Blakwell, a woman who represents all he loathes. She struggles with her faith, trying to understand why God is not following the plan she had for her life—to be loved and cherished by her husband. After her husband’s unexpected death, her grown stepson charges her with her late husband’s murder.

And Luca must decide whether he should turn away when she needs him, or risk his most vulnerable, forgiving self to keep her safe. By denying his English heritage, has he denied a part of himself?

Seeking Patience: http://tinyurl.com/a9nnbwy

Originally posted 2013-03-04 10:00:00.

08
Mar
2025

A Suitable Match, Section 9, And the Readers’ Choice is…

categories: A Suitable Match

To kick off our second year of celebrating Inspirational Regency fiction, we are presenting the serial story, A Suitable Match. At the end of the month we’ll be giving away a fabulous prize package filled with items tied to the story. There are no hidden items in this section, but you can still enter by finding the items in the previous sections. Details and a list of prizes can be found here.

Missed an earlier section? Read it here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

London, England

April 1818

The Grosvenor Square townhouse wasn’t much larger than Cressida’s cottage outside Bath—except it went up instead of out. If Cressida worried about not getting enough exercise with no more need to walk to and from the village for food or ink or church, now that she would live in London with servants, at least for three months, those fears fled with each flight of steps she climbed to her bedchamber. It perched atop the chamber of the peer’s widow, who would act as her chaperone and means of introduction into the ton. That good lady’s chamber sat atop a sitting room atop the dining room.

“I think,” Cressida told Knighting, as she closed the door behind the footmen with their luggage, “you won’t want to be hiking up those steps too many times a day.”

“It’s no trouble, Miss.” Knighting dabbed at her runny nose. “Or won’t be soon enough.”

“Why do you not go to your chamber and lie down. Travel was difficult.”

More difficult than it should have been.

Cressida cast her own bed a longing look. It could have been a pallet on the floor with a single blanket and appealed to her at that moment. Instead, it crowed of its luxurious softness and comfort with each plumped pillow edged in lace, and white satin counterpane embroidered with pink roses. A half hour’s rest was all she needed to set her mind at ease, surely. Thirty minutes alone to think without concerns about being disturbed.

Except she must use those 30 minutes to wash off the dust of travel, change out of her crumpled gown, and pin up her hair before meeting Lady Penelope Dove.

“I suppose I need your help with the hooks on my gown.” Cressida suppressed a yawn. “Do you think any of my gowns are acceptable?”

“I don’t think any of your gowns are acceptable. They are all so out of fashion.”

“That cannot be helped.“ Cressida crossed the room with its step-silencing Persian carpet, and opened the nearest trunk. “Somewhere must be one that isn’t hopelessly crumpled. I don’t wish for you to have to go all the way downstairs to fetch an iron. Perhaps I could—“

“Never.” Horror colored Knighting’s voice and widened her eyes. “I’ll do it. Take that blue sarsnet and find your blue paisley shawl. Perhaps a fichu in the event her ladyship is a high stickler for modesty.”

Cressida was a high stickler for modesty—now. Too many of her gowns from her disastrous Season proclaimed what a flirt she had been then, so desperate to please Father and find a titled gentleman to raise herself up from a cit to, at the least, a gentlewoman, she applied every feminine wile she possessed and had practiced on Ross Ainsworth scarcely old enough to know the meaning of the word “flirt”, then she learned a few more techniques in the art of coquetry from her competitors on the marriage market. She had caught herself the second most desirable bachelor that year.

Miles, Lord Twiford, came first in prospects. He was not merely handsome and titled. He brought a sizable fortune with him. Tristan, Lord Chard, merely possessed the looks and title. Ross Ainsworth offered only his looks and a potential fortune. In the end, she obtained none of them. Now, she could attain any of them with a wave of her fan.

Now that she thought about it, where were her fans? One had gotten so soaked in violet scent when the carriage crashed she left it behind in the inn. That left her with two, as she had sold the rest of the dozens on which she once squandered money, to pay for her silent escape from London. She had been playing with the pink one in the carriage while the gentleman all laid their claims out before her, and must have left it behind when she bolted for the house.

She thought she had left behind the old Cressida that day she knelt in the church with no one around, and asked the Lord to take her heart, her life.

