I'm thrilled that Alexis has invited me to join Happily Ever After Thoughts
today for a chat about romantic historical fiction. Throughout the world
readers have found enjoyment in venturing into the past to discover the many
ways in which we, today, are very much like our ancestors. One of the most
obvious examples is the development of close personal relationships with others
in our families and outside of them. When two people are just right for each
other, they may fall in love and bond intimately. I'm fascinated by this
universal link we have with the past. Cultures and nations may come and go, but
love has existed throughout all time. When we read historical fiction, we share
the adventures of people from the past and connect with them in rich and
meaningful ways.
I attended the University of Connecticut. There were times I was sorry I'd
chosen history as my major. Many of the courses seemed dry and impersonal to
me--lots of memorization (generals, battles and such). Perhaps I just was
unlucky in the professors I got. But they did make me curious about the people
of the times, so I started investigating on my own, wanting to know more than
the text books outlined. I started reading historical fiction, and felt not
only more excited about the material but learned, painlessly, a great deal more
during my "fun" reading times. Some of my favorite recreational
reading included Arthur Conan Doyle's adventures starring Sherlock Holmes and
Dr. John Watson. The Victorian era was romantic, mysterious, thrilling! The
stories held me enthralled. Years later, when I decided I'd combine all of the
things I loved best in fiction--those stories came back to haunt me in the very
best way.
What would happen if I combined my love of Victorian London with a love story,
the fast pace and unpredictable plot twists of a thriller, and characters
snatched from the royal British family of the day? It sounded like fun. I knew
I'd love writing novels with those elements. Maybe readers would enjoy such
adventures as well? The result was the first of a series of very romantic
Victorian thrillers based on the lives and times of Queen Victoria's family.
Each story has just enough history to make the book feel "real",
while not overwhelming the reader who has just come for an entertaining story.
The first book focuses on Princess Louise, the fourth daughter of Victoria's
brood of nine children. Louise was very special to me--because she was a woman
who stood up for herself and chose a path that wasn't accepted by society in
the 19th century. She wanted equal education to her brothers. Moreover, she
wanted to follow her dream of becoming a professional artist. Later in life,
she became quite well-known as a sculptress and for the statue she created of Prince
Albert, her father. But it was Louise's personal story--of her marriage and
love-life--that I also wanted to pursue. I found it riddled with mystery and
rumors, which I used to develop a special story for her.
I'm thrilled to have already found some very special readers (other writers
whose work I deeply admire) who say they love Louise and her story, The Wild
Princess. I thought I'd share a few of their comments with you.
"Mary
Hart Perry spins a marvelous tale about the life of the real Princess Louise,
Queen Victoria’s most unconventional daughter—and the fascinating events that
might have taken place between the cracks of recorded history. Mary
Hart Perry has created a masterly historical novel."
Mary Jo Putney, New York Times bestselling author of No
Longer a Gentleman
"The
Wild Princess
has everything to make a historical fiction lover's heart beat
fast--fascinating royals, romance, political intrigues, and deadly plots. A
fascinating read! I felt as if I were a spy in the palace watching the royal
family." Margaret Mallory, Award-Winning Author of The Return of the
Highlanders series
I invite you to come along for the adventure and a taste of Victorian London at
its most romantic. We have an excerpt here for you. The book is available
everywhere in the US and Canada, and hopefully, soon, in other countries. If
you'd care to comment on the HEA Thoughts blog, you'll be entered to win a free
ebook. And I'd of course love to hear from you as I continue writing, here in
my home inside the Washington, DC beltway (one of the least romantic places in
the world)! I'm working on the second exciting novel of the series, this one
featuring the baby of the family, Beatrice. For more info or questions, you can
find me here:
Twitter:
@Mary_Hart_Perry
Short
link to Face Book: on.fb.me/Kj7hzU
Happy
reading! MHP
Excerpt:
Osborne House, Isle of Wight
Wednesday, January 23, 1901
My dearest Edward,
I
write to you with a grieving heart. My emotions are so a-jumble at this moment
I can barely stop my hand from trembling long enough to put pen to paper. As
all of London wakes to the sad news, you too must by now be aware that
Victoria, Queen by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Northern Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India—my mother—has passed
from this life. Last night I stood at her bedside along with my surviving
sisters and brothers, the many grandchildren, and those most favored among her
court. We bid our final good-byes, and she drifted away. Among us was the
devoted Colonel the Lord Edward Pelham-Clinton, who delivers this letter and
accompanying documents, by hand, into your possession.
