Who Died and Made Alexandrina Queen?

While I was watching the first episode of Victoria  this week, it occurred to me that there's a lot of stuff going on in the background that's hinted at, but not clearly explained, especially with some of the characters, like the old duke with the gnarly scar. The show makes it clear that he's somehow related to Victoria and that he's not happy about her getting the throne.

So, first things first: Queen Victoria's name is actually Alexandrina Victoria. (British monarchs get to choose their regnal name and she opted to drop Alexandrina.) Now on to the murkier and more interesting topic: how'd she get to be the queen of England?

In 1817, George III was king and his eldest son, George IV, was Prince Regent. The Prince Regent's wife, Caroline, had been estranged from him for years. Their only child, Princess Charlotte of Wales, then died in childbirth that same year, leaving him without a legitimate heir.

This meant that his brother, Prince Frederick, the Duke of York and Albany, became his heir. However, Frederick and his wife also didn't have any children.

Several of George III's other children hurried to get married and produce heirs on the increasingly likely-chance that the succession came to them. William IV and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathern (George III's third and fifth children), both were married in 1818. Alexandrina Victoria was born the following year.

Both Prince Edward (Victoria's father) and George III (Victoria's grandfather) died in 1820. The Prince Regent became king.

In 1827, Prince Frederick, George IV's younger brother (George III's second child) and heir, died. Since Frederick never did have any children, their next brother, William (George III's third child) became George IV's new heir.

George IV died in 1830 and William IV became king. He was in his 60s by this point. William had several illegitimate children prior to his marriage to Princess Adelaide, but unfortunately they did not have any surviving children. Princess Charlotte (George III's fourth child) had died in 1828 without any living children, so as Prince Edward's daughter, Victoria became heiress presumptive to the crown.

And if you're still wondering about the old duke with the scar from the show? That's Ernest Augustus, George III's eighth child, making him Victoria's uncle. If it weren't for her, he would have been King of England. (He did, however, became King of Hanover* on William's death since they had a law preventing women from inheriting the throne.)

*This could be its own topic entirely, but essentially Hanover was a short-lived kingdom in the Prussia/Germany area created by the Congress of Vienna and given to George III.

The Gentleman's Sport of Rowing, Early 19th Century Britain

Row, row, row your boat, swiftly down the Thames...

From The Telegraph, "Boat Race 2015" by Rachel Quarrell
Link to Article

Rowing is one of the oldest sports known to man and began as a necessary part of ancient life. If you lived on the shores of a river in the ancient world, you most likely would like to get across from time to time. So, you needed a boat and rowers. Historians believe the Ancient Egyptians would've been the first to "row for sport," with boatmen challenging each other to races or the wealthy pitting their slaves against each other to see whose fancy river barge was faster. 

While boat races have been going on for a very long time, they started getting popular among England's young elite in the late 18th century. All those young sons of noblemen and wealthy gentlemen needed something more to occupy their time than their classes at Oxford, and since there was a river a stone's throw away, why not? (The River Isis was their favorite spot.)

For the most part, these races took place between friends, and though Rowing Clubs were established, university students didn't actively compete against rival universities for a few decades. The first race known to have taken place between Oxford and Cambridge, kicking off what has been a rivalry for nearly two centuries, didn't take place until 1829. This race is such a big deal, and so early established, that it's official name is simply The Boat Race. (As an aside, one of the Oxford rowers at this first famous race, Charles Wordsworth, later went on to be the Bishop of Saint Andrews. And apparently most of the credit for instigating the race goes to him. He was twenty years old at the time.)

Before long, private clubs were formed for amateur rowers, and the gambling books at White's have plenty of mentions of gentlemen racing one another. I found a news article in the London Chronicle, July 6, 1836, "Grand Rowing Match for a Purse of Sovereigns, Given by the Duke of Buccleuch." This race took place just outside of the House of Lords. The article mentions crowds of spectators. 

When we think of Regency men and their exercises, we often picture the few things we've seen in BBC productions: horse-back riding and fencing. Moving into the Victorian age, authors love to put their gentlemen in boxing clubs. But rowing, a sport which demands physical prowess, technique, teamwork, and often began attracting sportsmen at an early age, has been an important part of English athletics for a very long time. 

In my novel, Miss Devon's Choice, my hero is a graduate of Oxford and his absolute favorite exercise, especially to relieve frustration with my heroine's determined arguing, is rowing. 

