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Monthly Archives: June 2010

For your reading pleasure, the result of the Regency Group Write is below. Thank you to everyone. The comments were great!

The Adventures of A Blade Named Excalibur

Miss Jessica Darby had long ceased minding that Fred, a dog of indeterminate ancestry, had curled his body around the heated bricks on the floor of the carriage. Fred, she decided, made a decent enough substitute. Naturally, her mind soon wandered to thoughts of pi.

“Are we there yet?” said Miss Sally Elizabeth, looking up from her embroidery hoop.

“Another eleven point four minutes, if I’ve correctly calculated the slope of the terrain, the speed of the horses and the weight of the carriage.”

“Well,” Sally said. “Of course you have!” Jessica, Darby to those who loved her, knew her dearest friend would support her no matter if she had a few dog hairs clinging to her slippers. The knowledge gave one a certain sense of contentment. To be loved unconditionally, that, indeed, was a life lived in all the right angles.

As the carriage made its way further into the depths of Cumbria, Sally interrupted Darby’s musings on the properties of the hypotenuse. “I think perhaps you’ll be forced to accept Hartless’s proposal,” Sally Elizabeth said, keeping her gaze carefully on her embroidery. “If his worst fault in your view is that he didn’t take a first in maths, I’m afraid you’ll have to keep digging for a legitimate reason to say no.”

“I’ll think of something.” Oddly enough, at that very moment, something occurred that completely disrupted Darby’s attempt to recalculate their estimated time of arrival. Darby and Sally knew the road that led to Harlech Castle had been plagued by a notorious highway man that the authorities had yet to catch. They sighed their relief as the castle came into view and no one had yet relieved them of their jewels, but then the carriage came to a lurching stop and hoof beats could be heard.

“Blast,” Darby muttered.

The fracas outside had Sally too worried take Darby to task for her language. To the accompaniment of what sounded like a gunshot, Darby checked her watch and noted the hour, minute and second at which the carriage slowed. She must know the exact duration of their delay if she was to correctly derive the moment of their arrival.

“Heavens!” Sally cried.

Fred slumbered on.

At the very same time that Darby and Sally were in considerable danger of their lives, a devastatingly handsome man stepped out of the castle where he was awaiting the woman he intended to marry and the woman he intended to seduce. Hartless Hartley studied the blue sky, and wondered if the square root of eleven could possibly predict tomorrow’s weather. No, he didn’t think so, and wondered why Darby would imply such a thing; she must have decided his blond hair indicated his intelligence, to his detriment.

He’d rather enjoyed her letters until she began casting aspersions. He ought never to have sent her the miniature of Excaliber, as he so fondly called his nether part. So many women lost their heads when they saw him for the first time that he’d wanted all parties involved to be prepared for their first encounter. He ran his fingers through his blond hair. Excalibur an extraordinary weapon, and he would be well pleased to demonstrate that essential truth to Miss Darby and anyone else who doubted him.

Downhill from the castle where Hartless, the eleventh duke of his line contemplated both the art of war and Eros, Darby was saying, “No you certainly may not!”

“I think you’d best let him have the thing,” Sally whispered. “It’s not worth your life.” She put her mouth closer to Darby’s ear, never taking her eyes off the masked man. “A gentleman highwayman, I promise you.”

“Oh, very well.” Darby tossed her reticule at the highwayman who caught the dainty bag in midair and, with a kiss into the air, turned his steed and thundered away.
The carriage started its uphill journey again.

Sally, overcome by emotion, burst into tears. “There, there,” Darby said, wishing it were possible to give her friend a handkerchief, which it was not on account of the item having been in the reticule now in the possession of the highwayman. “Have no fear, dear Sally. We shall arrive at the castle in precisely fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Provided there are no more interruptions.”

The carriage rumbled through the gates that marked the nearest border of the estate, passing, unbeknownst to the ladies, a curious scene. William FitzAndrew ducked behind a hedge trimmed into the shape of a duck and, holding the reticule at arm’s length, gently tugged it open. Inside were various…female things. Also a note, on crisp ivory paper sealed in scarlet wax. He broke the seal and read outloud, “Any man so unfortunate as to share the names both of Sir Walter Scott and his ponderous novel has good cause to be disagreeable.”

He also withdrew from the reticule, an exquisite miniature loving framed in gilt oak. As he stared at the painting, a gentleman in fawn breeches and a coat the color of rain on Sunday emerged from behind the duck’s herbaceous tail feathers. In the background, it was possible to see the carriage making its way up the hill.