Apparently the prospect of a fortune again and having gentlemen vie for her hand in marriage, had prompted her to take back her life and go her own way with no regard for what she did with her heart. She must spend considerable time in prayer that night—and many days afterward—asking the Lord for guidance. Guidance and a lot of forgiveness.

“Kissing Ross indeed.” She scrubbed at her lips with the back of her hand.

What had intrigued her then repelled her now. The former, flirtatious Cressida would have suggested she kiss all three of the gentlemen to see who intrigued and repelled her.

She shook her head and shoved thoughts of males out of her mind. She must hasten with her toilette before descending to the parlor to meet her dragon for the husband hunting season.

“Surely she isn’t a dragon with a name like Lady Penelope Dove,” Cressida mused aloud.

Cressida expected a delicate little woman in gray satin and gray curls.

What met her in the parlor was a robust woman in purple velvet with a matching turban wound around her dyed red hair. Without offering a word of greeting, she waved a feathered fan large enough to have taken an entire peacock’s tail, to beckon Cressida to stand in front of her, then proceeded to stare at her charge from other side of a truly Roman nose.

“So your great-aunt wasn’t exaggerating when she called you a beauty,” her ladyship declared in a voice like a gong. “that will make up for your lack of fashion sense.”

Cressida opened her mouth to remind the woman she had scarcely had the time or money to refurbish her wardrobe, then closed it again. The problem of her dress would be solved shortly.

And so it was. Before the dragon lady would allow Cressida to set foot in a drawing room, including her own if anyone else was present, she dragged her charge from Grafton House for fabric, to the modiste for the creation, from shoemakers, to glove makers, and half a dozen other businesses in-between.

Each day, when she returned exhausted, Cressida found tributes to her from the three contenders for her hand—hothouse roses from Twiford, wildflowers from Ainsworth, and boxes of bonbons from Chard. Cressida sent notes of thanks to all of them and, even without the dragon lady’s strictures, refused to see any of them.

“I can’t think when any of them are around,” she confided in Knighting amidst a sea of new gowns one day. “When I’m with Twiford, he seems so strong and yet charming, I think he would make a fine husband. When I’m with Ainsworth, I remember what a grand time we had together as children and what friends we were then, and having a husband who is also a friend would be rather nice. And when I’m with Chard. . .”

Those feelings she could not discuss with anyone since she knew no words to sum up a blend of regret, hurt, and fear.

She discussed them a great deal with the Lord, especially the day the dragon decided she was ready for public viewing and escorted her to a rout. “For maximum exposure.”

Although the event occurred on the other side of the square, they took the carriage and sat in a line of vehicles for a full half hour and more awaiting their turn to alight and join the throng streaming into the house, while attempting not to bump into the river of people exiting the house. Cressida proved adept at avoiding collisions until she reached the upper floor, stepped into a parlor, and came face-to-face with Miles, Lord Twiford.

It was more like her face to his coat buttons. She jumped.

His hands closed over her shoulders. “My dear lady, may I say you look stunning this evening?”

She glanced up at his handsome face and believed him. He looked stunned, bowled over, adoring. And all she felt was. . .nothing. She wasn’t embarrassed. She wasn’t giddy, and she wasn’t moved to say anything more than, “I forgive you for how you treated me three years ago, Lord Twiford. Let us place everything there in the past and forget.” With a smile intended to appear artificial, she dropped into a curtsy, then swept around him.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw him heave a sigh deep enough to expand his already broad chest and threaten to pop the seams of his fitted coat. He had gotten the message—he would not be her choice.

A fog surrounded the rest of the twenty minutes necessary to make her way back outside with Lady Dove.

“That went well,” her ladyship said.

It had. Cressida looked at Twiford and knew she had never felt more for him than sadness that they couldn’t have been friends. Perhaps if they had, she could have talked to him about Chard’s need for her fortune and how he would manage once she lost it. Although she believed Twiford’s feelings for her ran as deep as he said, she now realized the only reason why she considered him a possible suitor for her hand was that she would never need to worry that he wanted her fortune—and he was rather fine to look at.

With one suitor dismissed, she prepared herself for encounters with the other two.

Although she attended many social occasions over the next week—balls, breakfasts, and several soirées—she saw neither Ainsworth nor Chard. Chard, she learned quite by accident on the fourth day, had been called away from town on some family emergency. Truth? Or was it a fiction to take himself out of the running?

