A Lord for Miss Larkin

by Carola Dunn


My Regency e-publisher is experimenting with pricing on Amazon. She asked me if I'd like to find out what happened if one of my (36) Regencies was priced at 99c (UK 77p) instead of the usual $3.99. I said okay, and she chose A Lord for Miss Larkin, originally published in paperback in 1991.

 
No murder here, but there is an abduction so at a pinch you could call it crime fiction. What it does have is dogs, as you might guess from the paperback cover. The heroine has a Newfoundland, and three of her four eccentric aunts have West Highland Terriers. (The protagonist of my Cornish mysteries also has a Westie.) 

 

With a sigh of satisfaction, Alison closed the marbled covers of Mrs. Kitty Cuthbertson’s latest novel. Curled in the corner of the shabby sofa, so faded its colours were indistinguishable, for a few moments she let her imagination drift through marble palaces and dark, sinister, ruined abbeys. How romantic it would be to have a handsome young lord swooning at one’s feet! Or better (suggested her practical streak), simply kneeling in adoration.

The grey rain drummed down outside the window. In the grate the meagre fire gave a last despairing flicker and died. Alison shivered, uncurled, set the borrowed volume carefully on the occasional table by the par­lour door and picked up her feather duster.

The huge black dog sprawled on the hearth rug raised his head to watch tolerantly as she flitted about the room, making mysterious passes at shelves and picture frames and the one remaining Dresden shep­herdess on the mantel. The whims of humans were inexplicable. He lumbered to his feet and padded over to the window. The sill was just the right height for his chin, and even though it was raining there was always the possibility that a cat might venture to dash across the street.

What he did not know was that at present Alison was not a romantic heroine but a fairy godmother. With her magic wand she was turning everything in the room into gold. Then she would buy a splendid gown for her dear goddaughter, Miss Alison Larkin, who would go to a ball and meet—well, a prince was too much to expect, and even a duke’s son seemed a lot to ask for, although judging by Mrs. Meeke’s novels they were two a penny. Alison would be satisfied with an earl or a viscount, or even a mere baron.

She gave an extra whisk of the duster to the picture over the mantelpiece. Looking at the portrait was al­most like gazing in a mirror—curly black hair, bril­liant blue eyes and delicate, pixie-like features. When the likeness was painted Mama had been nineteen, Alison’s present age, and Papa not much older. She did not remember them.

She curtsied, blew a kiss and turned away...

 

 http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Larkin-Valiant-Hearts-ebook/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Larkin-Valiant-Hearts-Trilogy-ebook/

 

The terriers decided she wanted a game and gam­boled about her feet, nearly tripping her. Midnight sat by the closed kitchen door regarding her hopefully, the tip of his tail swishing gently on the flagstones. She rubbed his huge head as she passed.

“Sorry, boy, you will have to wait. Sit, Flake, Goose, Drop. Stay!”

The terriers obeyed, with a reproachful look that made her laugh. She slipped into the warm kitchen, fragrant with the odour of baking, and closed the door firmly again behind her.

All three of her aunts were sitting at the well-scrubbed white wood table, sipping tea from cheap china cups. Aunt Cleo, plump and rosy-cheeked, reached for the teapot as Alison entered and poured a fourth cup.

“Who was it, dear?” she asked.

“A messenger, with a letter from Aunt Zenobia.”

She set the package in front of Aunt Polly and sat down beside her.

As the eldest of the sisters, Polly Larkin was entitled to be the one to open the letter. A vague-looking woman with wisps of grey hair escaping from her cap, she poked the package with a nervous expression.

“Oh dear. Di, will you read it?” she said plead­ingly, just as everyone expected.

Warming her hands on her cup of tea, Alison waited impatiently as the ritual proceeded. Aunt Di found her steel-rimmed spectacles suspended round her neck, as always. Aunt Cleo provided a sharp knife to slit the seal, warning her sister to be careful not to damage the contents. Aunt Zenobia Winkle had not been heard from in two years, but they all remembered the bright-hued silk scarves that had been enclosed with her last letter, though they had been sold long since to buy coals.