Find out more about rowing here (and yes, I'll link Wikipedia, b/c the footnotes here are incredible):

Rowing (Sport) Wikipedia

A History of Oxford College Rowing

Miss Devon's Choice

by Sally Britton

Sweet Regency Romance

Available October 8th on Amazon.

An arranged marriage, a choice to love, and the hope for happily ever after.

Men's fashions in the 1800's

There have been several blogs that talk about how to dress Regency women or Victorian women, but there aren't many blogs about how to dress a man in the 1800's, so I decided to give it a try from the research I've done over the years.

Last month my blog was about writing a Pinkerton Detective Agency story, and I'd mentioned how this story was about a woman agent. During my research, I also found how my hero is supposed to look in America, 1871. I've always enjoyed historical movies - mainly to see the clothes the men and women wear - but I'll admit, I enjoy seeing a sharply-dressed man just as much as a beautiful ball gown worn by a woman.

The late 1800's had the men changing their appearance from top hats and cravats and breeches, which was what they wore in the early 1800's.  So let's do a little comparison to see how the years changed the fashion.

Hats
Early 1800's - the tall, elegant style of hats expressed a look of wealth and decorum.

Late 1800's - the top hat shrunk a little, and they became rounder and more square. Wool caps were even making their grand appearance, and a lot of men thought this was a great fashion trend. Men were rarely seen without a hat, because - just as in the early 1800's - wearing a hat somehow turned them into a true gentleman.

YUM-ME, right? Regency guy

Coats vs Suits
Early 1800's - men's coats were tailored to fit the gentleman. They were mostly solid colors and had padded shoulders to help make the man's waist slimmer. (can you believe it??)

Late 1800's - the suits were a big fashion hit with the men in those days. There were many different styles, which were worn during different times of that day (pretty much like a woman's gown). These suits added a variety of colored fabrics, fancy stitching, and the fashion even dared to use stripes or plaid. The suits were more colorful, as well, which of course made them more appealing. Combined with the standing collared white shirt and necktie (instead of a cravat), and decorative sewn vests, women found that men were more attractive and confident in their new fancy duds.

Hubba-Hubba - Regency man

Trousers
From what I could tell, there weren't a lot of differences in the way trousers had changed throughout the years. Some had button flaps on the front, some only had one button to fasten the flaps together to keep the family jewels discreetly hidden. But from the pictures I'd found, trousers seemed to become more relaxed in the later 1800's. Men didn't wear them so tight that they could be confused for the French acrobatic leotard (created in the late 1830's). Pinstriped trousers became more popular, as well.


Undergarments
Sadly enough, men kept the same undergarments throughout the 1800's, and into the early 1900's. They wore tight-fitting, knee-length flannel drawers, also called breeches and pantaloons. During the US Civil War, men wore union-suits - a one-piece, long undergarment that was long-sleeved and long-legged. Let's just hope they wore these during the cold winters because they'd cook to death during the summer!

Now that you know the difference, I bet you'll be watching those historical movies a little closer now, right? I remember when I first learned about everything a woman had to wear back in those days, but now... <groans>  Those poor men!

By the way... my favorite website to find these awesome historical clothing and very fine models is Period Images. Permission was given to use these watermarked pics.

Author’s Bio

Marie Higgins is an award-winning, best-selling author of clean romance novels; from refined bad-boy heroes who make your heart melt, to the feisty heroines who somehow manage to love them regardless of their faults. She has 51 heartwarming on-the-edge-of-your-seat stories and has broadened her readership by writing mystery/suspense, humor, time-travel, paranormal, along with her love for historical romance. Her readers have dubbed her "Queen of Tease" because of all her twists and unexpected endings.

Website – https://authormariehiggins.wixsite.com/romance

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/marie.higgins.7543

Twitter – https://twitter.com/mariehigginsXOX

Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/mariehigginsxox/

Bookbub - https://www.bookbub.com/authors/marie-higgins 

Phone reading apps -   https://www.ficfun.com  AND  https://www.dreame.com

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_suit
https://www.historicalemporium.com/mens-late-victorian-clothing.php
https://www.historicalemporium.com/mens-regency-era-clothing.php

Poet William Wordsworth

by Donna Hatch

www.donnahatch.com

William Wordsworth was a poet whose life spanned the Georgian, Regency, and Victorian Eras. He and his beloved wife, Mary, and three children lived in Rydal Mount during much of his years as a poet. The Lake District where he made his home inspired many of his poems.

