As she embarks upon her career as a writer and journalist, Georgiana creates this fictional rake by putting together the characteristics of many upper-crust types she's seen and met in her life - beginning with the vain and haughty Viscount Fairbanks, who once insulted her elder sister at a party. She is not impressed by the cliques of grand Society that have treated her family like upstarts since they moved to London, and in this naughty column Georgiana gets her revenge on the snobs and know-it-alls that she's encountered.
In her column she writes from the point of view of an overworked, underappreciated valet who has a dry sense of humor and very little respect for his master. Through the eyes of this fellow she pens an image of "His Lordship", filling out the character using all the little bits and pieces she has gleaned over the years from the absurd reality around her.
* * * *
Excerpt from “His
Lordship's Trousers” (censored)
Printed in The Gentleman's Weekly, May 1817
Yesterday
evening's attire: Ivory silk knee breeches. On their return, badly marked with
wine and candle wax, three buttons adrift.
This
morning's attire: (Eventually) Kerseymere trousers with stirrups and slackly
tied gusset laces. Padded seat a necessity.
Today his
lordship awoke earlier than usual, before the midday sun had quite reached its zenith.
As a regular visitor to this column you will be surprised by the hour of my
master's rising, but perhaps not by the curious array in which he was
decorated. We shall come to that presently.
The gentleman
declared his head to be both vibrating and
rotating, as he lifted the bulbous mass from its drool-encrusted pillow. There
was little to be done to ameliorate his agony until an elixir of raw egg,
vinegar and minced garlic, prepared to my own special recipe, was dropped into
a mug of ale and swiftly sucked down into his lordship's gullet.
I did my
best to reassemble the pieces of his sprawling anatomy, to wipe them down with
a wet rag, shave the parts most overgrown and least unsightly, and then hoist him
into another new pair of calf-clingers. Throughout this endeavor, he honored me
with a tale of his evening spent in the company of a certain lady — whom we shall
call 'Loose Garters', on account of the fact that she left hers around his lordship's
wrists and bedposts. The lady, it seems, has a preference for trussing my
master up like a stuffed goose, and indeed he shall begin to resemble one if he
continues to indulge his fondness for treacle tart and marzipan. One cannot
retain the well-sprung, racing form of a fine curricle unless one maintains it
well with exercise, as I am constantly reminding his lordship.
Alas, his
ears are open far less often than his mouth.
"The
lady enjoys both the infliction of pain and of pleasure," he informed me
between yawns that, if I were of lesser heft, would surely have swept me into
the dank abyss beyond his epiglottis. "She performs wonders for a man's
filberts, and does enjoy a well hung pair," added the gentleman, congratulating
himself on those aforementioned objects in his possession.
Dear
reader, during the course of the previous evening, I was occasionally roused
from my own light sleep by a loud clapping sound, much like that of a freshly
caught pike being wielded with wild force against an empty, round-bellied, iron
pot. This morning the cause was clear to me, as I observed the scarlet marks of
a riding crop, and possibly a butter paddle, slathered generously across his lordship's
posterior.
It was, he
confessed to me, Lady Loose Garters' desire to deliver a stern spanking—
amongst other punishments— while she had him tied prone to his own bed.
"Ah,"
said I, "that would explain the clothes peg upon your nose, sir, and the dried
candle wax upon your manly nipples. About which I did not like to inquire."
He had,
apparently, forgotten these remnants of the lady's passion. Perhaps due to the
numbness in those protuberances. His buttocks were not so devoid of feeling, and
I fear all his lordship's trousers will require a cushioned seat, should this
affair continue long.
As I
observed to the gentleman, I do hope his latest amour— in her zest for punitive
measures— never procures a pair of nutcrackers for those proud filberts in his
possession.
* * * *
And so is born the fictional character of His Lordship - an amalgam of many people she has met (as is the case with most characters writers create). The column is soon a great success and increases the readership of her father's newspaper. The only thing Georgiana has to do now is pluck up the courage to confess to her father that not only is his most popular feature written by a female, but by his own, least-favourite daughter!
In THE TROUBLE WITH HIS LORDSHIP'S TROUSERS my fictional heroine's fictional anti-hero takes on a life of his own and starts to cause a most amusing ruckus.
Certain people, of course, burdened with small brains, self-importance and vanity, see themselves reflected in the character she's created and even when they should probably save face and hold their tongue, they are not smart enough to sit down and shut up.
Find out how it all begins for my characters - fictional and fictional - in the first book of the series The Ladies Most Unlikely.
The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers
Happy reading!
Jayne
You can contact me anytime through my Facebook Author Page.
I look forward to hearing from you! :)
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