“What can Hartless possibly see in this chit? She’s plain as a Quaker’s cat.”

With difficulty, FitzAndrew withdrew his gaze from the object he held. “She’s a damned sight better than his last wife and no mistake.”

“How so?”

“At least the chit has both of her eyes and most of her wits.”

“Point taken.” A few of the leaves that formed the duck’s wing brushed the back of the mysterious gentleman’s neck. But he took no notice as he was busy tucking a pistol into the waistband of his breeches. “What is that thing you’re holding?” He snatched the painting and paled.

“You recognize the weapon, sir?”

At the top of the hill up which the carriage was yet making its way was a dark and mysterious castle. To the left was a mansion designed by none other than Capability Brown himself. And inside, where Adam had left his mark, Sir Waverly Scott was not used to being made to wait on the master’s ‘pleasure’ or anyone else’s pleasure for that matter. Yet, there he was cooling his heels in the drawing room doing just that.

That left only one thing to do. Pour himself a dram or two of FitzAndrews’ Scotch. Ach, but there was not enough time to become the sodding bastard everyone saw him to be.

At half past four, Sir Waverly had finished the Scotch. He was a wee bit annoyed. He faced down the butler with the courage of half a bottle of bootleg whisky under his belt. “I won’t stand for this, do ye ken?”

By half past six, Sir Waverly was at the castle which he accessed through a secret door that led to the kitchen if he went downstairs and, should he go upstairs, to a locked room to which he possessed the only key. He went down. “Tint the mashed carrots red tonight, Cook!” instructed Waverley, “Let’s see how long it takes Miss Darby to notice! I have a bet with Miss Elizabeth about the means by which she’ll seek to dispose of them!”

“Here we go again,” thought Cook. The good woman was far more right than she knew.

The weather, William FitzAndrew thought from the comfy confines of his carriage, was as appealing as a plate of cooked carrots–which is to say, he thought gleefully, dreadful for his best friend’s fiancee and delightful for FitzAndrew. Because it was raining and the entire wedding party was headed to the only open-air castle in England owned by Sir Waverly Scott. And FitzAndrew did not like Darby, not at all, not since she corrected his maths from Oxford while visiting FitzAndrew’s best friend Hartless.

What right had she possess a likeness of Excalibur, after all? If she loved Hartless, and what woman did not, Excaliber would even now be pressed to her bosom with fervent ardor. He checked his watch. Damnation, he was going to be late for his own party.

Rain streamed down the windows as Jessica Darby gloomily contemplated the boiled carrots that were all that remained of the lavish dinner served in honor of the Duke of Hartley. 

Hartless he might be; certainly his grace was not stomachless. What other appetites might the Duke possess? Jessica Darby poked the red mass on her plate suspiciously. Sure as 0,1,1,2 would be followed by 3, these were no beets.

“What on earth is that?” she cried.

Sally shrieked.

‘Thank Heavens for Fred and Sally!’, thought Miss Darby as she calculated impact and trajectory before surreptitiously tossing her pork chop into her best friend’s mashed carrot, causing it to splash on her bodice, causing her to shriek, causing all diner’s eyes (but One) to turn to that unfortunate miss as Miss Darby used the opportunity to dump her carrots under the table for the dog.



‘Blast inventive women, anyway!’ thought Waverly, staring at Miss Darby, resigned to having to pay up on his bet.

“Come my dear,” Hartless said, including Sally in his invitation. “Allow me to show you ladies my private–“

“Oh!” Darby said with a charming blush shared by Sally. “Do you mean–“

“Yes.” Hartless smiled in that way that had so famously made seven ladies swoon. “Excalibur in the flesh.”

Darby snapped open her fan. “I confess I have been longing to admire it.”

The ladies joined Hartless, both of them eager to see the famed weapon. A black cat ambled across the cold stone floor of the castle’s huge hall, directly in their path.

Fred let loose a low growl and the black cat ignored him as only cats can. “Colin!” Sally cried. The duketightened his grip and hauled back on Fred’s collar and the hound instantly obeyed, sitting at his feet.
 In as lady like a manner as Jessica could manage, she dropped her uneaten carrots at Fred’s panting mouth.

The butler scuttled forward. “Leave the bloody hound be, won’t you? He can’t lead you somewhere he’s never been.”


“Quite right,” Hartless said as he led the ladies upstairs.