I was fortunate enough to visit Rydal Mount during a trip to England in June of 2017. Thought Wordsworth never owned this home, he rented it for many years. The home itself is lovely and beautifully furnished, but it was the gardens that really captured my attention. The Wordsworths loved gardening and created a lush, vibrant retreat in their four acre property, which William designed. He also designed the gardens for many of his friends and neighbors.

One garden is named "Dora's Field" which they gave to their only daughter. After her death at the early age of 43, William and Mary planted daffodils in the field to commemorate her life. The offspring of those bulbs survive today. In the spring, Dora's Field is filled with golden, cheerful daffodils.  Unfortunately, daffodils have a short blooming season and they were done by the time I visited.

One of my mother's favorite poems, which she taught me when I was child, is one of his.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Regency Habits of Economy

     Farthing, guinea, crown, shilling and pence. To an American, the monetary system of 1800's England can seem a foreign language.  But a Regency housewife--a responsible, frugal housewife--had to know where the pennies went and how to keep household accounts.

     Maria Rundell in her book Domestic Cookery notes, "Instances may be found of ladies in the higher walks of life, who condescend to examine the accounts of their house steward; and by overlooking and wisely directing the expenditure of that part of their husband's income which falls under their own inspection, avoid the inconvenience of embarrassed circumstances." She goes on to state that a "great readiness at figures" is one of the most useful things a woman can know.

     So what did a woman know about money?

     The basic values were known by everyone, and included:

·         Half-farthing - eighth of a penny

·         Farthing - quarter of a penny (4 farthings to a penny)

·         Halfpenny (or haypence) - half of a penny, or 2 farthings

·         Penny (or pence) - twelfth of a shilling

·         Shilling (or Bob) - 12 pence, or one twentieth of a pound

·         Half-crown - 2 shillings, 6 pence

·         Crown - 5 shillings (60 pennies)

·         Pound (quid, or sovereign) - 20 shillings (240 pennies)

·         Guinea - 21 shillings (252 pennies)

     Gold coins had values of five guineas, sovereign, two guineas, guinea, and half-guinea, but gold was also in shortage and so there were not many of these coins minted in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Silver coins values were crown, shilling, sixpence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, and penny. Copper coins included the halfpenny and farthing.

     When noting expenditures pence would be marked as "d" for denarius or denarii from the Latin, and shillings written as "s" for solidus. Denarius has been a small value Roman coin, and twelve denarii made up one solidus. Solidus is also the name of the slash used in fractions, and so "/" was also used to mark shillings. The pound symbol '£' also came from the Latin word libra for pound. So six shillings could be marked as 6s or 6/ and six shillings and two pence could be 6s2d or 6/2.

     About now the American system of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars begins to seem wonderfully simple by comparison.

     Paper money existed in the 1800's as Bank Notes, but many preferred to deal with coins for the amount of copper, silver or gold minted equaled the face value. You actually had a guinea's worth of gold in your hand, a concept lost in our modern world in which coins are made of alloys.

     Today we regard ten pounds as pocket change, but in the 1800's that sum could be a year's wages. What £10 bought in 1800 would have cost £395.39 in 2002 (conversion from Economic History Resource.)

     Rapid inflation until 1812 also had prices rising drastically in England, but wages remained low. The cost of wheat alone went up from between 47/ to 54/ a quarter in the early 1790's to between 114/ to 160/ by 1800. England's population was also moving from the country, where food could be grown and household items made, to cities, where everything had to be bought.  As noted by Reay Tannahill in Food in History, "In 1800 Manchester had 75,000 inhabitants; fifty years later, 400,000....The number of people living in London multiplied by four in just over a century."

     A woman in 'embarrassed circumstances' might well have to focus only on how to stretch her pence for food. In the city she would have to buy meat scraps rather than full roasts. There would be no funds for luxuries such as butter. The cheapest bread would be coarse, adulterated with alum, which cost less than flour. She might be able to afford wool for knitting gloves and scarves and undergarments, and fabric to make clothes, or she might have to make do with purchasing used clothing from a street fair. Feathers to go inside pillows would come from the ducks and chickens she bought and plucked, if she could afford the luxury of a whole hen. Shoes would need to be bought, and tinkers paid to mend pots and sharpen knives. With the added expense of rent, anything such as costly tea would be a luxury, as would any servants or services.

