A beginner's bibliography of the Napoleonic Wars

While at RWA in Atlanta last month, I gave a talk titled "Beyond Trafalgar and Waterloo: Your Hero's Military History." at the Beau Monde Regency Special Interest Chapter's mini-conference. My goal was to help writers go beyond the most obvious battles and tropes when writing a military hero. (Or heroine! One of these days I'm going to finish that manuscript with a young lady disguised as a boy in the navy.) In my handouts I included a list of what I think are some of the best sources for writers who'd like to write a Napoleonic-era military or naval hero but don't know where to begin.

It occurred to me that interest in such a list might go beyond the thirty or so people who were in the room that day, so here it is. This isn't even remotely intended as a comprehensive bibliography--just a good jumping-off point if you're a writer who'd like to add more richness to your military hero's backstory or a reader who enjoys romances with military heroes or books and movies like the Sharpe series and wants to learn more about the reality behind your favorite heroes. (Note that several of these books are out-of-print and sufficiently expensive that I've only included their buy links so you'll have all the info you need to track them down via interlibrary loan.)

Adkin, Mark. The Sharpe Companion: The Early Years.

Adkin, Mark. The Sharpe Companion: A Detailed Historicaland Military Guide to Bernard Cornwell’s Bestselling Series of Sharpe Novels. Designed as companion pieces for the Sharpe series, this book and the one above contain a wealth of detail about the lives and campaigns of British soldiers of the era.

Barbero, Alessandro. The Battle: A New History ofWaterloo. A page-turner of an introduction to the battle.

Brett-James, Antony. Life in Wellington’s Army. A book about every aspect of a soldier’s life but battle, this is a wonderful source for understanding how your hero would’ve lived while on campaign.

Burnham, Robert & Ron McGuigan. The British Armyagainst Napoleon: Facts, Lists, and Trivia 1805-1815. Something of an encyclopedia of the British army, full of useful details such as soldiers’ and officers’ pay, cost of commissions, rations, punishments for various offenses, casualty figures, etc.

Crumplin, Michael. Men of Steel: Surgery in theNapoleonic Wars. Want to write a surgeon hero, or have your hero wounded and in need of surgical care? This book is for you.

Elting, John. Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armée. Focused on the French, but it manages to be both encyclopedic and fascinating about what made an army of the era tick.

Foulkes, Nick. Dancing into Battle: A Social History of theBattle of Waterloo. Worthwhile for romance writers for its focus on the social and cultural milieu.

Haythornthwaite, Philip. Nelson’s Navy. A short, well-illustrated introduction to naval life.

Lieven, D.C.B. Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story ofthe Campaigns of War and Peace. Not directly relevant to an author focused on British characters, but a fascinating and thought-provoking view of all the major powers involved in the wars.

Longford, Elizabeth. Wellington: The Years of theSword. My favorite of the many Wellington biographies I’ve read.

Michael O’Meara Books Ltd. Ships’ Miscellany: A Guide tothe Royal Navy of Jack Aubrey. A good introductory source on the ships of the era and the life of a sailor.

Morgan, Matthew. Wellington’s Victories: A Guide to Sharpe’sArmy 1797-1815. Yes, another guide for readers of a fiction series, but they tend to make extremely useful and readable introductions.

Park, S.J. and G.F. Nafziger. The British Military: ItsSystem and Organization 1803-1815. Bernard Cornwell pointed me to this one when I met him at the Surrey Writers’ Conference a few years back. It tells you where every regiment was during the time frame covered—invaluable in finding a regimental home for your hero.

Whipple, A.B.C.  Fighting Sail. It’s a Time-Life book—which means it’s fairly detailed and full of illustrations, and it doesn’t expect you to come into the book with an expert’s knowledge. Focuses almost exclusively on Nelson’s life and campaigns.

The Battle of Vittoria

My July 29 release, A Dream Defiant, takes place in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria during the Peninsular War (i.e. the main British land campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, during which an Anglo-Portuguese force under Wellington's command gradually drove the French from the Iberian Peninsula.

Vittoria took place late in the war, on June 21, 1813. Prior to 1813, while Wellington's forces won practically every battle they fought, they didn't have the numbers to gain a total victory until after 1812, when Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia forced him to pull troops from Spain.

The town of Vitoria (note--not a typo. I'm using the modern spelling for the town and the older one used by the British at the time for the battle) is in Basque country in the northeastern part of Spain, which by itself tells you that Wellington's army had almost succeeded in driving the French back to their own borders. In fact, by this point Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother whom he'd installed as King of Spain, had abandoned Madrid and was with the French army--with a formidable baggage train of royal riches and treasures looted from Madrid along with the usual money and gear you'd expect an army to be transporting. Its estimated value was one million pounds in 1813 money. While it's difficult to accurately convert currency values from two centuries ago, think $150,000,000 or so. In other words, a lot.