In the dinning, room, FitzAndrew at last joined Sir Waverly. They engaged in a conversation that sent chills down the footman’s spine. “We’ll set Darby to work. No doubt there’s a relationship between the width of the crenellations and the number of rejected proposals. We’ll call it the Hartless Constant.”



“Oh, he’s constant, all right,” the footman thought. “Constantly showing off that damned weapon of his.

Like the cook, the footman was more correct than he knew.

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I’ve been doing lots of reading/research lately for my new projects, a new full-length novel and an “Undone” short story to go with it set in the Elizabethan theater scene! (Alas, they’re both still untitled…) In my reading I noticed that on this day in 1613 the first Globe Theater burned down (this won’t be happening to my fictional theater in the book!). So I thought I would share a bit of my notes for this Tuesday post.

Old property records and the discovery of some of the archaeological remains indicate the Globe was sites from the west side of modern Southwark Bridge, east as far as Porter Street and from Park Street south to the back of Gatehouse Square. (Its site was only speculation until part of the foundation, including one original pier base, was found under the Anchor Terrace car park on Park Street in 1989. The materials and some of the shape could be analyzed and preserved, but since most of the foundation lies under another listed building it couldn’t be further excavated).

The Globe was the playing house of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a troupe owned by actors/shareholders. The main shareholders, brothers Richard and Cuthbert Burbage, owned 25% apiece with four actors owning 12.5% each (Shakespeare, John Heminges, Augustine Phillips , and Thomas Pope. Originally the comedian Will Kempe was intended to be the 7th partner, but he left and sold out his shares to the 4 minority holders. New sharers were added over time). It was built in 1599 using the materials from The Theatre in Shoreditch, built in 1576 by the Burbages’ father James on land which originally had a 21-year lease (but the building he owned outright). But the dastardly landlord, Giles Allen, claimed the building became his on the expiration of the lease, leading to a protracted legal battle. Thus on December 28, 1598, while Allen was out of town for Christmas, the actors dismantled The Theatre and transported it to a warehouse near Bridewell. With the arrival of warmer spring weather, the pieces were ferried over the Thames and reconstructed as The Globe on some marshy garden plots south of Maiden Lane in Southwark!

The Globe’s actual dimensions are unknown, but evidence suggests it was a 3-story, open-air space about 100 feet in diameter that could fit in about 3000 spectators. In a famous sketch of the period done by Wenceslas Hollar it’s shown as round, but the excavations show it was actually a polygon of 20 sides. At the base of the stage is the pit, or yard, where for a penny the groundlings would stand on the dirt, rush-covered floor to watch the play (and eat and drink and fight). Around the yard rose 3 levels of stadium-style seating, each level more expensive (audience members would pay at the door of their chosen level). There were also private boxes for very wealthy people.

The stage, an apron-style thrust stage, went out into the middle of the yard and was about 43 feet wide, 27 feet deep, and raised about 5 feet from the ground. In the middle was a trap door for ghosts and such to enter the scene. Large, faux-marble painted columns on either side supported the roof over the rear of the stage (the ceiling of this was called the “heavens” and was painted to resemble the sky. There was another trap door here where actors could be lowered using a harness–literally a deus ex machina!). The back wall had two or maybe three doors at the main level, with a curtained inner stage in the center and a balcony above. These doors went into the tiring house, a sort of green room where costumes could be changed and actors waited for the cues. Musicians used the balcony and it could also be used as scenery (like the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet).

This Globe had a glorious run, seeing the premiere of most of Shakespeare’s great plays as well as hundreds of works now lost (or at least more obscure!). But on June 29, 1613 the thatched roof was set on fire by a cannon fired in a performance of the play Henry VIII and the Globe burned to the ground (though no lives were lost!). By then Shakspeare was mostly in retirement in his fine new house in Stratford, and would die 3 years later. The Globe was built again in 1614, with a tile roof replacing the thatch. In 1642 the new Puritan government closed down all the country’s theaters and the Globe was pulled down to make way for tenements. It came back to life in 1997, about 750 feet from the original on the banks of Thames.