A twinge sharper than disappointment pinched at Cressida’s heart. Annoyance that he hadn’t sent around a message telling her he was leaving London, or regret she might not see him?

Who she saw while shopping on Bond Street with the dragon, was Ross Ainsworth.

She should have known better than to meet him in public. The sight of him looking rather dashing in a fine coat and pantaloons, made her mouth go dry. Remembering him kissing her made her cheeks grow hot. Remembering how she had kissed him back made her entire body blush. A good thing the dragon was distracted by a shop window.

“Cousin.” He greeted her with a bow.

She curtsied in return. “You look well, Cousin.” She smiled sweetly. “Prosperous. Trading on prospects you may not have?”

His gaze dropped to her lips. “Do I not? I have, you know, done quite well for myself while in my self-imposed exile. Or did you think I was merely after your fortune?”

“I. . . Well, I. . .” She swallowed. She blushed some more. She turned to the dragon. “Allow me to present you to Lady Dove.”

“We are acquainted,” Ross said. “Your servant, my lady.”

“Ross, you scamp.” Lady Dove embraced him like a long-lost son.

The two of them set to talking. Her ladyship tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, and they strolled down the street, leaving Cressida with Miss Knighting and the package-bearing footman.

Cressida watched Ross’s retreating back, and a smile curved her lips as a weight lifted from her shoulders. She liked knowing Ross was doing well and not merely after her fortune. She was happy he had turned his life over to the Lord. She didn’t in the least mind seeing him walk away from her because she didn’t love him for more than the cousinly affection and antagonism they had enjoyed all their lives.

But did she love Chard still? Perhaps she never had.

Over the next three months, she wavered between longing to see him again, to wanting to give him the cut direct the instant he bothered to show his face in the ton again. Twiford called on her and danced with her often. They developed a lighthearted friendship. Ross called on Lady Dove, and he and Cressida fell into their old camaraderie and affection from before he left England. But Chard merely sent the occasional note wishing her well accompanied by another box of sweets.

And the deadline for when she must wed or lose her chance at a fortune drew nearer and nearer. It grew so near she would have proposed to Twiford or Ross to avoid more crushing poverty for the rest of her life. But Twiford and Ross had both begun to court charming young ladies, a fact Cressida didn’t mind. She was courted by so many gentlemen she wanted to flee back to the country.

In the end, she began to pack two days before her deadline, soaking her beautiful new clothes with her tears. She wished she knew if she wept for the fortune lost or Chard’s unexplained absence.

The day of her deadline, she and Knighting boarded Lady Dove’s traveling coach and headed west on the Bristol Road. That night they took a room at the George and Pelican. She half expected to find all three gentleman awaiting her in the private parlor. She found none and went to bed without any supper, wondering how much money she would get for her gowns in Bath shops. The jewels she had left behind with the solicitors. They would no longer be hers as of midnight.

Midnight came and went with Cressida restless and aching in heart. “Why, Lord, why can I not have had this? I could do much more good with money than without.”

Yet what had she done for the past three months but treat each gentleman as a means to an end instead of appreciating him for the person he was? She had treated Chard that way—interested in his title to elevate herself. If she had accepted his offer in these past three months, she would have, in a sense, married him for money, not the love he wanted. She might never have been certain she loved him or not. Now, knowing she had lost him, she knew she loved him.

Heavy-eyed and heavier hearted, she descended the steps the following morning.

Chard stood in the doorway mud-spattered and stern-faced. “Running away again, Cressy?”

She gripped the banister. “Still chasing a fortune, Chard? You’re too late if you are. It’s no longer mine as of last night.”

Inn servants and guests stopped walking and talking to stare.

Heedless of the audience, Chard paced to the foot of the steps. “No matter what I said to you before, you never believed I wanted more than your fortune. That’s why you ran away.”

“And you didn’t come after me once I was poor. Well, I’m poor again, so you’re wasting your time.” She turned and started up the stairs.

He covered the distance two treads at a time, caught her on the landing and blocked her retreat. “When are you going to stop running away from me?” His face and voice softened. “Running away from us?”

“Who’s running away? You spent the past three months in parts unknown.”