I won't go into details of the battle, though I'd be happy to point anyone who's interested to sources. Suffice it to say it turned into a rout. The French fled the field, in their haste abandoning that baggage train of treasure.

Wellington, of course, would've preferred that his soldiers pursue their defeated enemy. Instead, discipline temporarily collapsed, and they stopped to plunder--along with not a few French soldiers who wanted to claim a few treasures of their own before catching up with their units.

And so not the battle but its aftermath became the springboard of my story. My hero, Elijah Cameron, comes upon one of his men in a lethal struggle with a French soldier for a ruby necklace. Elijah drives the Frenchman away, but it's too late for his friend--who entrusts the necklace to Elijah to give to his widow, Rose Merrifield, so she can use it to return to England and have the life she's always dreamed of--buying an inn in her home village and using her cooking skill to make it a place where all the travelers on the Great North Road will want to linger over their dinners. But once rumors of the treasure get out, Rose isn't safe from men who'd use her and the necklace to their own ends. And the only one she trusts to protect her is Elijah...

Introducing A Dream Defiant!

I'll be taking a few months off from my series on titles and forms of address for the British aristocracy to celebrate my July 29 novella release, A Dream Defiant. Isn't the cover beautiful?

While this book is set in 1813 in the aftermath of the Battle of Vittoria, a cursory glance at the cover will tell you this isn't your typical Regency romance. Like most of my heroes, Elijah Cameron is a British soldier, one who's been in the army since his early youth and knows its ways well. But rather than leaving a village in England or Scotland as a lad, he grew up with his regiment. His parents, born in Virginia as slaves, ran away to the British lines during the American Revolution and spent the next twenty-five years as servants--free and fairly paid--of a senior officer in the regiment.

Growing up as he did, it's hardly surprising that Elijah became first a drummer boy and then a soldier. When his story opens he's content with his life, only to have it turned upside down when a dying comrade in arms entrusts him with a treasure to give to his soon-to-be-widow--a beautiful and quietly brave women Elijah has admired from afar for years.

So, what compelled me to write the story of a black redcoat in the Napoleonic Wars? Well, it started a few years ago, when I was reading about black Union soldiers in the Civil War on Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog. (See one such post HERE.)

I briefly considered writing my own Civil War story--it's an era I know almost as well as the Napoleonic Wars, after all. But I just couldn't get over the feeling that it was presumptuous of me to write a black Union soldier as a hero, given that I'm not only a white woman, I'm a white woman born and raised in Alabama and the great-great-granddaughter of a Confederate soldier from that same state. Put simply, I felt like I had no right to cloak myself in the mantle of the right side of a war where my ancestors were unequivocally on the wrong side.

(It's not that I feel guilty about my ancestry--I hardly chose it myself, after all--nor do I think my great-great-grandfather was a bad person. I don't know much about him, really, beyond that he was extremely fertile, fathering seventeen children with three wives in succession. He didn't own slaves--my family were poor Appalachian farmers right up through the Depression. He wasn't a moral giant enough to have challenged the values of his state and his culture, but how many of us are? Still, none of that changes the fact that the Civil War was one of those few conflicts with a clear right and wrong side, and my ancestor fought for the latter.)

So I decided to write about a black soldier in my era. I knew such soldiers existed, in both the French and British armies. They're mentioned in Swords Around a Throne, John Elting's encyclopedic book on Napoleon's army, and I'd run across occasional references in my research on the British army. While a black man in the British army was more likely to be in a West Indian regiment or to be part of a regimental band (that stereotype already existed, evidently), I never found any evidence that someone like my Elijah wouldn't have been permitted to enlist in a regular redcoat infantry regiment, so I gave my muse free rein. As for how well it turned out, in a little less than two months you can be the judge of that!

A Dream Defiant is already available for preorder at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, and the iTunes store, and will be available on the Carina site and other e-tailers as the release date draws closer.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Lords (but not Dukes)

My apologies for being a day late with this post--my only excuse is that we've had sort of a mini heat wave here in Seattle. Yesterday our high was 87, tied with Phoenix for the hottest city in the country, and our house only has one room with air conditioning. That room isn't my office...so I didn't go near my computer and therefore didn't see the reminder I was supposed to be blogging today.

Here's another post from my Of Wimseys and Wellesleys series on titles and forms of address in the British aristocracy, though for the next few months I'll take a break from the topic to talk about my upcoming release, A Dream Defiant.


Today we tackle how to address all lords--i.e. all peerages below the rank of duke.

