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<\/a><\/div>\nAs I reflect on 2015, I am thankful. This has been a year of building\u00a0an audience for multi-cultural Regency Romances, ones where faith and passion for life and love are central. Today, I am showcasing one of the stories, the award winning, Unmasked Heart. <\/em>Meet the duke and his problems.<\/p>\n William St. Landon, the Duke of Cheshire, leaned against the mantle of his study, resisting the urge to bash his skull against the fretwork trim. He looped his finger into the carved maple and pushed himself upright, allowing the rag of a society\u00a0paper to slip to the ground.<\/p>\n That hateful gossip\u00a0would stop at nothing. The woman or her army of wenches\u00a0would even invent whale-tales\u00a0to quell his investigation. With a side kick from his boot, he pushed\u00a0the awful page onto the braid rug, one\u00a0of the many\u00a0items of his late wife\u2019s choosing littering\u00a0the\u00a0London townhouse. The only good thing\u00a0produced by Elizabeth\u00a0was their\u00a0precious daughter asleep in the nursery.<\/p>\n He craned his ear, but no shrieks sounded. His little Mary had no nightmares, tonight. Maybe she\u2019d dream\u00a0peacefully until the morn.\u00a0If only God would allow it.<\/em><\/p>\n With a shake of his head, he smacked his skull. If prayers had true answers, not just a means to express contrition or\u00a0condemnation, then maybe he\u2019d drop to his knees, dust his breeches, and give it ago, again. But that wasn\u2019t his lot any more. A backslidden fool his father would call William.<\/p>\n Well, that didn\u2019t matter. He\u2019d stopped listening to the man years ago. And now William just\u00a0savored the music of calm, the absence of noise.\u00a0The\u00a0little hiss from the hickory in the firebox metered an occasional refrain.<\/p>\n His chest filled fully, maybe for the first time since arriving at Mayfair. What a horrid day, one filled with no answers or true name or names of the blackmailer discovered. And this\u2026warning.<\/p>\n \u201cWowski\u2019s song<\/p>\n White man, never go away; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n A groan welled inside as his gaze focussed on the reprint of the 1778 James Gilroy caricature. The scandalous drawing of Prince William Henry, the Regent\u2019s brother, caught in an affair with an enslaved Jamaican woman. At least the poor woman wasn\u2019t made grotesque like others had done when characterizing dark-skinned females. \u00a0But Gilroy still mocked her, calling her Wowski.<\/p>\n \u201cWowski,\u201d William said with a groan. It was the name of a black servant in the play\u00a0Inkle and Yarico<\/i>, in which Inkle falls in love with an Indian maiden who saves his life but then sells her into slavery for profit.<\/p>\n Rubbing the stiffness from his jaw, he headed for the sideboard. The housekeeper had left him a sweet biscuit and mug of coffee. The coffee had to be cold with his hours of pacing the length of the room, but the fragrant bits of fresh crusty pastry\u00a0still clung to\u00a0the\u00a0air. Suddenly hungry, he popped a flaky morsel into his mouth and let the buttery goodness melt upon his tongue. With his thumb, he traced the edge of the silver tray. Slow, steady circles, he made and listened to the small squeaks formed betwixt\u00a0his flesh\u00a0and the shiny surface. The chirps\u00a0would make his beloved daughter clap her hands and smile. Would she\u00a0try to imitate the sounds as she once did? Why couldn\u2019t her rose-petal lips push out a syllable?<\/p>\n Nothing but hellish cries. A child of four should be able to speak.<\/p>\n His throat dried. His gut ached as if he\u2019d\u00a0been stabbed by a dull knife. He dusted off his hands and returned to the paper’s\u00a0garbage and her parting thrust.<\/p>\n \u201cSeems there\u2019s a cheshire cat who grins like the Prince, but which Wowski will he choose?\u201d<\/p>\n He scanned it again and crumbled the page, throwing it into the fire. The flames blazed and spit for a moment, then quieted. Truth had that affect too, coming from nowhere, torching the land, then settling into place. He had to be honest with himself. William did fancy anything that was the opposite of\u00a0the lithe blonde deceiver formerly called his wife.\u00a0That included honest eyes, a non-lying tongue, and silky skin that didn\u2019t shun his touch.<\/p>\n Mary\u2019s cry pierced his fogged mind and his heart. He trudged out of the study toward the stairs. London, this house, everything that screamed Elizabeth, he needed to be away from it. If he couldn\u2019t stop the rumormongers, maybe it was time to leave. Retreat wasn\u2019t an\u00a0option that set easily on a military man\u2019s shoulders, but this time it might be for the best. The gossips\u00a0wasn\u2019t above lies or innuendo. And if his clumsy attempts at finding the gossips set the\u00a0dogs chasing Mary\u2019s paternity, he\u2019d never forgive himself.<\/p>\n William\u2019s story released June 15th,\u00a0Unmasked Heart<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Ex-warrior, William St. Landon, the Duke of Cheshire, will do anything to protect his mute daughter from his late wife\u2019s scandals. With a blackmailer at large, hiding in a small village near the cliffs of Devonshire seems the best option, particularly since he can gain help from the talented Miss Telfair, who has the ability to help children speak. If only he could do a better job at shielding his heart from the young lady, whose honest hazel eyes see through his jests as her tender lips challenge his desire to remain a single man.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Get\u00a0your copy of Unmasked Heart now at\u00a0Amazon<\/a>. It is available in Print, ebook, and audiobook.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n References:<\/strong><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.greatcaricatures.com\/articles_galleries\/nypl_gillray.html<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Colonel](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/christianregency.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Screen-Shot-2015-12-30-at-8.46.13-AM-280x300.png?resize=280%2C300\")
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\nTell me why need you?
\nStay with your Wowski, stay;
\nWowski will feed you.
\nCold moons are now coming in;
\nAh don\u2019t go grieve me!
\nI\u2019ll wrap you in leopard\u2019s skin;
\nWhite man, don\u2019t leave me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Shy, nearsighted caregiver, Gaia Telfair always wondered why her father treated her a little differently from her siblings, but she never guessed she couldn\u2019t claim his love because of a family secret, her illicit birth. With everything she knows to be true evaporating before her spectacles, can the mulatto passing for white survive being exposed and shunned by a powerful duke who has taken an interest in her?<\/p>\n
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