“I’ve been at the bedside of an uncle who deserved my devotion in his last days, considering he paid my father’s debts three years ago.” He raised his hand, lowered it again, lifted it to brush his thumb across her lower lip. “I buried him three days ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. Besides helping me get my estate paying again, he told me that if you didn’t love me enough to be honest with me about your fortune, I should let you go and wait for the Lord to provide a bride without money being a part of the equation.” He smiled. “That’s why I waited for today—so your money would no longer be part of the equation.” He curved his hands around her face. “Tell me, Cressida, do you have the answer to the rest of the sum? Do you love me?”

“I just gave up a fortune because I love you too much to give in to the temptation of the other half dozen proposals I received. The money wasn’t worth it.” She peeked at him through her lashes. “Though Twiford is rather dashing in evening dress, and Ross kisses rather—“

He stopped her claim with his lips on hers, firm yet smooth, warm and tasting of rain, sweeter than all the bonbons he had sent her over the past three months.

“Not nearly as well as you,” she finished her previous declaration about kissing ability, without moving her mouth from Chard’s. “But perhaps I need to know for cer—“

He kissed her again, and she was most certain of many things—she did love him, he was a better kisser than Ross, and she had most definitely stopped running away.

In the entryway below, guests and servants applauded.

Did your favorite man win? If he didn’t, be sure to come back Wednesday for a special surprise.

Remember there is no prize hidden in today’s section. You can enter in the previous sections until 5:00PM Eastern on Tuesday, February 26. The winner will be announced in Wednesday’s post.

Originally posted 2013-02-25 10:00:00.

05
Mar
2025

A Suitable Match, Serial Story Section 1 and a Chance to Win

categories: A Suitable Match, Contests

To kick off our second year of celebrating Inspirational Regency fiction, we are presenting the serial story, A Suitable Match. At the end of the month we’ll be giving away a fabulous prize package filled with items tied to the story. For a chance to win, find the item mentioned in this section and leave a note in the comments. Details and a list of prizes can be found here.

Somerset, England
April, 1818

With his black hair drawn back in an old-fashioned queue and a scar running from his ear to his chin, as though someone had tried to slit his throat and missed, all her prodigal cousin needed was a cutlass swinging from his belt to complete the impression that Ross Ainsworth was really a pirate. Then again, Miss Cressida Blackstone decided, with his eyes as black as obsidian and possessing a gaze as penetrating as tempered steel, he didn’t need a cutlass to skewer his prey.

A shiver racing up her spine and out to her fingertips despite the mild April morning, Cressida narrowed her eyes at her childhood nemesis and swallowed so her voice would not croak with the dryness of her throat. “What are you doing here? I was told your grandmother’s coachman would arrive to drive me to London.”

“He cannot drive with a broken wrist. But since I enjoy driving and am headed to London, I assured him I would do the honors.” The smooth, aristocratic drawl issuing from a man with Ainsworth’s piratical visage never failed to startle Cressida.

Since he arrived in Bath for the reading of his grandmother’s will three months ago, a great deal about Ainsworth surprised her—surprised her and raised her suspicion hackles. They had been best friends as children. Then, when she grew old enough to let her hems down and put her hair up, he grew formal and distant with her and departed for foreign parts soon afterward.

He had returned to England in time for the reading of his grandmother’s will–the will that left him with nothing and Cressida, her great-niece everything. The only stipulation was that Cressida must marry within six months. And now Ross Ainsworth was anything but formal and distant with her. No doubt he was attracted to the money, like all the gentlemen who had courted her upon her come-out at eighteen, wanting to wed her for her father’s fortune regardless of the fact that fortune came from trade.

Money made up for a number of flaws in one’s birth if an old family needed an infusion of wealth.

Target for fortune hunters or not, Cressida needed to find a husband. With wealth at her fingertips, she was not about to live her life in the poverty in which her father’s error had left her. In a way, she, too, was marrying for money. Marrying for love was a childhood dream left behind with a broken betrothal, a damaged reputation, and no childhood friend to tease her out of her doldrums.

That childhood friend, Ross, now looked about him as if puzzled. “But I expected you to have a chaperone.”

Cressida flicked a glance at her middle-aged maid standing purse-lipped beside her on the steps of the cottage they had called home for three years. “Knighting is quite enough of a chaperone until we reach London.”

“Not when you are traveling with your cousin distant enough to make me eligible,” He purred, his dark eyes raking over her.