     In the middle class, a woman could count on more luxuries. She would have staff to do the work, and could afford beeswax candles that did not drip (or smell of beef fat), and fine milled soap.  There would be funds for silk shoes at 10/, sarsnet for gowns at 7/ a yard, and a fancy cap for a pound and six. Entertainment could be had: 10/6 for the rent of an opera box, 5/ for a concert ticket, another 10/6 for a book seller subscription, and 2 guineas for ball subscriptions in Bath.

     Of course, there would also be the washer woman to pay, school fees for her children, coal and wood to buy to heat her house, servant's wages, money for charity, and coins to hand out as tips when she visited.

     For a woman of great income, all this jotting down of expenditures could be left to a house steward, a secretary, or a housekeeper. A woman with a rich family or husband might not even handle any money for items could be purchased on account, and bills would be sent to the father or family. However, there are numerous stories of servants who filled their pockets by padding the household account books, writing in more than was paid to the merchants and keeping the difference.

      Women could also loose fortunes at the gaming table. Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire, died with well over ten thousand pounds of gambling debt, which would have ruined a lesser family than the powerful Cavendish clan.

     Of course other costs could ruin a family. Coming of age parties might cost from £300 to £6,000. Board and tuition at Eton or Harrow cost between £175 to £250 a year. While a London season would demand at least £1,000 to rent a house in Mayfair and then another ten thousand or more for food, drink, a suitable wardrobe and parties.

With such budgets to handle, launching your children into the world could be rather like managing a small corporation. No wonder parents expected such investments would pay off with alliances that brought influence and money back into the family. No wonder, too, at the appeal of living quietly in the country where such demands were not made upon the purse.

In the country, a large estate was expected to produce. This mean not just income from farms let to tenants, but milk, butter and cream from a dairy, ale from the ale house, fruits and vegetables from gardens and hot houses, herbs from a kitchen or herb garden, meat from pigs, beef, pigeons in the dovecotes, eggs and meat from chickens, wild game from the woods, fish from the local streams, and even wool for weaving fabrics. All of this, of course, takes a huge staff for management, but it means that an estate could provide for itself.

The lady of the estate would be expected to know how to use her still room to dry herbs, create ointments, cures, cleansers, and more. These recipes were often included in the very popular cookbooks of the era.

A smaller manor might lack extravagant lands for hunting, but even a few acres provides land for farming, growing, and raising live stock. The smaller manor would also have staff to handle these outside chores: a groom, a gardener, a cook, and so on.

Produce from an estate also provides goods that can be sold, allowing for the purchase of luxury items such as chocolate, sugar, tea and coffee (all imports).

In this era when we purchase so much of what we need, we have to stop and remember this is a modern habit. Two hundred years ago the habit was really to grow and make what was needed. To mend and reuse. At one time, only the very rich could waste money on spending for every whim.

18th Century Herbal Remedies by Katherine Bone!

Katherine, here to talk about some research I've been doing on herbal remedies. Throughout time, herbs have made the difference between life and death on the battlefield and in every day living before the age of antibiotics. It’s hard to believe that people in previous centuries died from simple ailments like colds, fevers, and sinus infections, all minor inconveniences we take for granted every day.

Several of the characters in my historical romance books have needed treatment from medical professionals. (I shiver thinking about a diagnosis which led to bleeding or the application of leeches when we know today that blood cells increased the ability to fight off disease.) Thankfully, medicine has come a long way during the 20^th Century, and strides are being made in the 21st Century on a day-to-day basis. But since my books take place during the Napoleonic Wars, 1795-1815, my characters are limited to what was available to them at the time.

Here are just a few herbs I’ve discovered in my research, and their medicinal properties:

Adder’s Tongue: Well-known by country folk. Fresh leaves bring down swelling and limit inflammation. When gathered with morning dew, the leaves can be set in a room filled with fleas. Fleas are drawn to leaf and can then be cast out. Found growing in April and May. Seeds ripened in September.

Archangel/Dead Needle: Heals ulcers and fresh wounds and keeps them from spreading. Helps draw out splinters and soothes burns. Bruise herb with salt, vinegar and hog’s grease. Found almost everywhere, but prefers wet ground.

Bifoil: Sweet herb used for wounds, new and old. Found in woods and copses.

Bird’s Foot: Small herb that cures ruptures. Ingest as a drink or apply to surface. Good when ingested to break up kidney stones. Best used as ointment or plaster on wounds. Found on heaths and untilled land.

Blessed Thistle/Carduus Benedictus: Cures sores, boils, and itch. Drink concoction.

