by Judith Hale Everett
Excerpt from A Winter’s Romance: A Regency Anthology
“I do not know what I can have done,” Lady Dewsbury had declared upon hearing of her son Lord Windon’s intended expedition, “to have been saddled with so addle-pated a son! You simply must go chasing after every pretty face that offers. When will you learn, I wonder?”
“Suppose you’d have me make up to some hatchet-faced female,” he had muttered, grimacing.
“That is not my meaning, and you well know it,” rejoined his mother. “It is nothing to do with the young lady at all, but with you, Windon! Until you learn that young ladies are not mere adornments to one’s consequence, you will never desire to attach one.”
“Have attached her!” he had said indignantly. “Miss Tyndall’s fairly smitten, and assures me Lady Tyndall particularly wishes me to come to them at Christmas.”
His mother had favored him with her blandest gaze. “Certainly she does. I am only amazed her ladyship did not follow her daughter to Bath directly she learned of your appearance there. Althea Tyndall was ever a grasping female—but then, she did snare Lord Tyndall. But all that doesn’t signify in the least, for Miss Tyndall’s being smitten is nothing to the point. Anyone can be smitten, but few are able to excite a lasting passion—”
“Now there you’re out! Never felt for any other lady as I do for Miss Tyndall!”
“Oh?” she had inquired, brows rising. “What of Lady Veronica, or Miss Treanor? And need I mention Lady Serena?”
He had huffed and turned away, but she went on inexorably, “You said exactly the same thing of every one of them, and yet they have all gone on to marry someone else. Protestations are useless—you will never desire nor have the power to secure a lady’s true affections until you look for more than a pretty face.”
About the author:
As one of seven sisters, Judith grew up surrounded by romance novels. Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen were staples, and formed the groundwork for her lifelong love affair with the Regency.
Add to that her obsession with the English language and you’ve got one hopelessly literate romantic. Her third book, Forlorn Hope, was a finalist in the 2022 Wishing Shelf Book Awards. She can be found on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads, and Bookbub.