My real life example for this series, Arthur Wellesley, was granted a viscountcy in 1809 after his victory at the Battle of Talavera. I don't know why he became a viscount rather than a baron (plenty of men were granted baronies for military and naval achievements during the era), but my guess it was some combination of the fact he was born to the aristocracy rather than the gentry, his family's good political connections, and that it was becoming evident by that point that he was a damn good general. :-) (I'm pretty sure I would've wanted to strangle Wellington on a regular basis if I'd known him for his political views and elitism, but AFAIC he was second to none on a battlefield.)

At the lower ranks of the peerage, a lord's title is often the same as his last name. John Smith becomes Baron Smith, addressed as Lord Smith. E.g. the other major British hero of the Napoleonic era was ennobled as Viscount Nelson. This wasn't an option in Wellesley's case because his oldest brother was Marquess Wellesley (we'll see more of him later when I get around to who can and can't inherit and how titles become extinct). Since Wellesley himself wasn't available to be consulted, being occupied fighting the French, the College of Heralds (who keep track of such things) consulted his brother William, who pulled out the map and found a town in Somerset called "Wellington," near where their ancestors came from before going to Ireland. At that point our hero became Viscount Wellington of Talavera and Wellington, and William wrote to say, "I trust that you will not think that there is anything unpleasant or trifling in the name of Wellington." To which the new Lord Wellington replied that he thought William had chosen most fortunately. His wife was less pleased, mentioning in her diary that "Wellington I do not like for it recalls nothing."

I describe the name selection process at such length because it'd feel so odd, to me at least, to have your name changed for you, as an adult, and to just have to live with it whether you liked it or not. William could've saddled his brother the goofiest name on the map, and there wouldn't have been much Wellington (or, in this version of things, Lord Catbrain or Lord Netherwallop or or Lord Hoo) could've done about it. OK, those probably wouldn't have flown with the College of Heralds, but STILL.

Anyway. I digress. Up until 1814, Wellington kept getting regular promotions, as it were, becoming the Earl of Wellington, the Marquess of Wellington, and finally the Duke of Wellington. Until he became a duke, the proper address for him didn't change. He was Lord Wellington, addressed as "Wellington" or "sir" by those who were more or less his social equals and as "my lord" by inferiors. He signed his letters "Wellington." His wife was Lady Wellington, and she signed herself "Catherine Wellington." "Wellesley" almost disappears as far as they're concerned. (Their children are a different story, and a post for another time.)

Incidentally, when a peer holds a military rank in addition to his title, you call them Rank Lord Title--i.e. General Lord Wellington, Admiral Lord Nelson.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Name Changes

Sorry to be a bit late in putting this post up--my daughter's 9th birthday is today, and she had her two best friends over for a sleepover last night. Suffice it to say I'm exhausted and wishing I'd taken Monday off from my day job for recovery in addition to half of Friday for cleaning/setup!

In any case, continuing on with my series on titles and forms of address of the British nobility for your historical romance...

Today's post is a bit of a sideline about how malleable surnames were in Britain 200 years ago.

I mentioned in a previous post that Wellington's last name up into his 20's wasn't Wellesley, but Wesley. And his paternal grandfather wasn't born a Wesley, but a Colley. (Or a Cowley. The further back in time you go, the less consistent people were about spelling even their own names.)

So, how did a Colley become a Wesley? It was a matter of inheritance. When Richard Colley inherited an estate from a Wesley cousin on his mother's side, he changed his name accordingly. Note that he inherited property, NOT a title. With very rare exceptions, titles can't pass through the maternal line, but as long as property isn't entailed (a subject for a different post), one could leave it to pretty much whomever one liked. There wasn't a requirement to change one's name upon inheriting from a differently-surnamed relative, but it was commonly done. You can see something similar in Jane Austen's Emma, in which Frank Weston is adopted by his wealthy maternal grandparents and becomes known as Frank Churchill.

Two generations later, how did the Wesleys become Wellesleys? Basically, Wellington's oldest brother Richard decided he liked Wellesley better, and the rest of the family followed suit. Wellesley was indeed the original form of the name, if one went up the family tree a few generations.

Name changes of this kind were perfectly legal and didn't require the formal bureaucratic process a similar change would entail now. As long as you weren't doing it with intent to defraud someone, the powers that be didn't care.

Another form of name change you see a good bit in the 18th and 19th centuries is hyphenation, upon informal adoption, inheritance, or marriage. The second of the Wellesley brothers, William, inherited estates from a cousin by the name of Pole and is known to history as William Wellesley-Pole. He had a son, also named William, who married an heiress named Catherine Tylney-Long. When a woman brought a lot of money and/or family prestige to a marriage, sometimes her husband added his name to hers...which in this case led to the exceptionally unwieldy moniker of William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley. For reals.

Next time, we'll go back to titles proper.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Knights (and Baronets)

For previous entries in this series, follow the tags at the end of the post.