Eyes widened as four pairs of gold earrings emerged from their tissue paper wrappings.

“I shall buy a goose!” exclaimed Aunt Cleo. “I did want a goose to roast for Christmas, but better late than never.”

Alison let out her breath in a long, silent sigh. Of course, they would have to be sold. With a reverent fingertip she touched the nearest one, a delightful dangling creation shaped like a pagoda.

“They are a bit flashy,” said Aunt Di, doubtfully. “Do you think anyone will buy them?”

“Of course. There is a certain type of female who likes to be flashy.”

Alison was about to request elucidation of this fascinating comment when Aunt Polly’s timid voice was heard.

“Surely the gold alone must be worth something?”

“Quite right, Polly.” Cleo patted her hand. “I daresay there will be enough to buy us each a new dress.”

Visions of silks and satins danced before Alison’s eyes. Resolutely she banished them. A sprig muslin for spring would do nicely. “What does the letter say, Aunt Di?” she asked.

Her aunt unfolded the sheet of paper with some trepidation. Zenobia’s communications were generally full of incomprehensible and unpronounceable mem­sahibs and howdahs and chukkers and tiffins.

“My goodness!” she gasped. “Mr. Winkle is gone to his reward and Zenobia is coming home at last. And this letter must have been delayed—she expects to ar­rive at the end of January. She may be here any day!”

..............

...there was a peremptory rapping at the front door.

She started towards it, failing to remember that the household now boasted a maid, one of whose duties was to answer the door. At that moment three balls of white fur raced into view from the back of the house, yipping their joy at seeing her. Midnight followed at a more staid pace.

Bess, the new maid, must have gone out into the garden, forgetting that the dogs were supposed to be shut out of the house while Lady Emma was there. Alison was in a quandary. The terriers must be chased out, but the door knocker was sounding again, plied with a vigorous urgency that brooked no denial.

“Sit, Drop,” she ordered. “Sit, Flake and Goose.” She opened the door.

The gentleman on the doorstep looked her up and down with an air of cool appraisal. He was of middle height, elegantly if quietly dressed, with no more than two modest capes to his greatcoat. His features were clear-cut but nothing out of the ordinary except, per­haps, his determined chin. Alison took instant excep­tion to the faint boredom in his brown eyes.

“I have come to fetch Lady Emma,” he an­nounced. “My name is Trevelyan. Be so good as to announce me to your mistress, girl.”

“I am Alison Larkin,” she corrected him.

The terriers decided hopefully that she was giving them permission to move. They scampered to greet the stranger, two of them sniffing suspiciously at the ankles of his gleaming top-boots while Flake, the boldest, jumped up to place two paws on his knee and look him in the face.

“Down!” said Alison and Mr. Trevelyan with one voice.

Flake obeyed instantly, leaving two muddy paw prints on the hitherto immaculate dove-coloured inex­pressibles. A flush of annoyance stained the high cheekbones, which lent the gentleman’s face a sensi­tivity at odds with his manner.

Alison succeeded in smothering a giggle, but before she could apologize, Midnight sauntered up. Mr. Trevelyan stood his ground.

“I trust your Newfoundland has better manners,” he said grimly.

This book is the first of a trilogy, so if sales go up, the second and third books may follow at the regular price--one can always hope!

The second book, The Road to Gretna, features an elopement--or rather two elopements that get entangled with each other--and an extremely troublesome kitten. 

The third, Thea's Marquis, doesn't feature any animals, but it does have a villain or two and it ends with a thrilling rescue...

 It will be interesting to see what the pricing does for the sales and whether any increase carries over to the sequels and even to the rest of the 36. We won't know for a month or two, when the numbers come in. Fingers crossed!

Captain Ingram's Inheritance

Carola Dunn

Adventure, romance, danger, war, murder, high finance, and a leavening of humour--
Now out, my Rothschild trilogy reprinted in paperback in the UK. Also available as e-book for Nook, Kindle and others. 