Cressida refused to be intimidated.“Why, Ross, I never knew you were such a high stickler.” She clutched her bulging reticule in one hand and her great-aunt’s jewel case in the other, and headed for the carriage. “Enough of this. We must be on our way.”

Ainsworth threw up an arm to bar her way. “My dear cousin, I would not wish to place you beyond the pale of respectability before you reach town.” He smiled. “Further beyond the pale than you already placed yourself, that is.”

“You.” Cressida ground her teeth. “You are scarcely one to be bringing up the past, Ross Ainsworth.”

Which wasn’t fair to him. He said he had repented of his behavior in Paris after Napoleon’s defeat. His grandmother must not have forgiven him for embarrassing her, though. But if he had truly set aside his scandalous behavior, she should be a lot kinder to him.

She held out her hand to him. “I am sorry. I should not have–”

Muttering something that sounded like, “You may walk to London for all I care,” he spun on his booted heel and stalked to the front of the carriage.

Her apology rejected, Cressida waited until he had climbed onto the box before she called out, “Cousin, you cannot take the coach and team without my permission. They belong to me now.”

He looked at her, and lightning flashed through his dark eyes. “Very well then. Get in. “You win. . .this time.”

Another one of those odd shivers raced along Cressida’s limbs, and she stood rooted to the flagstones with the scent of apple blossoms too strong in her nostrils and her mouth tasting of a copper penny. An invisible hand seemed to pluck at her, trying to draw her back to the haven of the cottage.

“I’ll get the steps down for you, Miss Blackstone.” Knighting’s quiet voice, roughened from a bad cold, snapped Cressida out of her momentary stupor.

“Let me help with the bandboxes since my cousin has not the courtesy to do so.” She set her jewel case inside the coach, then returned to the steps to retrieve one of the small cases that made up her luggage.

She must buy new clothes in London. She must purchase a number of things in London—like a husband if she wanted to keep her inheritance.

A face flashed through her mind, as she tossed boxes into the boot, the visage of the man her deceased father had thought his trade-earned wealth could buy. It would have been a suitable match all around, if Papa had not lost most of his money. Tristram, Lord Chard, needed her money at the time, and Cressida. . . Her heart had needed him.

She shook off the memory and settled herself in the carriage, preparing for a long, tedious journey with her quiet maid and her embroidery. She half expected Ainsworth to refuse to drive the vehicle, but once Knighting closed the door, the carriage lurched forward, then pulled out of the lane and onto the Bath to London road.

It was the best maintained road in England, thanks to the tolls. Ainsworth, however, drove so swiftly the coach swayed and bounced too much for Cressida to ply her needle without pricking her fingers. Nor could she read. Knighting engaged in a brief dialogue about how many gowns Cressida must order for her husband-hunting expedition, then fell asleep deeply enough for her snores to fill the coach. At their infrequent stops to change horses or collect some refreshment, Ainsworth did not speak to her at all.

As twilight drew near, Cressida tried to rest after weeks of sleeplessness. Each time she drifted toward sleep, Knighting’s snorting exhalations startled her awake. When she reclosed her eyes, Chard’s face swooped before her eyes, with its hurt accusation solidifying into anger when she broke their betrothal three years ago.

Then another face joined his, the cold contempt of his friend Miles, Lord Twiford. He had always been against her marriage to Chard, thinking the daughter of a cit was not good enough for a viscount.

A crack like a snapped tree branch resounded through the carriage. The vehicle pitched to one side, sending Cressida slamming to her knees. Pain shot up her thighs, through her body, and into her skull. She gasped and grappled for a handhold. Her fingers scored silky velvet, and she fell against the wall of the carriage. Knighting sprawled across her calves, pinning her in place.

That stupid knock-in-the-cradle of a cousin had landed them in a ditch. And her precious vial of violet scent had broken, soaking through her reticule and clouding the carriage with a choking haze of perfume.

“I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You.” Cressida gasped out each word. “If. I. Ever. Get. Out.”

And, of course, if Ainsworth had not fallen from the box and injured himself beyond repair.

Outside, the horses whinnied, and a number of male voices shouted. Inside, Knighting groaned.

“Are you all right?” Cressida asked her maid in a more temperate tone.

“Yes, ma’am, but I seem to be stuck.”