The
doctors say it was a cerebral hemorrhage, not uncommon for a woman in her 80’s,
but I believe she was just tired and ready to rest after reigning these
tumultuous sixty-four years, many of them without her beloved Prince Consort,
Albert, my father, who died before you were born.
She
was not a physically affectionate mother, demanded far more than she ever gave,
often drove me to anger and tears, and very nearly destroyed my life…more than
once. Yet I did, in my own way, love her.
The
enclosed manuscript is my means for setting straight in my own mind the
alarming events of several critical years in my life. But more than that, it
will bring to you, although belatedly—and for that I apologize—the truth. Your mother, my dearest
friend, wished to tell you of these matters long ago. Indeed, it was she who
compiled most of the information herein, using her rare skills as an observer
of human nature and, later in life, as a gifted investigative journalist. I
have filled in the few facts she was unable to uncover on her own. For selfish
reasons I begged her to keep our secrets a while longer…and a while longer.
Then she too departed from this world for a better one, leaving no one to press
me to reveal these most shameful deeds. Indeed, Edward dear, I would not even
now strip bare the deceptions played out in my lifetime, had they not so
intimately involved you.
Do
these words shock you? If so, then you had best burn these pages and live the
rest of your life in ignorance. But as I remember, you were a curious lad, and
so I expect you will read on. However, before you go further, I must ask of you
a solemn favor. What I am about to reveal is for your knowledge alone, that you
might better understand both the gifts and the sins passed along to you. To
share this account with others would cause scandal so damaging that our
government would surely topple. Therefore, I implore you to choose—either
destroy the enclosed manuscript this instant without reading it, or do the same
after reading in private.
Regardless
of your decision, I pray you will ever think of me as your devoted godmother
and friend, and not hate me for the things I have done to protect you or, on my
own behalf, simply to survive.
Be
assured of my love,
Princess
Louise, duchess of Argyll
March
21, 1871—Windsor Castle, St. George’s Chapel
Under
siege, that’s what we are, Louise thought as she observed the mayhem beyond
the church’s massive oak doors. Indeed the week-long crush of boisterous
visitors had become truly dangerous.
“There must be thousands of them,” she
murmured, more to herself than to any of her bridesmaids clustered around her.
Her brother Bertie gently closed the
door, shutting out the cheers of the crowd. “It’s all right. The guardsmen have
things well in hand.”
Scores of well-wishers from London and the
surrounding countryside had arrived on foot and horseback, along with souvenir
vendors, draysmen with cartloads of sightseers and hawkers of ale, roasted
potatoes and meat pies. They clogged Berkshire’s country roads, converging on
Windsor, making virtual prisoners of the royal family and their guests within
the great castle’s walls.
Many travelers hadn’t been content with
a tourist’s hasty view of Windsor in the days before the wedding. They’d set up
crude campsites outside the walls, lit bonfires that blazed through the night.
Toasts to the bride and groom turned into drunken revelry. Hundreds pressed
against groaning castle gates, hoping for a chance glimpse of the royal couple.
Crowd control, never before an issue at a royal wedding, became a necessity. A
nervous Queen Victoria called up her Hussars and a fleet of local constables to
reinforce the castle’s guardsmen.
Louise stepped away from the chapel’s
doors, fingering the delicate Honiton lace of her gown. Strangely, she wasn’t
worried about being hurt by the mob of well wishers. What concerned her was
what her mother’s subjects might expect of her.