Seattle Mystery Bookshop   hopes to get the paperbacks for sale in the US.

Frank Ingram, badly wounded at Waterloo, is taken to Lord Roworth's family estate to recuperate. Roworth's sister Lady Constantia is an angel of mercy to the invalid, but a penniless artillery officer has no business raising his eyes to the daughter of a peer.

Then an unexpected inheritance makes everything possible--until someone tries to stop Frank enjoying his good fortune, someone who won't stop at murder.

Excerpt:

The landau jolted to a halt before a large house in the most fantastical Gothic style. Towers and turrets, battlements and buttresses, arched windows and oriel windows, even gargoyles leering down from the roof parapet, nothing was missing.

Heedless of the rain, Vickie jumped down from the carriage, not waiting for the footman to descend from his damp perch to let down the step. "Oh!" she breathed in an ecstasy, "isn't it heavenly? Does it not bring to mind mad monks and persecuted maidens? I'm sure you must have a ghost, Captain, or even two!"

Frank went off into peals of helpless laughter. Constantia eyed him uncertainly, wondering if he were more tired than she had supposed and growing hysterical.

With a gasp, he stopped laughing and said, "To think I expected to retire to an unobtrusive life in a modest country manor! Anyone residing in that must surely be destined to figure as either an ogre or a sorcerer--or possibly a mad monk."

"Or an enchanted prince, or an Arthurian knight," Constantia proposed. "It is certainly neither unobtrusive nor modest. Vickie, you will be soaked to the skin. Run to the porch at once. I cannot wait to see inside."

Vickie scampered across the potholed, weed-grown gravel to the shelter of the porch, the open-arched ground floor of a tower superimposed on the façade of the central block. There she seized in both hands a massive iron door-knocker in the form of a dragon's head. With it, she beat a zestful tattoo.

By the time Thomas had escorted the rest of the travellers under his black umbrella to the porch, the iron-studded and banded door was slowly creaking open. A small, balding man in a rusty black coat peered at them myopically.

"Us wasn't expecting so many," he quavered in a voice full of doubt.

Frank looked as if he was about to dissolve in laughter again, so Constantia took charge.

"I am Lady Constantia Roworth," she said briskly, moving forward so that the butler--if such he claimed to be--was forced to retreat. "You must have received the letters regarding our coming, and in any case I am sure my brother and Miss Ingram have arrived already. They were well ahead of us upon the highway."

"They'm come," he conceded grudgingly.

"Are there dungeons?" Vickie demanded.

"For heaven's sake, Vickie, the dungeons can wait. Miss Bannister is unwell, and I for one want nothing so much as a cup of tea."

"And tea you shall have," Fanny promised, emerging from an archway, "if you don't mind drinking it in the kitchen. The drawing-room is all in holland covers, and goodness knows what is under them. Frank, are you...yes, you look well but you ought to sit down. My dear Miss Bannister, pray come and see if a cup of tea will not revive you. The kettle is on the hob."

Before following the others through the archway, Constantia threw a glance around the chamber they had entered from the porch. To her delight, it was a Tudor Great Hall, smaller than Westwood's had been, but with all the proper appurtenances: elaborately carved panelling, chimneypiece, and staircase; high, vaulted ceiling; and a gallery around three sides. On either side of the entrance tower, tall, leaded windows under pointed arches admitted a minimum of dull daylight through their grimy diamond panes. The woodwork was dingy, sadly in need of polish, and cobwebs hung from the gallery and ceiling beams, but that could be put to rights.

Frank was waiting for her by the archway under the gallery at one end of the hall. "I'm sorry," he said, chagrined, as they proceeded along a dusty corridor. "I'd not have dragged you here for the world had I known what a shocking state the place is in."

"I'd not have missed it for the world. The Gothic façade must be a quite recent addition since the hall is undoubtedly sixteenth-century, and just what I particularly like."

