Character Showcase - Mr. Maxwell Bramley

Max Bramley is the sort of fellow who bumbles through his day with very few cares and seldom takes anything seriously. Unfortunately, he likes to give advice, whether it's desired or not, and even though his own life's choices leave much to be desired. He is a gentleman of leisure and pleasure. It puzzles him greatly that his dear cousin Harry prefers to live a solitary life in the country and won't even keep a valet on staff. Even worse, Harry appears to have sworn off the female gender. Well, good thing (or is it?) that Max is here to set all this straight and steer his cousin back into all the pursuits a gentleman ought to enjoy.

* * * *

In Max Bramley's eyes, there was nothing wrong with Harry. Nothing that a simple cure could not change. Max generally viewed life through the distorted glass at the bottom of a crystal goblet, of course, and although folk never went to him for advice, it did not stop the blurry-eyed fellow from giving it freely.

            "A woman could save you from yourself," he said. "You've already got one arm in a sling, old chap. But breaking one's fall is precisely what a woman is for."

 

            "Then why haven't you acquired one?"

            That caught his cousin off guard, but only briefly. "We are talking of you, dear coz, not of me. You were in the Navy, Harry, for pity's sake! This chaste life is not what I expect from a sailor."

 

* * * *

 

When Max gets it into his head to "help", it seldom turns out well, but he is just as determined to fix a crisis as his mama, Lady Bramley. Sometimes his methods are not exactly subtle and he ends up doing more damage than good, but, as poor Harry must constantly remind himself, his cousin "means well".

And Max is very fortunate that Miss Georgiana Hathaway strongly believes nobody is beyond saving.

 

Read more in "The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers" OUT NOW.

 

Jayne

 

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(Image: Portrait of a Gentleman by Francois-Xavier Fabre)

Character Showcase - Lady Bramley

Harry looked fondly down at his tattered, infinitely comfortable dressing gown and wondered if he might suddenly come up with an illness and send his regrets. But no, the horror of attending one of his aunt's dire social events loomed without possibility of reprieve. Lady Bramley could find vulnerable parts in a man's excuses as effectively as the spikes of an iron maiden could find them in his body. He often thought she would have been quite at home leading the Spanish Inquisition.

* * * *

Lady Bramley is the redoubtable aunt of the hero in "The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers". She takes great interest in his well-being - too much interest, in his opinion - and  hopes, one day, to get him married to a suitable woman who can take over the difficult task of keeping Harry half-way civilized.

A keen gardener, Lady Bramley likes to grow prize-winning vegetables and she views Harry as a challenge not unlike the nurturing of one of her famous marrows. She knows he is determined to avoid all her schemes, but that does not put her off.

            "I fear, madam, that you are destined for disappointment if you continue in this idea of developing and improving me like one of your prize-winning vegetables."

            "Don't be foolish, Henry. A champion gourd takes a vast deal more care and trouble to cultivate than a man. Although it is usually a more satisfactory enterprise, I must say."

            "Your methods don't seem to have worked with me."

            "Henry dear, I haven't even begun with you."

Lady Bramley enjoys nothing as much as a challenge, whether it means corralling her sons and nephew into gentlemanlike behavior, grooming her beloved lapdog, trimming a wayward hedge, or taking a troublesome miss under her wing. When she sees something out of place, she has to tidy it. And when she sees two young people in need of each other, she has to make sure she brings them together. One way or another!

Read more about Lady Bramley and her match-making efforts in The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers - out now !




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Happy reading!
Jayne

Character Showcase - Mrs. Julia Lightbody

In general, the students at Mrs. Lightbody's Particular Establishment for the Advantage of Respectable Ladies— or "The Pearl", as some of its wittier residents referred to it— gave the redoubtable proprietress little trouble. Most boarders at this worthy academy were terrified enough to leave her to the enjoyment of her gin flask, a fly smasher and the Histoire et Vie de L'Aretin secreted inside a book of sermons. Mrs. Lightbody, in return, saw her pupils graduate through her front door at eighteen and nineteen in much the same intellectual state as they came into it as younger girls. In some cases with an even emptier head, incapable of having a thought or an opinion unless it was put there by her.