Borage and Bugloss: Well-known to gardeners. Leaves and roots used in fevers to defend the heart and expel poison or venom. Juice is made into a syrup and is used with other cooling, opening, cleansing herbs to open obstructions and cure yellow jaundice, and mixed with fumitory, to cool, cleanse and temper the blood. Found in the wild and grows plentifully near London between Rotherhithe and Deptford by the ditch.

Colewart/Herb Bonnet: Wholesome herb. Good for chest or breast disease, pains, stitches in the side, and expels crude and raw humors from the stomach. Congeals blood resulting from falls and/or bruises. Good for healing wounds. Roots are boiled in wine and imbibed. The herb is also good for washing and bathing wounds to remove infection. Found in the wild, under hedges, and pathways in shadowy fields.

Devil’s Bit: Grows two feet high with narrow, smooth, dark green leaves. Herb or root is boiled in wine and ingested for plague, disease and fever, and poison. Add honey of roses for swelling. Eases a woman’s pain during menses, helps resolves gassy issues, and expels worms. Found in wild dry meadows and fields about Appledore, near Rye, in Kent.

Elecampane Root: Dried root made into powder and mixed with sugar is good for kidney stones, bladder issues, and stopping woman’s courses. Boil root in vinegar, beat afterward, and then make an ointment with hog’s suet or oil of trotters for scabs and itching. Heals putrid sores. Found in shadowy, moist ground in dry open borders and fields. Flowers end of June-July. Seeds ripe in August.

Foxglove: Used by Italians to heal wounds. Bruise leaves and bind wound. Juice used to cleanse sores. Combine sugar or honey to purse/cleanse body, and tough phlegm and to open liver and spleen. Found growing on dry sandy soil. Flowers July. Seed ripe in August.

One Blade Root: Half a drachm/powder of roots. Add to wine or vinegar. Good for poison and infection. Make a compound balsam for wounds and burns.

White Briony Root/Tetter Berries: Wild, rampant in hedges. Leaves, fruit, and root, cleanse old sores, and combat running cankers, gangrenes, and tetters (Called Tetter Berries by country folk) Use powder of dry root. Apply to skin of broken bones, foul scars, scabs, mange, and gangrene.

Wood Betony: Bruise the green herb and apply to wound, or make a juice and ingest. Good for any wound in the head or body. It will heal and close up veins or cuts, and mend splinted broken bones. Found in the woods and shady places.

Or if you’re Cornish, you might prefer to try these remedies:

Mundic ore: Miners applied Mundic to a cut and always washed an injury in water that ran through mundic ore.

Chamomile: Dry flowers and make into a tea to cure an upset stomach.

Mustard: Boil mustard with a pint of beer to cure rheumatism.

Dock Leaf: Rub dock leaf over the stings of nettles.  

Boosening: The cure for madness is to immerse a person in water to the point of drowning, and then repeat.

I pray we never have to resort to picking herbs to combat disease and discomforting ailments. But if we do, I’d like to have these herbs in my garden. Wouldn’t you?

Resources:

Cornish Sayings, Superstitions and Remedies by Kathleen Hawke Keren

Culpeper’s Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper

Are there any herbal remedies you’d like to add?

 

 

Insanity of the Aged in the Regency Period

By Guest Blogger Bliss Bennet 

When I was in the planning stages of my latest novel, I decided to have one of my secondary characters, the father of one of my protagonists, be afflicted by early onset Alzheimer’s disease. But was Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in its early onset version, known during the Regency period? A dip into the history of medicine was clearly in order.

Alzheimer’s disease as we currently understand it—a neurodegenerative disease that leads to dementia—was not described until the early twentieth century. But cognitive decline in the elderly had been recognized as an affliction far earlier. One of the earliest references to such failing in old age can be found in the works of the ancient Greek physician Pythagoras, who lived during the 7th century B. C. Pythagoras divided a human life into five distinct stages, the last two (63 to 80, and 81 and older) of which he named the “senium,” or what we would now call old age. During the final stage of life (an age to which only a very few of ancient peoples survived) Pythagoras noted, “the system returns to the imbecility of the first epoch of the infancy.”

Our word “senile,” which originally only meant “belonging to, suited for, or incident to old age,” stems from the Greek term “senium.” The first medical man to use the term “senile” in reference to the cognitive decline of the aged was the Scottish pathologist William Cullen, who in 1776, proposed classifying all diseases into four groups, one of which he called “Neuroses,” or nervous diseases. One such neurosis, Cullen proposed, is “Amentia senilis,” or decay of perception and memory in old age.