To do her duty as a princess, she
supposed, whatever that might mean to them. Or simply to “be a good girl and
don’t make trouble,” as her mother had so often scolded her since her earliest
years.
Standing at the very foot of the
church’s long nave, Louise tried to reassure herself that all the pomp and fuss
over her marriage was of no consequence. It would pass with the end of this
day. The mob would disperse. The groundsmen clear away the mountains of trash.
The important thing was—she had agreed to wed the marquess of Lorne as her
mother wished. She was doing the responsible thing for her family. Surely, all
would be well.
Louise rested her fingertips lightly on
Bertie’s arm. The Prince of Wales stood ready to escort her down the aisle. She
desperately wished her father were still alive to give her away. On the other
hand, Papa might have talked her mother into letting her wait a little longer
to marry. But, of the six girls in their family, it was her turn. In the
queen’s mind, Louise at 23 was already teetering on the slippery verge of
spinsterhood. An unwed, childless daughter knocking about the palace was a
waste of good breeding stock.
Louise felt Bertie step forward, cued by
the exultant chords of organ music swelling to the strains of the Wedding
March’s intricate harp obbligato. She matched his stride, moving slowly down
the long rose petal-strewn quire toward her bridegroom.
Another
trembling step closer to the altar, then another. Wedding night
jitters? Was that the source of her edginess?
Definitely not. The panic swelling in
her breast could have little to do with a bride’s fragile insecurity regarding
her wifely duties in bed. Louise felt anything but fragile and more than a
little eager for her husband’s touch. Nevertheless, she sensed that something
about the day was disturbingly wrong. Sooner or later, she feared it would snap
its head around and bite her.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds
and drew three deep breaths while letting her feet keep their own pace with the
music.
“Are you all right?” Her brother’s
voice.
She forced a smile for his benefit.
“Yes, Bertie.”
“He’s a good man.” The Prince had
trimmed his dark mustache and looked elegantly regal, dressed in the uniform of
their mother’s Hussars. He had initially stood against the marriage, believing
his sister should hold out for a royal match. But now he seemed resigned and
loath to spoil her day.
“I know. Of course he’s good.”
“You like him, don’t you?” Not love him. They both knew love didn’t
enter into the equation for
princesses. The daughters of British royals were bred to marry the heads of
state, forge international alliances, produce the next generation to sit upon
the thrones of Europe.
“I do like him.”
“Then you’ll be fine.”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I will.”
Somehow.
Three of her five bridesmaids—all in
white, bedecked with garlands of hothouse lilies, rosebuds, and camellias—led
the way down the long aisle, leaving the two youngest girls in Louise’s wake to
control the heavy satin train behind her. The diamond coronet Lorne had given
her as a wedding present held in place the lace veil she herself had
designed.
She felt the swish of stiff petticoats
against her limbs. The coolness of the air, captured within the church’s
magnificent soaring Gothic arches, chilled her bare shoulders. Yards upon yards
of precious hand-worked lace, seemed to weight her down, as though holding her
back from the altar. An icy clutch of jewels at her throat felt suddenly too
tight, making it hard to breathe.
Her nose tingled at the sweet waxy scent
of thousands of burning candles mixed with perfume as her guests rose to view
the procession. The pulse of the organ’s bass notes vibrated in her clenched
stomach. Ladies of the Court, splendid in silks and brocades and jewels, the
gentlemen in dignified black or charcoal grey frock coats, turned heads her way
in anticipation—a dizzy blur of smiling, staring faces as she passed them by.
But a few stood out in sharp relief
against the dazzling splendor: Her dear friend, Amanda Locock beside her
handsome doctor-husband, their little boy wriggling in Amanda’s arms. The
always dour Prime Minister Gladstone. A grim-faced Napoleon III, badly reduced
in health after his recent defeat by the Prussians. Her brothers and sisters:
Affie, then Alice and Vicky with their noble spouses. A predictably bored
looking Arthur, always solemn Lenchen and young, fidgety Leo. Bertie’s lovely
Danish wife Alix clasped a hand over each of their two little boys to keep them
quiet.