            The academy was required to provide only a very basic education for thirty guineas a year, and nothing more than an ability to attract husbands was ever expected of those who survived the experience. After all, as Mrs. Lightbody was known to grunt despondently, "There is not much to be done with girls, except teach them sewing, dancing, a little French, and How to Get a Husband."

* * * *

Mrs. Julia Lightbody rules her school with a mean, vindictive temper. And is often helped through her day by a bottle of gin hidden inside a china shepherdess. When it comes to the pupils put into her care, she favors those girls whose fathers can pay more than the standard thirty guineas a year for their "studies", and she looks down upon any girl who will not, or cannot, conform to her ideals. Anybody who crosses her and refuses to pay her the deference she believes she is due, will soon suffer dearly, for - as she likes to remind everybody - she is a woman of influence with friends in high places. During her time at the academy she has brokered many "successful" marriages for her best pupils and that is, after all, more important than actually providing an honest service and a proper education for these young women.

The headmistress took pleasure in the misfortunes of others, liked to lecture at length on subjects about which she knew nothing, and snidely criticized work that she herself could never emulate. She had been known to tear apart finely wrought embroidery or throw it into the fire, simply because the girl who made it once looked at her the wrong way, or her corns were playing up, or she'd been given the cut by someone in the street.


But Mrs. Lightbody has a dark secret in her past. She once went by another name and lived a rather different life. Her route into the upper echelons of society has been a somewhat sly and winding serpentine path. It balances precariously on her art for blackmail and it just might be exposed by one of her least favorite pupils.

Georgiana had often wondered how Mrs. Lightbody ever came to open an academy for young ladies. She was not a woman who set a very great example to her pupils. She appeared to have stumbled into this profession by some clerical error, rather than ability or inclination. Most of the time she left her "teaching" duties to the older girls, letting them tutor the younger ones while she remained shut in her parlor with the door bolted.

            Julia Lightbody was socially ambitious. As the headmistress of that school she was able to assure herself that she was, in fact, a "somebody", even if her students— once they achieved a successful match and moved up in society— became completely embarrassed by the old association and would deliberately not recognize her in the street.

 

            Georgiana, who had always loved a good mystery, knew there must be more to Mrs. Lightbody than met the eye.

* * * *

Along with Georgiana, you can uncover Mrs. Julia Lightbody's dreadful secret in The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers - coming tomorrow!


Jayne
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(Above: Portrait of Mary Robinson by Thomas Gainsborough)

Meet: The Ladies Most Unlikely

Once upon a time there were three little girls who went to a ladies' academy...

 Georgiana Hathaway - "an unrepentant, wicked girl"

The middle child of seven, Georgiana is accustomed to causing trouble just to be noticed. Sadly, even then, her busy father often fails to recall her name, and resorts to "Esmerelda" or "Jezebel" when in a hurry to admonish her.

 Georgiana spent a happy childhood in the Norfolk countryside, but her ambitious father - a widower, newly remarried to a much younger wife - has uprooted his family from their beloved home and moved them to a new, fancy house in London. Here, as the owner of a successful newspaper and a printing business, he hopes to expand his fortune and improve his status. In this pursuit he is aided by his new bride, who is extremely keen to be accepted by grand society and determined not to let Georgiana's bad behavior embarrass them.

 And so, when the opportunity arises, the second Mrs. Hathaway eagerly suggests to her husband that he send his troublesome daughter away to an academy for young ladies. There, so she tells him, Georgiana will learn proper behavior and meet other young ladies of "better" society. Most importantly of all, sent off to boarding school, she will be out of her stepmother's way.

 But will she also stay out of mischief? As a natural ringleader with a lively imagination and something that her stepmother calls "a contrary disposition", she has soon formed a friendship with two other young ladies and is eagerly leading them into trouble. They're very fortunate, as she assures them,  that they have her to keep them off the straight and narrow.

 

Melinda Goodheart  - "a robust young lady known to be competitive at the expense of grace and decorum."