Say the word "knight," and it conjures an image of a man in plate armor, ready to joust for the honor of his lady fair. But there were still knights in the 18th and 19th century (and to this day). Just minus the armor.

A knighthood is an honor given to untitled men (but in the 18th and 19th centuries generally of at least genteel birth) as a reward for service to the Crown. I haven't done a detailed study, but my impression is that most reasonably successful British generals and admirals of the Napoleonic era were at least made knights. Wellington's first major honor was being knighted in 1804 in recognition of his early successes as a major-general in India. So from that point until he was granted a peerage in 1809, he was addressed as Sir Arthur Wellesley. As with the younger son's courtesy titles we've discussed in the past two posts, the "Sir" goes with the first name. He's Sir Arthur, not Sir Wellesley.

Wives of knights, however, don't follow the same pattern. In 1806, Wellesley married Catherine Pakenham, whom he'd courted as a young man before leaving for India. In the intervening time they'd grown into different people, extremely mismatched different people who had a thoroughly unhappy marriage. But that's neither here nor there. We're just here to learn what to call them. And in this case the right answer is Lady Wellesley. Not Lady Catherine, not Lady Arthur. Lady Wellesley.

Incidentally, at this point there were two Lady Wellesleys. (Ladies Wellesley?) The other, Hyacinthe, was married to the oldest Wellesley brother, Richard, who'd been granted the title of Marquess Wellesley for his service as Governor-General of India, superseding his former title of Earl of Mornington (inherited from his father). This situation wasn't as confusing as you might think, for two reasons. The first is Hyacinthe's background: she was a French actress who was Richard's mistress for years and years before he actually married her. As such, despite her status as marchioness she wasn't accepted in good society or even within the extended family the same way that the well-bred and well-behaved Catherine was. The second is common sense--just like you might have two friends named Bob Smith, and avoid any confusion by talking about Work Bob and Bob from High School, English society of 200 years ago was perfectly capable of saying "Lady Wellesley, the marchioness," or "Lady Wellesley, Kitty Pakenham that was," or whatever to make their meaning clear.

Note that knighthoods are not inherited honors. If Wellesley had been killed while he was still a knight, his firstborn son would NOT have become Sir Arthur in his turn.

A side note about baronets: While I don't have any Wimsey or Wellesley examples of them, you'll see them a good bit in 18th and 19th century fiction. In Jane Austen's work alone, Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park and Sir Walter Elliott in Persuasion are both baronets. Baronets follow the exact same form of address as knights--the key difference between them is that the eldest son of a baronet DOES inherit the honor.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Courtesy Titles, Part 2

Today we look into what happens when the daughters and younger sons of last month's post get married.

I'll start with the sons of dukes and marquesses, since they're more straightforward. Obviously, their names don't change upon marriage. Lord Peter is still Lord Peter. But when he marries Harriet Vane (a commoner, daughter of a country doctor), she becomes Lady Peter. Not Lady Wimsey, because younger sons' courtesy titles attach to the first name, not the surname. And not Lady Harriet, because it's his title, not hers. Incidentally, their children don't have titles, courtesy or otherwise. They're just very well-bred and well-connected commoners.

Daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls are more complicated. The rule, as I understand it, is that when a woman with a courtesy title marries, she takes her husband's title if it's higher in precedence than hers, but keeps her own if hers is higher. This means that if she marries a man without a title, she doesn't become Mrs. Husband's Name. Instead, she's Lady HerFirstName HisLastName. In the case of the fictional Wimsey family, Lord Peter's sister, Lady Mary, marries Charles Parker, a police detective and one of her brother's closest friends, and becomes Lady Mary Parker. (NOT Lady Parker.) Her husband's name doesn't change. Basically, a man can convey his courtesy title to his wife, but a woman can't pass hers to her husband. Is this sexist? Of course it is. If you're going to write historical fiction, you'll run into far worse instances of it.

Wellington's one sister also married commoners (untitled gentlemen might be a better term), becoming first Lady Anne FitzRoy (wife of the Hon. Henry FitzRoy, son of a baron) and then after his death Lady Anne Smith (wife of Charles Culling Smith).

If Lady Anne or Lady Mary had married a peer (a holder of an actual rather than a courtesy title), then she would've taken his title even if it were a lower rank of the peerage (baron, viscount), because substantive title always trumps courtesy title. I.e. if Lady Mary Wimsey had married Baron Stuffy, she'd be Lady Stuffy rather than Lady Mary.

It's when courtesy title holders marry each other that things get really complicated. Then, if I understand this correctly, you go by their relative precedence. Dukes' daughters trump dukes' younger sons, who in turn trump marquesses' daughters who trump their younger sons and so on. So Lady Mary Wimsey, as a duke's daughter, has precedence over any man's courtesy title. Therefore, no matter who she marries, unless he has an actual title of his own, she'll outrank him and continue to go by Lady Mary. But if Lady Anne Wellesley, an earl's daughter, had married the younger son of a duke or marquess, she would've become Lady HisFirstName HisLastName, because dukes and marquesses trump earls.