"Is it, truly?" he asked, gratified. "It looks deuced--dashed--grim to me. Not that I haven't been in some odd lodgings in my time, but I daresay Westwood and Nettledene have raised my expectations! To have to invite you to take tea in the kitchen is mortifying, to say the least."

She touched his arm consolingly. "You will need to hire servants, that is all. There are bound to be women in the village who will like to earn extra money by coming in to help put everything in order to start with."

"Mackintyre did warn us there is no one but an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Biddle, as caretakers. I had not realized, though, just how much care a house needs. I'm glad you are come, for Fanny won't have the least notion how to go about hiring servants."

Constantia was pleased that he took it for granted she would assist his sister, but she said doubtfully, "I will do what I can. Our housekeeper and butler hire most of our indoor servants. Though Mama had me attend several interviews, some years ago, so that I would know how to go about it, the only servant I have ever chosen myself is my abigail, Joan."

"That's more than Fanny's ever done. Where does one start?"

"With the vicar's wife. She will know of respectable people in need of work."

"Let's hope the vicar is married, then. Oh Lord, I've just thought: if Mackintyre judges this place habitable, what condition do you suppose the house at Heathcote is in?"

At that moment they reached the kitchen. The spotless cosiness of the large room suggested that the Biddles spent most of their time there, but just now they seemed to have vanished. Miss Bannister was already seated at the well-scrubbed whitewood table, where Anita knelt on a chair with bread-and-jam in her hand and jam on her face. Vickie wandered about exclaiming over bright copper pans, wooden spoons, and other kitchen equipment unfamiliar to the daughter of an earl. At the wide fireplace, Fanny was swinging a hook bearing a steaming kettle off the fire.

The young footman, also steaming by the fire, sprang to help her. Felix was there first, potholders in hand.

"Do you remember, Fanny," he said, lifting the kettle, "how once in Brussels I went to the kitchen to ask Henriette for tea and I claimed to be domesticated? You told me I must learn to make the tea for myself. The moment has come. What do I do next?"

Fanny laughed, plainly not in the least dispirited by her surroundings. "The teapot is already warmed and the tea-leaves measured into it, so all you need do is pour on the water. Connie, Frank, do sit down. Are you hungry? I can offer bread and jam."

"So we see," said Frank, grinning at Anita.

"It's good jam, Uncle Frank." Catching a drip, she licked her hand.

Soon they were all seated about the table with cups of tea, except Thomas, who bashfully accepted a mug but continued to stand steaming at the fire.

"Well," said Frank, regarding his guests with a rueful air, "what can I say but welcome to Upfield Grange? I believe I can safely promise you all an unusual visit."

They were laughing when Biddle reappeared. He was accompanied by a little old woman, bent with rheumatism, in a white cap and a grey gown with the wide, quilted skirts of a former age. Peering around the company, he spotted Frank and marched up to him, his wife in tow.

"You be Cap'n Ingram, the new master, sir?"

"That's right."

"Us can't do it, sir, not nohow." He made a helpless gesture at the horde invading his haven. "Us be caretakers, sir, me and the missis, not butlers and housemaids and cooks and such."

Mrs Biddle nodded her crooked head and a tear trickled down her wrinkled cheek.

Frank took her hand in his. "My dear Mrs Biddle, you shan't be expected to do anything beyond your strength. I hope you and Biddle will consent to stay and help as you can until I'm able to hire a proper staff, but whenever you choose to go, you shall have a pension."

Constantia, sitting beyond Frank, saw the light of hope enter the old woman's faded eyes. "Us'll help, sir, to be sure." She faltered. "'Ee won't bawl at un, like his grace do? I han't made up but two beds yet, sir."

"Fanny," Constantia exclaimed, eyeing the twisted hand engulfed in Frank's, "surely you and Vickie and I can make up the beds ourselves?"

Frank's look of gratitude was reward enough for any amount of unpleasant labour.

"Oh yes!" Vickie appeared to regard the whole situation as a splendid adventure. "You'll have to show us how, Fanny."

"It won't take long."

"Joan should be here soon, too," said Constantia, "with the luggage, and your man, Felix."