The only daughter of an impoverished Baronet who makes an art out of never paying a bill, Melinda has been sent to the Particular Establishment for the Advantage of Respectable Ladies for one reason only - to catch a rich husband. Her father has made it clear that she's not to come home again until this goal has been achieved. But Melinda has few ladylike attributes and very little inclination to study. Soon bored at school and restless for more than life seems prepared to give her, she is thankful to meet a fellow adventurous spirit in Georgiana.

Melinda happily goes along with anything that promises entertainment and is seldom bothered by the consequences - as long as she's had her fun first. The only potential she sees in her future is a hat shop, since she's heard that "When all other avenues of pleasure and expression are closed to her, a lady may resort to the comfort of Desperate Millinery." Of course, she must find a rich husband first to help fund her venture - one who is also corrupt enough not to care about the many disgraces of her family.

 

Emma Chance - "the most sensible, solemn young woman ever abandoned by her parents."

As a newly-weaned babe, Emma was left at the ladies' academy by a gentleman who wished to remain anonymous. Thus she was abandoned to the questionable care of the school proprietress, Mrs. Lightbody, who never lets her forget that she's a charity case. Emma has no expectations of ever marrying. She has no dowry and no parent willing to claim her. The only respectable option available to her is to one day become a governess - a prospect that horrifies her. Bullied and belittled for most of her childhood, she never had a friend until Georgiana and Melinda came to the school and took her under their protection.

Now, fiercely loyal to her friends, she would do anything for them. Although never a troublemaker herself, she will not allow them to go on any misadventure without her.  After all, somebody must be the voice of reason and it is always her hope that she can prevent utter calamity from befalling her dear friends in their desire for excitement.

 

As she softly teases the other two women, "Some of us might be daring enough to ride down a banister, but most prefer the steadier progress of steps to arrive at our destination with a little bit of dignity."

 

Get to know more about "The Ladies Most Unlikely" in the first book of a new series - The Trouble With His Lordship's Trousers, coming NEXT WEEK.

 

Jayne Fresina- copyright 2016
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LADIES MOST UNLIKELY

Hi there! Spring is almost upon us, and to celebrate I'll be welcoming the season with the first book in my new Regency romantic comedy series The Ladies Most Unlikely.

This light-hearted series will follow the fortunes and romantic misadventures of three friends, who met and formed an unshakeable bond while they were unhappy students at a London finishing-school for young ladies.

Georgiana Hathaway, Melinda Goodheart and Emma Chance all come from very different beginnings (yes, a bit like Charlie's Angels!) but they all have one thing in common - a love for adventure and a desire to do something unexpected with their lives.

As students at The Particular Establishment for the Advantage of Respectable Ladies (sometimes called The PEARL), they were each expected to conform with the Regency era society's ideals for proper young ladies. And they all failed, quite spectacularly, to come up to standard. The school headmistress, Mrs. Julia Lightbody, calls them bad apples, a blot on the reputation of her academy - the ladies least likely to make good matches.

Thus they become The Ladies Most Unlikely, and as they go out into the world, society had better be prepared.

As Mrs. Lightbody says, "Of all my pupils you three are the very worst. A bad lot. Destined to go down in infamy."  

And Georgiana happily agrees. After all, as she is fond of saying, "If one must go down in something, it may as well be  the good ship Infamy."

The first book in this series (The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers) will tell the story of outspoken, inquisitive Miss Georgiana Hathaway and Commander Sir Henry Thrasher - a war hero, who once spent two and a half years shipwrecked on an unchartered island, has been declared dead twice, and has a distinct aversion to decent clothing. And nosy young ladies.

So how does this odd couple meet? I'll leave you with a hint.

"Here before her was a legend— a man knighted for bravery, and much admired for his valor and steel-spine fortitude. She had eagerly devoured the Commander's heroic Naval exploits in her father's paper, where it was written that even bloodthirsty, lawless pirates held "Dead Harry" in high regard.

The man was a national institution, and she had just felled him with her inconsequential and shamefully airborne buttocks."

* * * *

Author's note: Please be warned, or assured (depending upon your personal preference), that The Ladies Most Unlikely series contains scenes of mild sensuality, but I have decided to leave these particular heroines with a little more privacy. It is not, therefore, erotica, but romance that might just make you blush a tiny bit - when you're not laughing.