In my book, the heroine’s father is an entrepreneur theater owner (much like James Burbage or Philip Henslowe) and the hero is an actor/playwright/troublemaker/spy, so I’ve been having a wonderful time reading about the bawdy, wild, genius world of the Elizabethan theater! Originally I had the idea on my trip to London a couple years ago, when I got to attend A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the new Globe. I knew I would have fun there, but I didn’t expect how magical it all would feel! If I ignored the modern dress of the audience, and the fact that really they were all very polite (no throwing of anything on stage or stuff like that!) I could almost imagine being transported back to the 1590s. It’s a very different feeling from modern theater-going, it seemed more intimate, as if the audience was part of the action onstage. And the actor playing Lysander was very dishy. :))
Here are a few books I’ve been using as I get into the story:

JR Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (1997: lots of great, in-depth info about the evidence of the original Globe and how it was used and adapted for modern requirements in the new Globe)

Julian Bowsher and Pat Miller, The Rose and the Globe–Playhouses of Shakespeare’s Bankside, Southwark (2010–a brand new publication from the Museum of London which someone kindly sent me, it’s great)

James Shapiro, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005)

Thomas Dekker, The Gull’s Hornbook (1609, reprinted in 1907–a fabulous source for the very colorful life of the Elizabethan underworld!)

Andrew Gurr, The Shakespearean Stage 1574–1642 (1991) and Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London (1987)

RA Foakes and RT Rickert, eds, Philip Henslowe’s Diary (1961–a must-read for anyone interested in the theater of this period)

Richard Dutton, Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of English Renaissance Drama (1991)

The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama (1990)

Park Honan, Christopher Marlowe, Poet and Spy (2005)

The Globe website
Shakespeare Resource Center
The Old Globe Theater History

What’s your favorite theater-going memory? Any favorite plays (Shakespeare or otherwise!)??

We all have favorite websites and blogs, those places we go to be entertained or to learn things. Here are five of mine, all dealing with the Regency, at least sometimes. It is not an exhaustive list, but five sites I return to fairly often, either because I need them or because they entertain me.

So off the top of my head, 5 websites or blogs I like:

The Georgian Index – so much information here. One of the things I love about this site is I can always find some shop to insert in my books, but there’s so much more here. Here’s an example:
House of Millard/ Millard’s warehouse/draper – No.16 Cheapside – Bengal Muslins, flannels – advertised in La belle Asemblee 1812-3 – (locale) City
– I can have my heroine walk into a draper shop that really existed!


Number One London – this is Kristine Hughes and Victoria Hinshaw’s blog and they never cease to amaze me with the information they provide. And it’s always fun, too. Here’s Kristine’s first report from the Battle of Waterloo reenactment.

Regency Ramble – This treasure is the creation of my fellow Harlequin Historical author, Ann Lethbridge, aka Michelle Ann Young. Ann hails from the UK and she does something I love! She tells us about the flora and fauna of the Regency period, among other things Regency, including fashion prints. Here is her latest. Have you ever heard of a bustard?


Cogitations and Meditations – This is our friend Keira Soleore’s blog and by some magic I cannot perform on my own, Keira made it so I receive her blog in my email, so I never miss a thing. Keira has a miriad of things on her blog, very intelligent things oftentimes. Or very exotic, like this latest Picture Day Friday. Not always Regency, but always interesting.

Wikipedia – I know I know I know. You can’t trust Wikipedia because not all the information is cross-referenced and thus it is susceptible to being false, but, gee, there’s nothing like it to quickly find that elusive fact that probably is not false. I’ve used Wikipedia extensively to find out stuff like Like – When did Queen Charlotte die? (Nov 17, 1818) because I know it happens right in the time period I might be writing about. Or, I recently needed to know something about carriages. I started by looking at Wikipedia. (gig). My Three Soldiers Series required knowing details of the Battle of Waterloo. Wikipedia had great information on the battle and, from my other reading of the subject, it looked accurate.

What are your favorite blogs and websites? Besides Risky Regencies, I mean!

Visit me Thursday on Diane’s Blog where I will show off the bookcover of Chivalrous Captain, Rebel Lady AND give away two prizes – a signed copy of Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady and the entire set of Amanda’s Muse Trilogy!
Blogging at DianeGaston.com

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The Riskies are happy to welcome back Cara Elliott, who kindly agreed to blog about the background of book 2 her “Circle of Sin” series–To Surrender to a Rogue! Comment for a chance to win a copy…

Hi everyone,

It’s a pleasure to be back visiting the Riskies! Yes, yes, I know–I was just here in March, but after a long interlude between series, the first two books of my new trilogy have been released close together. So I’m back to talk about To Surrender to a Rogue, which takes place in Bath amidst an archaeological excavation of Roman ruins.

The “Circle of Sin” features 3 beautiful, brainy female scholars who each has a dark secret in her past. The first book, To Sin With a Scoundrel, highlighted Ciara, the chemistry expert. The current release tells Alessandra’s story. She’s an expert on ancient antiquities, a subject that has fascinated me since I saw a PBS documentary on the Pyramids when I was very little. (I disntinctly remember many days of climbing the hill behind my elementary school during recess, pretending that I was an intrepid explorer scaling the rough-cut rocks to the pinnacle!)