At least, I'm almost sure that's how it works. But I'm open to correction if not.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Courtesy Titles, Part 1

Both of the protagonists of my little series on titles and forms of address are younger sons--Lord Peter is the second son of a duke, Wellington the third son of an earl. And younger sons make useful protagonists for fiction. Eldest sons of peers, destined to assume their father's titles, have careers in estate management and the House of Lords marked out for them by accident of birth. While an aristocrat's younger son is backed by his family's influence and support, he has a wider range of professions open to him, a certain freedom the head of his family lacks.

So they're great to write about. But the rules for what to call them (and their sisters) can be a little tricky.  You must learn the ways of the courtesy title.

A courtesy title is given to certain close relatives of a peer. They remain legally commoners, lacking such perks as a seat in the House of Lords, but they're addressed as lord or lady...you guessed it...as a courtesy. We'll hold off on the special courtesy titles given to eldest living sons of peers for the time being, revisiting them when we meet Lord Peter's nephew and Wellington acquires a peerage and a son. Today we'll concentrate on daughters and younger sons.

All daughters and younger sons of dukes or marquesses (the two highest ranks of the peerage) are addressed as Lord or Lady Firstname. Therefore, as the second son of the Duke of Denver, Peter Wimsey is Lord Peter or Lord Peter Wimsey. He is NEVER Lord Wimsey. The "Lord" goes by the first name. Also, any man who is NOT the younger son of a duke or marquess is NEVER Lord Firstname. That's probably the most common error I see in fiction, calling John Biscuit, the Earl of Pastry, Lord John instead of Lord Pastry. That's wrong. WRONG. Don't do it. Daughters follow the same pattern, so Lord Peter's sister is Lady Mary Wimsey. (NOT Lady Wimsey.)

So, in a way, you're always on a first name basis with daughters and younger sons of dukes. You show that someone is intimate with your character by dropping the Lord or Lady. There's a nice bit in Dorothy Sayers' wonderful Gaudy Night where Harriet Vane, Lord Peter's eventual wife, calls him Lord Peter in front of others as they're solving a mystery together even though she's called him, and thought of him, as just Peter for ages. Ever polite, he matches her by calling her Miss Vane throughout the scene.

Earls' children are tricky. The daughters bear the courtesy title of Lady, just like dukes' and marquesses' daughters, but the younger sons do not bear the title of Lord. So Wellington, as a younger son of the Earl of Mornington, was NOT addressed as Lord Arthur before he started accumulating titles of his own. His sister, however, WAS Lady Anne. I don't know how this quirk got into the system, but that's the rule. In everyday speech younger sons of earls are just plain Misters, but they too have a courtesy title of sorts--"the Honorable." So, should you find yourself flung back in time and needing to talk to Wellington as a very young man, before he became an officer, call him Mr. Wesley (NOT Wellesley--the family changed their name around the time he started his rise in the world, and I'll discuss how easy it was to change your name in a future post), or Mr. Arthur Wesley if you need to distinguish him from his brothers. The Honorable only comes into play if you need to address a letter or otherwise make formal written reference to him. Then he's The Honorable Arthur Wesley (often abbreviated to Hon.).

Got that? Good. If your characters are the children of the two lower ranks of the peerage (viscounts and barons), sons and daughters are both Honorables. Simple. It's just earls who are confusing.

Stay tuned next month for what to call these younger sons and daughters and their spouses after marriage. Then we'll start to trace Wellington's rise with a post about knighthoods, and maybe I'll fit in that digression about name changes. Beyond that, we still have plenty of ground to cover.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys, a new(ish) series

For the next few months, I'm going to be recycling a series of posts from my blog on how to manage titles and forms of address within the British aristocracy. First off, an introduction:


It is a truth universally acknowledged that the writer of a historical novel set in 18th or 19th-century Britain must be in want of a duke. Even if, like me, you declare yourself a populist, a good small-r republican who doesn't understand what's so fascinating about inherited aristocracy, they have a way of poking their graceful dukely heads up and insisting upon a role in your stories. Or if you can resist the siren song of the duke, you may find yourself writing a less exalted but still lordly creature like an earl or a viscount. And your peer of the realm will have, or acquire along the way, a family.

In every case there is a correct and incorrect way to refer to your peer and his family--his widowed mother, his wife, his daughters, the cousin who's next in line for the title until he fathers a son of his own, etc. And a great many writers get it wrong. They just stick "Lord" or "Lady" willy-nilly into their characters' names. If their hero is John Smith, Earl of Smithton, they'll call him Lord John on one page, Lord Smith the next, and maybe Lord Smithton somewhere in the next chaper. (Hint: only one of the options is correct.)