While leaving some scenes to the reader's imagination, I hope also to leave you wholly satisfied with the story, the characters and their outcome. I don't believe you will find anything lacking.

Thank you for reading!

Jayne

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Last Rake Standing - excerpt

He’d faced the sizeable dilemma of a wife for some years, but never found what he was looking for. His stoutly, opinionated mother, on one of her recent, unannounced, military-style assaults, had reminded him of two important facts.  First, he needn’t expect to be happy in marriage. Second, a Craven heir to the Penhale estate could only be made with the help of a legitimate wife, however tiresome he might think the whole ordeal.

 

“Find yourself a bride, William. Beget an heir and your life will not have been entirely wasted.” He was, she reminded him, a blight on the family escutcheon. But at least he didn’t have to get out of bed to create an heir. “With your reputation to consider, I have no high hopes of a great match, but there must be someone who can overlook your failings.”

Finally, to end her nagging, he promised to bring home a wife by Christmas. He’d set about the process at once, but, like most things, it was not going as smoothly as he’d hoped.      Tonight, when his fellow Elysium Club members were scornful of his likely success in this endeavor, William went a step further, under the influence of several very good brandies, declaring he would, in fact, wed his bride by noon on Friday. The wager, written in ink, was now irreversible. It wasn’t the money that troubled him, but the loss of pride should he fail. William Craven had never lost a wager in his life. Therefore, he could no longer procrastinate.

Previous engagements had come about purely by mistake, or accident, and lasted no more than a few days. They also usually resulted in some bodily injury to himself, which, while taking him by surprise at the time, seemed inevitable upon further reflection.  Might even be part of a pattern. The Duke’s long-suffering valet, Gudgeon, had suggested that his master honed a talent for sabotaging his own engagements. William insisted he was cursed.

Sadly, he met very few women deemed suitable bride material. The good, harmless sort wisely steered clear of William Craven, while there was always a distressing surfeit of hazardous females in his vicinity. He recently lamented this fact to Gudgeon, who calmly suggested his master might want to go outside during the daylight hours and visit a few places previously unexplored, such as a park or a church. It was advice William heard, even recalled from time to time, but it was damned hard to break with routine.

And there was always a certain stubborn idea in his mind. A small, angry face that peered at him through a mist, refusing to let him seriously consider any other woman.

Falling into his carriage somewhere around the region of five in the morning, he sprawled against the button-tufted leather seat and was just closing his eyes for a nap when it happened.

It was the red he saw first. Like a spark of flame in a dry, dead forest, her crimson scarf caught his attention through the moon-licked, rain-washed carriage window, bringing an abrupt end to his sleepy contemplation of the street. Otherwise, it might have been just another dreary homecoming from a night on the town, familiar in its predictable routine, even if it had little else to recommend it. But that warm shot of color amid the dawn slurry disrupted everything and woke him from a torpid stupor as effectively as an alarm bell.

            William tapped his knuckles on the carriage roof and the horses jibbed to a shuddering, snorting halt. Briefly, he considered the mistake he was about to make by involving himself in a matter that was not really his fault, but something very unusual and particularly bothersome forced him to stop the carriage. Much to his amazement, he conceded it must be his conscience, an item previously notable for its absence, wheezing to life.

            He lowered the sash window and rain spat in his weary face. Better take the umbrella, he thought, fumbling for it in the shadowy carriage interior. It seemed the careless woman didn’t have the foresight to bring one out with her, nor wear a hat.

            Lurching out of his carriage, he looked for the woman in the red scarf. She was exactly where he last saw her, at the edge of the pavement, under a gas lamp, only slightly more attractive than a drowned rat. The front of her coat was splattered with wet mud and slush, which had also splashed her face and darkened the loose ends of her brown hair. As he approached, William anticipated the first strike of her tongue. He’d had plenty of practice bracing for the wrath of a vengeful woman. No one’s feet were stomped upon by angry little heels quite so many times as his, no one’s face slapped so often. And upon whom else’s head should china ornaments be broken, if not the Duke of Penhale’s? He was usually the most convenient enemy.