Not as stuck as Cressida. Her legs were going numb. Her left arm was already numb. And the carriage rocked and tilted further, threatening to turn turtle at any moment. Or worse, it could keep rolling and land them in the River Kennet.

Cressida could not swim. She doubted Knighting could swim. She doubted they could get out of the carriage before they drowned even if swimming were an option.

“Knighting, I apologize if I hurt you, but I must get us out of here.”

Since the men outside seemed more interested in shouting than being useful, Cressida rallied her strength and grasped one of the hand straps dangling from the canted roof above her. With supreme effort, she hauled one leg from under her maid. The leg felt like a wooden peg for all the sensation she experienced. She stomped her foot to bring back some life to the limb, and her heel smashed through the window.

The shouting outside ceased. The carriage door yanked open hard enough to send it crashing against the side and the vehicle tilting another five degrees down the embankment.

“No one told us there were passengers inside.”

The voice sent Cressida’s heart dropping through her stomach and onto an icy bath in the river. Head reeling, she brushed amber curls out of her eyes and stared into the countenance she had feared never to see again, and hoped she would encounter so she could prove him wrong about her.

* Section 1 written by Laurie Alice Eakes, www.LaurieAliceEakes.com *

Did you find the hidden item? Note it in the comments below for a chance to win.

Don’t forget that the readers will ultimately choose who truly loves Cressida, and whom she loves in return. Already have a favorite? Go vote for him! Want everyone else to vote for him too? Grab a voting badge from the Suitable Match Extras page.

Who do you think Cressida sees outside the carriage? Read the next installment now.

THE CONTEST AND POLL ARE NOW CLOSED. Feel free to continue to enjoy and share the story.

Originally posted 2013-02-06 10:00:00.

02
Mar
2025

How Else to Entertain a Houseguest

categories: A Day in the Life, Education, entertainment, History, Uncategorized

Laurie Alice here: While working on my next Regency, (Zondervan Books, 2014), I ran into a problem—I needed to entertain a houseguest who is in mourning and who is also. . . We’ll be kind and call her distraught rather than whiny. Since I didn’t want them to play card games commonly associated with gambling, such as silver loo or whist, and this lady is not bright enough to play chess, I went to the well of information that is The Beau Monde ladies, the Regency special interest chapter of Romance Writers of America. As usual, they gave me enough information to keep my guest entertained for weeks; therefore, I thought I would share a few of them with you all.

Let’s start with Spillikins.

This is a game that is still played today. Sticks of varying shapes and sizes are held upright, then allowed to fall into a random pile. The object of the game is to collect as many sticks as you can without disturbing any of the other sticks. I remember playing something similar to this as a child called “Ker plunk”—or something like that.

Another game that reminds me a little of a favorite childhood game was, A Journey Through Europe, or The Play of Geography. The idea was a race through Europe, reaching the goal first. Players moved their game pieces along a map of Europe according to the toss of a dice. Sound a little like The Game of Life?

Other games included first having to put together what we would now call a jigsaw puzzle which resulted in a board game of some kind. These games—and others—were stored in slip cases for easy storage or taking on long road trips.

So now I need to figure out how I can get the heroine and hero playing one of these games. Or maybe that will wait for another book in this series. All I know is that knowing more about the games of the time makes for far more interesting evenings in the country houses in which I like to place my characters, than the standards of playing cards, chess, or music.

Originally posted 2013-01-21 05:00:00.

28
Feb
2025

The Mysterious Ms. Darcy

categories: Education, Female authors Regency period, History, Regency Romance, Uncategorized

My first Regency was Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer and got me interested in the Regency time period. The book that really hooked me on the Regency romance, however, was Georgina by Clare Darcy.

Georgina has all the wonderful elements of a romance that absolutely delight me—delight me to the point that I think I have followed a little in her footsteps in my own romances—books that is, not life—a heroine being courted by just the right sort of gentleman when her heart demands she go after the exactly wrong gentleman. Ah, be still my beating heart for Shannon, a disreputable landowner with mystery and rumors swirling around him. Though I knew I would regret doing so in the morning, I stayed up late to finish this story and was delighted and saddened at the end—delighted with the outcome and saddened that the book was over.