Admittedly, British titles and forms of address are a confusing and convoluted system, especially for us Americans who have no equivalent in our culture. But I believe it pays to get them right. The more little details you get correct, the richer and more believable your fictional world will be. Also, you'll earn the appreciation and praise of readers like me who've memorized the system and find the errors to be nails on a chalkboard.

There are sites, readily searchable via Google, that explain the rules.  But because stories are easier to remember than rules, at least for me, I've decided to do a blog series exploring proper forms of address using one fictional example and one historical one.

Representing fiction will be Lord Peter Wimsey, protagonist of Dorothy Sayers' Golden Age detective novels. He's the younger son of a duke, and over the course of the series, we meet a good chunk of his family--his widowed mother, his brother the current duke and his wife and children, their sister who starts the series single and marries another secondary character, and, last but far from least, Lord Peter's eventual wife. Between them all, they cover most of the possible forms of address within a duke's family, but they're fairly straightforward and tidy for all that.

For complexity we'll look to history, to the life and family of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. He didn't inherit his title (obviously, since he's the first duke). He was the third surviving son of an earl, and for his military accomplishments was made first a knight, then a viscount, an earl, a marquess, and at last a duke. Know what to call him, his wife, and their two sons at every point of his career and you'll be well on your way to mastering the entire system. And once you throw in the extended family--divorce scandals, a peer who didn't get around to marrying his wife till AFTER all five of their children were born, name changes for the sake of inheritance, and everything else that could complicate the lives and fortunes of a big and often dysfunctional turn-of-the-19th century aristocratic family--well, in my experience there's nothing like juicy 200-year-old gossip to help you remember who could and couldn't inherit a title and how you ought to speak of a duke's children as opposed to an earl's or a viscount's.

So, until I run out of material, I'll be running a series on the Wimseys and Wellesleys and using them for examples of how to get your own dukes and their families right. I welcome questions and corrections--I think I've mastered most of the rules, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still missing a nuance here and there.

Next time, we'll start with both our protagonists as children and learn the difference between younger sons of dukes and earls.

--Susanna

Politics got you down? Or up? Read a book!

Today is Election Day in America. I cast my vote weeks ago, since Washington is a vote-by-mail state, so today I'll just be biting my nails, checking all my favorite political blogs during breaks at my day job, and then spending the evening watching the results come in. Depending on the result, I'll be elated or devastated. Either way, I doubt I'll get much sleep tonight.

But I'm not going to talk about that here. You'll notice I didn't even mention which result would elate me and which devastate me. Because I'm declaring this space a politics-free zone. We're here to talk books. No matter how the race turns out, books are the answer!

Don't believe me? Here's how I see it:

Did your chosen candidate win? What better way to celebrate and unwind after the stress of following the race than with a nice, relaxing book!

Did your guy lose? Drown your sorrows and escape your fears for the future in a book!

Recount or the Electoral College tied 269-269? (Please, God, not that!) Well, then, we'll ALL need some nice distractions--like good books!

Citizen of another country? Ignore us and our insane politics by reading a book!

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, I have more reason than normal for hoping lots of people turn to books in the weeks to come. My latest historical romance from Carina, An Infamous Marriage, released yesterday.

Northumberland, 1815

At long last, Britain is at peace, and General Jack Armstrong is coming home to the wife he barely knows. Wed for mutual convenience, their union unconsummated, the couple has exchanged only cold, dutiful letters. With no more wars to fight, Jack is ready to attempt a peace treaty of his own.

Elizabeth Armstrong is on the warpath. She never expected fidelity from the husband she knew for only a week, but his scandalous exploits have made her the object of pity for years. Now that he's back, she has no intention of sharing her bed with him—or providing him with an heir—unless he can earn her forgiveness. No matter what feelings he ignites within her…

Jack is not expecting a spirited, confident woman in place of the meek girl he left behind. As his desire intensifies, he wants much more than a marriage in name only. But winning his wife's love may be the greatest battle he's faced yet.

One commenter here between now and tomorrow at 5 PM Pacific Time will win a download of An Infamous Marriage in the electronic format of their choice, and at the end of the tour I'll be giving away a grand prize of a $50 gift certificate to the winner's choice of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's Books to one commenter on the tour as a whole. You get one entry per blog tour stop you comment upon, so check out my blog for the whole schedule! If you'd like to be entered in the drawing, please include your email in the format yourname AT yourhost DOT com

So comment on anything but politics. (Seriously. There are other places for that. Argue politics here, and your comment will be deleted. You'll also be barred from winning the blog tour grand prize.) Have you read anything great lately? What's your favorite kind of book for when you just want to escape? What upcoming releases are you most looking forward to?