Louise lifted her gaze to the raised box
to her left where she knew her mother would be seated. Beatrice, youngest of
Louise’s eight siblings, sat close by the queen, gazing down wide-eyed at the
ceremony. Victoria herself, a plump figure in black mourning muslin six years
after her husband’s death, her grim costume relieved only by the rubies and
blues of the Order of the Garter star clipped over her left breast, looked down
on the wedding party as though a goddess from Mount Olympus.
They’d all come to witness Louise’s
union with the striking young man waiting for her at the chapel’s altar. The
marquess of Lorne. John Douglas Sutherland Campbell. A stranger to her in many
ways, yet soon to be her wedded mate.
Beside him stood his kinsmen in striking Campbell-green kilts, sword
scabbards strapped to hips, hats cocked forward.
Louise felt an almost equal urge to rush
into her intended’s arms…and to turn around and run back out through the chapel
doors. Into the fresh spring air, breaking through the crowd to escape down
Windsor’s famous Long Walk and into the countryside. To freedom.
But was that even a possibility now?
All of the country had lapped up news of
her betrothal as eagerly as a cat does cream. Hadn’t the newspapers been chock
full of personal details for months? The chaperoned carriage rides through Hyde
Park. The elaborate French menu for the wedding feast. Everything, from the
details of her gown to advertisements placed by a London perfume manufacturer
announcing their newest fragrance, Love-Lorne,
had been gossiped about in and outside of the Court.
And then all of that fled her mind as
Bertie deposited her before the archbishop and beside Lorne. Her husband-to-be
stood breathtakingly handsome in his dark blue dress uniform of the Royal
Argyllshire Artillery with its bits of gold braid, burnished buttons, and
shining black leather boots that shaped his long legs to above the knees. A
silver-hilted sword hung from the wide black patent belt that encircled his
narrow waist. His hair, a glorious pale blond mane brushed back from his face,
long enough to feather over his collar, looked slightly risqué and tempted her
fingertips.
He took her hand in his. At his touch, she
finally settled inside herself.
During the ceremony Louise was aware of
her bridegroom’s eyes turning frequently to her. She did her best to meet his
gaze, to bring a little smile to her lips and hope that some of it slipped into
her eyes for him. Like her, he had blue eyes. But, while hers were a soft
shade, the mesmerizing sapphire brilliance of the young marquess’s eyes never
failed to startle people on meeting him for the first time. He was a Scot, one
of her mother’s northern subjects. When his father passed, he would become the
duke of Argyll. A minor title, but better than none at all in her mother’s
view. For Louise’s part, titles were of no consequence. They marked a man as
neither good nor bad, kind nor cruel, rich nor poor.
She had every reason to believe they’d
get along well, even though they’d not once been left alone together. Still,
their escorts had been discreet, allowing them to speak freely. Lorne had even
shyly kissed her on the cheek, last night. In time, they might fall in love. She’d
like that. And even if they didn’t, he would give her the children she so
longed for. Life was full of compromises.
The archbishop was speaking in that
sing-song voice of his that was at once soft yet somehow carried to the very
back of the grandest church. Louise let the words wash over her, a warm and
calming stream. She daydreamed of her honeymoon—Lorne making tender love to
her, his soft hands opening her gown to touch the places on her body that most
longed for his caresses. And she would discover ways to please him.
The images in her mind brought a rush of
heat to her cheeks. She raised her eyelashes shyly to glance up at him in
anticipation.
Their gazes met.
He grinned and winked. Did he know what
she was thinking?
It was at that moment something odd
caught her eye. A motion off to her left and above. Startled, she turned her
head just far enough to take in her mother’s box.