"I shouldn't dare ask Trevor to make beds," her brother declared.

Fanny wrinkled her nose at him. "No, he is quite the most disobliging person. Mrs Biddle, have the linens been aired?"

"Oh, aye, miss, that they have."

"Excellent. Thomas, if you are nearly dry, pray carry--" She stopped as the kitchen's back door opened.

The Westwoods' coachman and Felix's new groom came in, the former with a decidedly grumpy expression. Though he seemed a trifle abashed to find the kitchen full of gentry, he addressed Felix in no uncertain terms. "Beggin' your pardon, m'lord, but them stables is fit for neither man nor beast."

Felix grimaced, then gave Frank an apologetic look. "I know," he said to the coachman, "but you are to return to Westwood tomorrow with the landau. Dutton, have you managed to make my pair reasonably comfortable?"

Before the groom could answer, young Thomas stepped forward. "Please, my lord," he cried, "Don't make me go back to Westwood. My lady!" He turned to Constantia and begged, "Let me stay. I asked special to be let come to serve you. I'll do anything, honest. I'll make beds or...or even clean out the stables."

Astonished, touched, even a little flattered, Constantia said, "Yes, you may stay, Thomas. Felix, did not Mama say Fanny and Vickie and I must take a footman to wait upon us?"

"She did." He grinned. "However, I believe what she had in mind was your consequence, not my horses' comfort."

Frank groaned. "If anything is certain," he said, "it's that Lady Westwood would never have let you come, Lady Constantia, if she'd had the slightest notion of the state of things at Upfield Grange."

Constantia smiled at him. "So we can only be grateful, Captain, that she did not know."

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Lord Roworth's Reward

by Carola Dunn

 Adventure, romance, danger, war, murder, high finance, and a leavening of humour--
Now out, my Rothschild trilogy will be reprinted in the UK. Also available as e-book for Nook, Kindle and others.

Lord Roworth's Reward is the second book of the Rothschild Trilogy, after Miss Jacobson's Journey and followed by Captain Ingram's Inheritance.

1815: Felix Roworth accepts a job from the Rothschilds, to follow Society to Brussels and send immediate word to London of the outcome of the inevitable battle between Bonaparte, escaped from Elba, and the Duke of Wellington. The son of a bankrupt peer, Felix shares lodgings in Brussels with a penniless artillery officer and his pretty sister, Frank and Fanny Ingram, as the French approach and citizens and visitors panic. When Frank is badly wounded in the Battle of Waterloo, Felix helps Fanny get him to safety. But he needs a well-born, wealthy match, for his family's sake. It's his duty to forget the attraction he feels for Fanny.

Chapter 1

The parlour door-latch clicked. Felix glanced up, on the verge of embarrassment at being discovered on his hands and knees on the worn brown drugget carpet, but of course it was only Fanny.

His little rider slid off his back and ran to her, black ringlets flying. "Tía, have you buyed me a great big sugar plum?"

"Bought," Fanny corrected automatically, setting down her basket on the table. As Felix sprang to his feet and dusted the knees of his buckskin breeches, he saw that she was hot and tired, her brown curls limp under the jaunty straw hat with its single sagging plume. Though it was still May, Brussels sweltered under a cloudless sky.

"Did you bought me one?" Anita repeated obediently.

Fanny's round face dimpled in a smile at Felix. "Yes," she assured the child, "you shall have a sugar plum but you must eat your bread and milk first. Did you thank Tío Felix for giving you a ride?"

"Not yet." Spreading her skirts with two tiny hands, Anita wobbled a curtsy, the tip of her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth in her concentration. "There," she said with a beam of triumph. "Thank you, Tío Felix, my lord. You are a good horse."

Laughing, Felix swept her up in his arms and kissed her soft cheek. "And you are a good rider."

"She should be. She started on a Spanish mule before she was two." Fanny took off her hat, crossed to the tarnished looking-glass over the mantel, and did her best with deft fingers to set her curls in order. "Thank you for taking care of her, my lord," she said over one slim shoulder. "The marketing took longer than I expected, I'm afraid. There are more and more soldiers in the streets every day, which I daresay we should be glad of."