Two months to release day, so it's excerpt time!

My next Carina book, An Infamous Marriage, releases Monday, November 5. Here's my beautiful cover, as selected by attendees at the Carina spotlight at RWA earlier this summer:

My hero and heroine, Jack and Elizabeth Armstrong, marry for mutual convenience in 1810. She's the impoverished widow of his best friend, and he needs someone to care for his aging, ailing mother while he is far away in Canada with his regiment. Because of their shared grief for her first husband, they don't consummate the marriage right away, and their efforts at a long-distance post-marital courtship by correspondence falter when tales of his womanizing make it all the way across the Atlantic to Elizabeth's ears. She could forgive the adultery, in an unconsummated marriage. But the scandal and mockery are too much to be borne.

When Jack returns to England in 1815, Elizabeth informs him she's not willing to fall into his bed and give him the heir he wants until he earns her forgiveness--and she's by no means certain that day will ever come.  He persuades her to give him a chance, and to let him come to her room every night, just to talk, and to forestall servant gossip about their estrangement. During their first night's conversation, he discovers how much she longs to travel and envies him for having seen more of the world than she has:

"There’s nothing to stop you from traveling wherever you like now.”

She blinked, then her eyes widened and her cheeks grew flushed. Elizabeth might not be a beauty in any conventional sense, but whenever her spirit animated her features she was lovely to look upon. But the moment passed quickly, and her eyes shuttered behind a frown. “Of course there is. You want me to bear you an heir.”

“If you can ever forgive me enough to allow me, indeed I do.” He rubbed furtively at his right leg, which was beginning to ache from his old injury. Should he tell her he would want her in his bed even if he had no line to continue and no land to pass on, or would that alarm her more at this stage?

“Well, then. You wouldn’t want your heir born in the Ionian Islands, instead of here at the Grange, would you?”

“Supposing good attendants and a capable accoucheur could be had there, and I don’t know if that’s the case. But we could learn. And I’m certain you and the baby could have even better care than you could get here in any number of places. London, to name the most obvious, but also Edinburgh, Dublin…Paris, Vienna, Rome, Brussels, Berlin…” He warmed to the theme as he began ticking the great cities of Europe off on his fingers. He’d hardly got the chance to fight in Europe as a soldier, how would it be to travel there in peacetime simply for the pleasure of it? He decided he wanted to find out. “We could go on a Grand Tour together.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So I can travel, then, but only if we consummate the marriage.”

Part of him wanted to drive such a bargain, if only it would work. But she might call his bluff. Even if she did not, did he really want a wife who only tolerated his presence in bed? Especially this wife, with her unexpected loveliness and prickly, defiant soul? “If we separate,” he said patiently, “then I won’t have any say in your comings and goings. You could certainly live on the Continent, if you chose. But I hope it won’t come to that. I’d like to see Paris with you.”

She frowned at him in utter bewilderment. “Why,” she said at last, “are you being reasonable?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer me to be unreasonable?”

“Yes—no—I don’t know!” She shook her head and glared at him. “If we separate,” she said, “you have no heir for all this.” She indicated Westerby Grange and its lands with a wave of one hand. “I expected more rage at the very possibility.”

He hid a smile. Without a conscious plan, he’d hit on the right strategy, and now he would stick with it. If he didn’t rage back, surely her fury—her perfectly justified fury—would spend itself more quickly.
“Would it do my cause any good, given that I’ve no intention of throwing you onto that bed and asserting my rights against your will?”

Her jaw fell open, and she stared at the bed, then back at him. “No.”

“So I won’t do it.” He stood, shifting most of his weight to his good leg. “I want you. But unless you want me too, it’s no good.”

“You don’t want me. You want an heir.”

He smiled a little. “That’s what I would’ve said this morning. But now I’ve seen you. Good night, Elizabeth.”

Without waiting for a reply, he bowed to her and left her to seek his solitary bed.

The brief life of Past!Susanna

History geek that I am, I've been known to daydream that the TARDIS shows up in my back yard, and the Doctor (preferably Nine, yum!) invites me to go on a little research trip to the past. I'd love to visit 1812 (or 1787, or 480 BCE, or any number of other years). But I've never wanted to live there. I'm too fond of voting and owning property, for starters. I also like electricity and all the wonderful things it makes possible, like air conditioning and the internet.

You know what else I like? Antibiotics. A few years ago I came down with a vicious strep infection.  It started with a few days of sore throat and low-grade fever that didn't much worry me, but then one morning I woke up with a fever of 102. I somehow staggered in to see my doctor, who did a rapid strep test and gave me a prescription for powerful antibiotics. My fever broke within 24 hours, and I felt healthy and energetic again within 48.