Over the next several years, I read every Clare Darcy book I could find. These were what we now call traditional Regencies. Traditional Regencies are those in the true spirit of Georgette Heyer—comedies of manners with no sensuality other than a few subtle comments and maybe a kiss or two, no foul language, and generally appropriate for young women all the way up to old ladies.

All of Ms. Darcy’s books were named for the heroine, except for one named for two females, one I just learned of today, as I did some research on this post. They ranged from countryside frolics, to country house romps, to balls and adventures. The heroines usually had minds of their own without being anachronistic or too much alike, as far as I remember, and the heroes varied in temperament and social position, though all were at least gentry class.

When I started looking at writing Regencies myself, I asked a few people about Ms. Darcy. Who, exactly, was she and why didn’t she gain more acclaim in the genre? I discovered that Ms. Darcy was highly respected amongst true Regency devotees, but her person was pretty much unknown. Some even hinted she might be a he.

According to Wikipedia now, ten years later, Ms. Darcy was an author from Ohio named Mary Deasy (1914-1978). Her papers are in the Boston University research library. This is the most information I’ve been able to find out about this author who, like Ms. Heyer, died before ever I read one of her books. Also like Ms. Heyer, Ms. Darcy was a powerful influence on me becoming a Regency writer.

If you haven’t yet picked up Georgina, Eugenia, Lydia, Cressida, Lady Pamela, or any of the other delightful books by Ms. Darcy, you are in for a treat when you do.

Originally posted 2013-01-11 05:00:00.

19
Feb
2025

Trial by Combat

categories: Government, History, Uncategorized

Trial by Combat

Or the Changing Face of Justice

“Those woods are mine and mine alone for hunting.”

“I am afraid, sir, that you are mistaken. Thos woods belong to my family and have been for six hundred years.”

“The deed to the land says otherwise.”

“My sword says more otherwise than the deed.”

“En guard!”

With clashing swords and combat to first blood or death, trial by combat, whether criminal or civil, was not an uncommon way to settle disputes in England in the Middle Ages. In fact, the issue arose in 1818 when someone demanded to settle a dispute in such a manner.

“Are you saying that is still on the books?” One can hear the authorities exclaim. “But we are civilized now. We have a different system.”

Yes, indeed, it was still on the books, though hadn’t been used for hundreds of years.

By the Regency, England’s courts had evolved from the days of trial by ordeal or combat or simple pronouncements from on high. They had become a complex and loosely jointed system of magistrates, justices of the peace, and circuit judges for the assizes.

How the system evolved from the days of Anglo-Saxon rule until the Regency is a complex system on which entire books have been written. This is a brief description of the duties of the men who handled around ninety-five per cent of England’s criminal cases during our time period. It changed again in 1830, and then again in 1971, and we don’t need to fret about those because this is its own era.

Who were justices of the peace and magistrates? They were usually gentlemen who sat in the various offices in London, hearing criminal trials brought to them from various sources. Coroners for murder, for example. Bow Street is the most famous of these offices, and possibly the most famous of the Bow Street magistrates is Sir John Fielding, brother to the eighteenth century author and also a Bow Street magistrate.

Fielding, Sir John, was called the Blind Beak of Bow Street. A “beak” in street cant, was a respected man. Sir John was blinded serving in the royal Navy, but legend has it that he recognized the voices of 3,000 criminals.

Outside of London, we had justices of the peace. These were gentlemen, but not peers. If a peer was a justice of the peace before gaining a peerage, he could keep the post, and peers did not take on the role. JPs performed the same duties of hearing cases as did magistrates. They were simply outside of London. Both sent serious criminal cases up the chain to higher judges.

On a side note here, neither magistrates nor justices of the peace could perform weddings at this time. That fell solely under the jurisdiction of the Church of England.

Outside of London, circuit judges traveled around the country and held trials at the assizes. Assizes occurred twice a year. That meant an innocent man accused of murder could languish in prison for up to six months until the next meeting of the assizes.

Inside London, serious crimes such as murder were heard by the Court of the King’s Bench.

Sadly, corruption, taking of bribes, and other forms of misconduct by judges was not uncommon. In some eras, though I haven’t found much evidence of it during the Regency, judges were removed and even sentenced to death for corrupt practices.

Regardless of these slips into sin, a trial before a judge and jury proved far more effective than trial by combat or ordeal.

Originally posted 2012-11-30 10:00:00.