            But then she said, “Forgive me,” tearing his expectations asunder.

So, she hadn’t yet identified him as a rogue of the first order who could ruin her reputation just by looking at her and probably ought to have his face slapped before he got any ideas.

            She was breathing too hard, her skin pale as the departing moon, her eyes very large. “I wasn’t looking,” she added. “It was my fault.”

An interesting development. Cautiously, his insides uncurled, but only a little. She could, of course, be up to something. Women generally were. He held the umbrella over them both, although in her case it was too late for that. The creature couldn’t get much wetter if she fell off Tower Bridge.

“Your coat.” he muttered. “You must allow me to have it cleaned, madam.” She was probably in shock now, but would send him a bill later with a solicitor’s letter. Once she knew who he was, she would certainly expect monetary compensation for her coat.

“That really isn’t necessary, sir. Excuse me.” Her voice was polite, well-modulated, but quite insistent, rather like a very proper, faintly impatient schoolmistress.

“Perhaps you would rather I buy you a new coat. That one is rather unflattering, ill-made, and distinctly shabby.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And it looks as if you outgrew it some years ago.”

Her lips flapped. Finally, she sputtered, “Excuse me. I’ll just take my ugly, cheap coat and be on my way.”

When he didn’t move out of her path, she swept him with a wintry glare, cold and brisk.  Her lashes were lengthy as the legs of a wily spider, plentiful as those of a centipede. Oh yes, there would definitely be a solicitor’s letter tomorrow. Perhaps she was already calculating an outrageous claim for the cost of her clothing, her shoes, her non-existent hat. For some spurious injury too, thrown in for good measure. Once she realized who he was, his reputation would inspire all manner of accusations.

Nudging him aside with her pointy elbow, she would have run off, had he not captured her wet sleeve in his fingers, tugging her back.

“Please accept the services of my carriage, madam. I can deliver you safely to your destination at a much greater speed. And in the dry.”

There! He wouldn’t give her the slightest chance to complain later that the Duke of Penhale treated her in any way other than gentlemanly. His mother, not to mention his solicitor, would be proud of him for thinking of the consequences for once. If that was, in fact, what he was concerned about, rather than getting this bedraggled waif into the private quarters of his carriage.

“I don’t generally accept rides from strangers.”

“Nor do I offer them to strangers. It seems we must both be on our guard.”

She looked down the street. “It’s not that far.”

“It’s a very unsafe hour for you to be out alone, madam.” Before she could pull her sleeve away, he tightened his grip. “And it’s raining.”

“A little rain never hurt anybody.”

“On the contrary. The obituaries are full of stubborn women who probably said the very same thing before influenza sent them to an early grave. Not to mention the scores of tragically trampled females caught airily daydreaming in front of fast horses. The Times has an entire section for them.”

She looked up, only as far as his lips, then immediately back down to his waistcoat. “You might be a kidnapper, an abductor and molester of innocent women.”

“You might be a highway robber, or a woman of ill-repute. Or an infamous body-snatcher. Now that I think of it, you could be all three. You have the face for it.”

“Face for it!” she exclaimed.

“Plain and unremarkable. Nondescript in a crowd and just innocent enough to fool justice.”

Her lips fell apart and he watched a little cloud of breath disperse around her mouth.

“As long as you don’t try to pick my pockets, I’ll resist my rapacious urges, madam,” he added dryly.

“Oh, for pity’s sake!” Snatching her arm away from his grip, she marched forward, leaving him to follow with the umbrella, like a servant.

He ran around her to hold the carriage door open, noting a very shapely ankle as she stepped inside; then he followed, closing the umbrella and shaking it, before he pulled the door shut.

 

(copyright Jayne Fresina 2016)

 

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How To Rescue A Rake

Today is release day for book three in my Regency series The Book Club Belles. This time the ladies of Hawcombe Prior book society are reading Miss Austen's 'Persuasion', and the story resonates most powerfully with Diana Makepiece. She's had her share of disappointments and regrets, so she feels a great kinship with the heroine, Anne Elliot.

With which of Austen's heroines do you most identify?

(Picture of the Duchess of Devonshire, by Sir Joshua Reynolds)