"Certainly, since sooner or later it is bound to come to a battle. According to all reports, Boney is still drawing troops to his Eagles."

"But half of ours are raw recruits, or Belgian farm lads of doubtful allegiance. Many of them are mere boys, and of the Brunswickers, too, however impressive they look in their black with those horrid skulls and crossbones on their shakos! Still, today you will see the flower of the British Army. I trust I have not made you late for your appointment with Lady Sophia--or is it Madame Lisle you are taking to the Review?" she added with a quizzing look.

"Lady Sophia," Felix answered curtly. Miss Fanny Ingram should not even be aware of his Belgian chère-amie, let alone mention her. But then, one could not expect the delicacy of a well-bred, sheltered young lady, the exquisite sensibilities of a Lady Sophia, in a female who had followed the drum from birth.

Now what had she said to make him poker up? Fanny wondered. Lord Roworth usually took her teasing in good part. Of course: she ought not to have mentioned his mistress. Mama would have been equally shocked at her daughter's frankness, but Mama was buried somewhere in the Spanish mountains south of Coruña. After six years, it was difficult to remember all her lessons.

Still, if Fanny should not have spoken so, Lord Roworth ought not to have set up a mistress when he was assiduously courting a noble beauty. Frank had told her about Katrina Lisle, and they had shaken their heads together over the peculiar ways of the nobility.

Felix Roworth was handsome enough to keep any number of females happy, with his dark-gold locks, ruffled now by Anita's clasp, his brilliant blue eyes, his tall, broad-shouldered form. But Fanny had no intention of being numbered among those languishing females. Nor had she any intention of letting his disapproval abash her.

"Then you had best be on your way, sir," she said tranquilly.

He grinned, his momentary stiffness vanished. "Lady Sophia does not care for tardiness in her suitors, true, but I'm not late. Wellington is not to arrive until two, I understand."

"Well, you should know, intimate with Old Hookey as you are. Poor Frank and Captain Mercer have been out there with their guns since early this morning. They have to see that the men polish the barrels, as well as their buttons, buckles and boots. Though the Duke never has a good word for the Artillery, Colonel Frazer insists that today they shine as brightly as the rest of the Cavalry."

"Shall you go?"

"Not I. Twenty miles, in this heat, to see our fellows dressed up in their fancy coats?" She spoke lightly, with scorn, to hide her wistful desire to see the Review. Her brother's Horse Artillery battery was seldom on parade.

Though usually less than perceptive, Lord Roworth saw through her pretense of indifference. "I wish I might offer to take you, but Lady Sophia is expecting my escort and I've borrowed a curricle which will only hold two, with her groom up behind."

Even if he had a spacious barouche, Lady Sophia would hardly appreciate the presence of a dowdy stranger and a small child on her excursion, Fanny thought sardonically. Just as well it was impossible, but it was a kind notion, typical of his good nature. Whatever his faults, he was a dear.

"Never mind," she said, turning to practical matters, "I really must finish Anita's new dress. She grows shockingly fast."

"My new dress is blue and it has scarlet ribbons," Anita announced with pride. "That's the same colours like Tío Frank's best coat."

"As Tío Frank's coat. Come, Anita, we must take the basket to Henriette in the kitchen."

"I'll carry it," Felix offered, picking it up. "It's heavy! What a deuced nuisance that Henriette will not go to market."

"She is far too busy, not to mention too fat. Madame Vilvoorde used to go herself, I collect, but now she is a landlady and above such things."

"Landlady! She lets out a few shabby rooms at an exorbitant rent!" he snorted. "You ought not to have to shop for provisions."

"I don't mind. Believe me, it is easy compared to foraging in the Peninsula!"

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See an excerpt of the first in the trilogy here:
 http://historicalfictionexcerpts.blogspot.com/2012/09/miss-jacobsons-journey.html

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