The word “senile” defined in this more narrow way, though, did not come into common usage until the middle of the nineteenth century. But even if people did not have an exact medical term during the Regency period to describe mental decline in the elderly, such decline was clearly recognized by both the medical community and the public at large.

In order to understand how my protagonist would react to her father’s sudden mental decline, I also wanted to know how were people afflicted by senile dementia might be treated during the Regency period. I learned that before the nineteenth century, people judged mentally insane were typically incarcerated in prisons, not hospitals, and were subject to what today we would deem horrific treatment—shackled, bled, purged, blistered, beaten. In his 1806 book Treatise on Insanity, French physician Philippe Pinel was the first to take issue with such practices, arguing that madness was not a crime, but a disease, and those suffering from it should not be imprisoned or treated with violence. Such arguments proved controversial, both to governments and to the public at large; many thought Pinel himself insane for making such claims, and argued that he should be imprisoned, along with other madmen. But over the course of the nineteenth century, Pinel’s humanitarian reforms gradually became more widely accepted.

 Pilippe Pinel at the Salpêtrière by Tony Robert-Fleury (1876) 

Pinel orders the removal of chains from patients at the

Parish Asylum for insane women. Credit: Wikipedia

My story, set in 1822, fell right in the midst of this major cultural shift in the treatment of the mentally ill. Some people might believe that a madman should be incarcerated, treated like a criminal.  Others might believe that his fall into mental illness was a punishment for sin. Still others might take a more kindly view, and suggest asking for medical advice. But not much was known, medically, about the causes of mental decline, and little could be done medically to curtail or prevent it.

If you were living during the Regency, and your own father suddenly began to show signs of mental decline, how would you feel? Afraid that someone would want to put your father in an institution, or even a prison? Resentful that someone might judge your father a sinner, because he had been afflicted with insanity of the aged? Would you try to hide the signs of your father’s decline, even take on some of his responsibilities to keep his growing weakness hidden from those who might judge him? Even from his employer, the aristocratic owner of a landed estate?

And thus the kernel of my story, A Lady without a Lord, was born . . .

A Lady without a Lord

Book #3 in The Penningtons series

A viscount convinced he’s a failure

For years, Theodosius Pennington has tried to forget his myriad shortcomings by indulging in wine, women, and witty bonhomie. But now that he’s inherited the title of Viscount Saybrook, it’s time to stop ignoring his responsibilities. Finding the perfect husband for his headstrong younger sister seems a good first step. Until, that is, his sister’s dowry goes missing . . .

A lady determined to succeed

Harriot Atherton has a secret: it is she, not her steward father, who maintains the Saybrook account books. But Harry’s precarious balancing act begins to totter when the irresponsible new viscount unexpectedly returns to Lincolnshire, the painfully awkward boy of her childhood now a charming yet vulnerable man. Unfortunately, Theo is also claiming financial malfeasance. Can her father’s wandering wits be responsible for the lost funds? Or is she?

As unlikely attraction flairs between dutiful Harry and playful Theo, each learns there is far more to the other than devoted daughter and happy-go-lucky lord. But if Harry succeeds at protecting her father, discovering the missing money, and keeping all her secrets, will she be in danger of failing at something equally important—finding love?

Amazon: http://myBook.to/LwoaL

Barnes & Noble: http://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/8262311/type/dlg/http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-lady-without-a-lord-bliss-bennet/1125511438?ean=2940157235338

Ibooks: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-lady-without-a-a-lord/id1184485124?mt=11&at=1001l5aH

Kobo: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=TGFtlVejZLM&subid=&offerid=361251.1&type=10&tmpid=9310&RD_PARM1=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kobo.com%2Fus%2Fen%2Febook%2Fa-lady-without-a-lord

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bliss Bennet writes smart, edgy novels for readers who love history as much as they love romance. Her Regency-set series The Penningtons has been praised by the Historical Novel Society’s Indie Reviews as “a series well worth following”; its books have been described by USA Today as “savvy, sensual, and engrossing”; by Heroes and Heartbreakers as “captivating,” and by The Reading Wench as having “everything you want in a great historical romance.”  The latest book in the series is A Lady without a Lord.

Bliss’s web site: www.blissbennet.com

Bliss’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/blissbennetauthor

Bliss’s twitter: @BlissBennet