A Lord’s Desperate Love Part One ~ A Historical Romance Story

I am going to start telling my next historical story right here, in parts. If you have read The Passionate Love of a Rake, then you will recognize the characters… 😀

Part One

Looking from the window of the dingy hotel room, Lady Violet Rimes gathered her courage. She knew what the physician was about to say. She could not quite believe she had trapped herself in this dreadful muddle. She was a grown woman, a widow who knew the way of the world and she had always been cautious before, but this time…

“I presume, Ma’am, you know you are with child?”

“How far gone? When is it due?” Her bleeding had stopped weeks ago, though she’d pretended it was not happening. She had spent the last weeks half hoping it was true and half wishing it were not.

“I would think February, Ma’am.”

February? It was already October.

The physician hesitated. “I know of… If you… There is a woman who can help with such things –”

“No.” She wanted the child. She had wanted a child by her husband. But none had come. Since then unless she’d married again, caution was the only choice. She’d avoided conception as best she could. But now fate had made her choice she was neither going to give up the child or allow it to be condemned by scandal. She would keep the child. It was her life which must change.

“No, thank you. I will manage.” She faced him, the heat of a blush creeping over her skin as she remembered how he’d examined her alone in this room, moments before. He’d left her to straighten her clothing and then returned to share his judgement. He must have surmised she had no husband, and her voice probably labelled her as wealthy, even though she’d taken a dress from her maid’s closet, to help hide the fact.

This whole thing made her feel sordid and guilty. She’d been hiding her condition from the world for weeks and now she was hiding herself.

Violet’s heart raced as she looked at the doctor as though he could provide an alternative answer, but she must find her own answer. She felt cold inside, in her stomach and in her limbs, but yet her heart was warm, with longing. I am with child.

Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. How could she be a mother? “Thank you, Dr Rivers, but, no,” she said with more control, “I do not wish for any help, not in that way. I will have the child. Is it healthy?”

“Everything seems well –”

“Thank you,” she said again, picking up her reticule.

After she’d paid him, he left.

Her fingers shook as she tied the ribbons of her bonnet. Oh how ridiculous. She was known for her confidence. Her gaze spun about the inn room she’d hired. She’d thought it better to see the physician on neutral ground, so no one could see her enter his offices, nor see him enter her home. But it only made the whole thing seem sordid, but why should she feel ashamed. She was glad, warmth seeped from her heart into her limbs as an ache stretching from her middle into her breast.

I am with child.

As she left the room, closing the door behind her, she thought of her friend Jane, and longed for her company. Jane had only recently left London, and yesterday Violet had seen an announcement in the paper advising Jane had married again. She’d married the man who had been chasing her all summer. Violet imagined Jane happy. But the picture of Jane’s happiness only made envy twist like the pain of a cruel dagger in Violet’s stomach. She’d never expected to marry again. But what would she do now?

Go away. She had to. She was already showing. Options spun in a whorl in her head. She must leave London. Go somewhere no one knew her and not come back. She must live there and begin a new life.

Geoff. His hazel eyes, glittering at her with laughter, appeared in her mind’s eye. At least he had not noticed how rotund her figure had become. He should have noticed. She had noticed. But perhaps he had not dared to comment.

She stepped from the bottom step of the stairs within the inn, and deliberately did not look left or right, fearing she might see someone she knew. Instead she crossed the entrance hall in a hurry and went out into the street. It was very wrong to be walking alone without a maid, but then she was dressed as a servant, and the poke bonnet hid her face.

Her heart cried out for the man who usually walked with her. Geoff.

She was going to miss him. She loved him. A tight knot tied in her stomach, and a clenching feeling gripped about her heart.

She hurried along the street, unsure whether it was best to merely walk home or try to stop a hackney carriage. Which would encourage more outrage, if she was seen entering her house? She would walk, she needed the exercise to absorb her restless thoughts, and perhaps by the time she reached home, some inspiration would have come and she’d know what on earth to do.

When she crossed the street, Geoff’s smile came to mind. She missed the solidity of his arm to grip.

Male company, within a bed and without, had been her obsession for the last few years. She’d slept with numerous men since her husband had passed. So many she’d lost count. But Lord Geoffrey Sparks had become far more than pleasure. He was necessity. Yet she had to leave him behind now. For their child’s sake. He would not wish a woman like her as his wife. He was a third son and she was seven years his senior, though he thought her only three. What they’d had, had been merely entertainment to him too. She knew how offspring of liaisons like theirs were managed. He would expect her to hand the child to some poor woman to foster. Well, Violet would have none of that. He would not even know of the child.

If only she had not been fool enough to fall in love.

Don’t worry Harriette Wilson’s story, the true story of a courtesan is going to continue along side this! Next part of that tomorrow.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional Historical and New Adult Romance stories.

See below on the side bar for details of Jane’s books, and Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark

Another chapter in my Harriette Wilson series; the true story of a Regency courtesan

Last week we left Harriette at the point she commenced a new engagement, with Lord Lorne, the future 8^th Duke of Argyll.