I also have a soft spot in my heart for the hero’s passion. Jack is a highly talented watercolorist, and as art is my background, I’m going to eschew talking about the techniques of digging in favor of painting a brief picture on the subject of pigment and papaer. So without further ado…

Most Regency stories depict watercolor painting as a proper pursuit for young ladies–which it was. However, it was also a subject of serious study for young men. One of the leading watercolorists of the 1700s, Alexander Cozens, taught at Eton for years. In addition to producing hauntingly beautiful works of his own, rendered in an austere, monochromatic palette, he shaped the artistic tastes of a whole generation of English aristocrats. Two of his pupils, Sir George Beaumont and William Beckford, are reocgnized as two of the greatest collectors and connoisseurs of their age.

The Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768, recognized the medium, but for the most part its practitioners were treated as second class citizens by the artists who worked in oil paints. Tired of being dismissed as mere craftsmen rather than creative talents, a group of artists banded together and made a bold move, establishing the Society for Painters in Water-Colours in 1804. (In previous centuries, watercolorists traditionally worked with mapmakers and were seen as recorders of topographical scenes). They held their own shows, which proved to be a critical and financial success. From JMW Turner and Thomas Girtin’s evocative use of color and texture in landscapes to David Roberts’s striking depictions of exotic travel destinations, Regency watercolorists were embraced by the public as true artists. (Roberts in particular served as a model for my hero–his paintings of classical sites in the East were wildly popular with a British audience whose travel opportunities were severely limited by the Napoleonic Wars).

Okay, so many of you have probably dabbled in “watercolors.” But the stuff of grade school art class is a far cry from the “real” thing. So here is primer on the materials and techniques that Regency artists used to create their richly nuanced paintings:

As opposed to oil paints, watercolors are transparent, and an artist builds color, texture, depth and shadow by layering washes of pigment. (There are opaque watercolors, which are made of pigments mixed with white zinc oxide–these are called “body color” by the English, but are more commonly known by the French name of gouache. However, that’s another subject!). Transparent watercolor “paint” is made up of finely ground mineral or organic particles, bound together with two maind additives: gum arabic, which helps adhere the pigment to the paper, and oxgall, a wetting agent which helps disperse the pigment in an even wash. In Regency times, the pigments were formed into a solid square or cake, which would be carried in a wooden paint case. (Tubes of viscous paints were invented by Windsor and Newton in 1846).

An artists would dip his brush in water, then dab it over the block of pigment to dissolve it. The amount of water used determines the intensity of the color. Most artists start with very light washes to lay in the basic elements of their composition, then build depth and details. There are a vast array of pigments, and their names are wonderfully evocative on their own–alizarin crimson, yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, cerulean blue, to name but a few.

If you look closely at a watercolor painting, you may see a faint tracing of lines beneath the color. Many artists used graphite pencils to make a preliminary sketch of the subject. Charcoal (the solid carbon residue from charred twigs heated in an airtight chamber) or black chalk (carbon mixed with clay and gum binders) were also used. They produced a softer, but usually darker line. For some artists, these line sketches were deliberately strong and were used as an intergral part of the finished painting.

Paper is an important component of a watercolor painting because its texture affects the look of the washes. James Whatman created “wove” paper in the 1750s, which quickly became popular with the artists. Wove paper uses a fine wire mesh screen as a mold, making a finer surface than the earlier “laid” papers. This allowed a more uniform wash. (Whitman is still a highly regarded brand today!). The paper made by Thomas Creswick, which offered a rich assortment of textures, was also popular. Another favorite was “scotch” paper, made from bleached linen sailcloth. It had a more rustic feel, and featured imperfections such as specks of organic matter that some artists felt added more interest to their paintings.

Brushes are made from a variety of furs. During the Regency, squirrel was favored for soft, wide brushes designed to lay in broad washes. But the very best ones were made of asiatic marten–or Russian sable–as they held their shape very well and could be twirled to a very fine point in order to paint in detail.

So, now that you’re all art experts, which do you prefer–watercolor or oil painting? And do you have a favorite artist? I’m a big fan of Turner and Constable (both of whom painted wonderful images in both mediums).

To celebrate the release of To Surrender to a Rogue, I’ll be giving away a signed copy of the book to a lucky winner!

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