She was not happy to discover that alongside keeping her as his mistress, he was also undertaking a long-standing intrigue (affair) with a married woman, Lady W.

But before I begin this story, let me do a quick recap of the background, for anyone joining the story today. Skip to the end of this block of italics if you’ve already read it.

In 1825 Harriette Wilson, a courtesan, published a series of stories as her memoirs in a British broad sheet paper. The Regency gentleman’s clubs were a buzz, waiting to see the next names mentioned each week. While barriers had to be set up outside the shop of her publisher, Stockdale, to hold back the disapproving mob.

Harriette was born Harriette Debochet, she chose the name Harriette Wilson as her professional name, in the same way Emma Hart, who I’ve blogged about previously, had changed her name. Unlike Emma, it isn’t known why or when Harriette changed her name.

She was one of nine surviving children. Her father was a watchmaker and her mother a stocking repairer, and both were believed to be from illegitimate origin.

Three of Harriette’s sisters also became courtesans. Amy, Fanny and Sophia (who I have written about before). So the tales I am about to begin in my blogs will include some elements from their lives too.

For a start you’ll need to understand the world of the 19^th Century Courtesan. It was all about show and not just about sex. The idle rich of the upper class aspired to spending time in the company of courtesans, it was fashionable, the thing to do.

You were envied if you were linked to one of the most popular courtesans or you discovered a new unknown beauty to be admired by others.

Courtesans were also part of the competitive nature of the regency period too, gambling was a large element of the life of the idle rich and courtesans were won and lost and bartered and fought for.

So courtesans obviously aspired to be one of the most popular, and to achieve it they learnt how to play music, read widely, so they could debate, and tried to shine in personality too. They wanted to be a favoured ’original’.

The eccentric and outspoken was admired by gentlemen who liked to consort with boxers and jockeys, and coachmen, so courtesans did not aim for placid but were quite happy to insult and mock men who courted them, and demand money for any small favour.

Lord Lorne, who became 8th Duke of Argyll

Harriette’s description of sharing Lord Lorne’s attentions was ‘all this was a dead bore’.

I said in one of my early blogs, what comes across in Harriette’s memoirs, is that she is a woman who craves attention, she wants to be flattered and adored.

So taking second place to a long-time favourite in a gentleman’s heart wasn’t something I imagine Harriette enjoyed. But needs must, she needed a house and food, and wanted a good life. She had that with Lord Lorne, so she wasn’t just going to give up and walk away without a fight.

One night when Lord Lorne returned wearing his lover’s rose, Harriette plucked the rose from his breast and threw it aside.

Another time she hid the chain he wore which she imagined this woman had given to him.

Lord Lorne was blind to the fact these actions were deliberate, and Harriette says, ‘for who with pride, and youth, and beauty, would admit they were jealous?’

One night, when Harriette was with him in his town house, and as she said, ‘he really seemed passionately fond of me’, Harriette describes a sudden awareness of the fact that ‘this’ was being shared and he must be just as passionate with the other woman.

She couldn’t stand that. She left Lord Lorne in bed declaring she was going home, at three in the morning on a cold December night.

Blind, or rather unobservant, Lord Lorne believed Harriette was sleep walking. I wonder then if what she doesn’t describe is that she had been laying there in the dark stewing on thoughts of his other lover and not knowing how to break that agreement, and then decided she’d had enough.

She told Lord Loren she didn’t wish to stay with him or sleep with him anymore, and then burst into tears.

Now Lord Lorne realises something is wrong, and asks what he has done to upset her.

Harriette still did not speak of jealously, but merely continued dressing and told him to leave her alone, and cease his pretence of tenderness.

Lord Lorne then pleaded for Harriette to tell him what was wrong, and expressed his fear she might no longer love him, or feel disgust for his attentions. (Clearly, like Harriette, he wants to be wanted).

When Harriette reached for the door handle she tells us he snatched her hand from it, pushed her away and then locked her in. Then he held her against him violently so as not to let her go.

Harreitte starts to think twice.

His anger shows an enthusiasm Harriette loves.

Then she says, he cried.

Well, Harriette is immediately won over and their argument made up, ‘on the spot’.

I think in Harriette’s form of 19^th Century declaration meaning, they didn’t return to the bed.

This is why I love reading letters and memoirs, because you gather far more facts of the actual way people lived and what they felt, rather than just what did and didn’t happen in history.

Next week I’ll talk about how Harriette, her friend, Julia, and her sister, Fanny, became known in London High Society as the ‘Three Graces’.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

See the side bar for details of Jane’s books, and Jane’s website www.janelark.co.uk to learn more about Jane. Or click ‘like’ on Jane’s Facebook page to see photo’s and learn historical facts from the Georgian, Regency and Victorian eras, which Jane publishes there. You can also follow Jane on twitter at @janelark