It got me to wondering how long I would've lived, had I been born 200 years earlier but otherwise had a broadly similar medical history. I'm almost certain I wouldn't have made it to my current age. I was a very healthy child--some of which, no doubt, was thanks to immunization and the public health efforts that eradicated smallpox, but we'll assume for the moment that Past!Susanna also survived her childhood unscathed. (There's a chance she would've been inoculated for smallpox, come to think of it, though it wasn't universally done.)

My 20's were healthy, too. But when I was 7 months pregnant (and just turned 33), I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and put on medication and bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy. I managed to make it to full-term, only to have a forceps delivery after Miss Fraser got stuck. Everything ended well, but 200 years earlier? Probably NSM. The blood pressure issue might've been survivable if I'd had a doctor who bled me--since hypertension is just about the only condition bleeding actually helped. As for the rest, well, forceps were around, but rarely used, and there's a good chance nothing of the sort would've been tried until it was too late for Miss Fraser, if not for me.

And if by some odd chance I'd survived childbirth? Well, then the strep infection probably would've gotten me. All things considered, I'll take 2012.

What about you? If you'd been born 200 years earlier, would you have reached your current age?

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Susanna Fraser enjoys 21st century comforts in the Pacific Northwest. She has two historical romances out with Carina, The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience. Her next book, An Infamous Marriage, releases November 5.

A Waterloo dinner

(Reposted with slight alterations from my personal blog.)


I've been saying for years, ever since I turned into a Napoleonic Wars military history geek and developed a historical crush on the Duke of Wellington, that I wanted to start hosting an annual Waterloo dinner on or around the battle's June 18 anniversary.

This year I put my money and my kitchen where my mouth was.  Now, I suppose you could do a Waterloo dinner with authentic 1815 foods, and I'd love to attempt such a meal someday...but I went with a Wellington as the main course and a Napoleon (aka a mille-feuille) for dessert, because, really, why wouldn't I?  As a wholly American, wholly non-aristocratic person hosting a Waterloo party, I've got to have my tongue somewhere in my cheek during this process.

Rather than a traditional beef Wellington, I made Alton Brown's Pork Wellington, which is the most delicious thing I've ever cooked myself. And if the Wellington was the best thing I've ever cooked, the Napoleon was the best dessert I've ever bought.  It came from Le Fournil, which is up there on my Seattle recommendations list with Tilth and Serious Pie.

I didn't get any pictures of the Wellington, but here's the Napoleon, accompanied by my desk toy/writing mascot Duke of Wellington:

The chocolate curls on the side got a little messed up in transit from the bakery, but I think you can still tell that's an awesome cake. And those glasses held a lovely, smoky-tasting tawny port.

I plan to continue this dinner in future years.  We were even riffing on the idea of a Waterloo seder, complete with questions like, "Why is this night different from any other night? On all other nights we eat our meat plain or lightly sauced. On this night why do we wrap it in puff pastry?"  Halfway through we'd send someone to the door to look for Blucher and the Prussian army, and Mr. Fraser thinks we should close with a particularly solemn rendition of this song.

Dead Blonds

Now that I've got a total of four completed manuscripts under my belt (three published or contracted, one under the bed), not to mention a fair number of false starts and abandoned ideas, I'm starting to notice certain subconscious habits and pet words. Personal cliches, if you will.

One of my most consistent cliches--and I swear it was entirely unconsciously done--is the Dead Tall Blond First Husband. In The Sergeant's Lady, Anna's abusive first husband, Sebastian, is blond, blue-eyed, handsome, and over six feet tall.  After his death, she finds happiness with Will, who's brown-haired and a few inches shorter.

The heroine of my upcoming An Infamous Marriage is also a widow. Her first husband, Giles, is entirely the opposite of Sebastian in character. He's kind, gentle, smart, sensitive--he really would've made a lovely beta hero had I been inclined to make him the star of a book.  But he looks  almost exactly like Sebastian, being a tall, blond, golden god type. Again the hero, Jack, is dark and just a smidge shorter.

And that book under the bed? Well, it doesn't actually have a Dead Tall Blond First Husband, but only because it was Book One of a projected fantasy series rather than romance, and my hero hadn't yet met his one true love. The hero in question? Think James from my A Marriage of Inconvenience, albeit 3-4 inches taller. Dark curly hair, bright blue eyes, athletic in a slim, lithe way rather than burly and muscular. In Book Two he was going to meet and fall in love with his eventual wife, with the <i>slight</i> initial objection that she's happily married to someone else. The hero, being heroic, keeps his feelings bottled up until Husband #1 dies--in the hero's arms in the aftermath of a battle, no less--but after that I'd planned to have things get messy, angsty, and passionate in a hurry.  Naturally Husband #1 needed to present some kind of physical contrast with Our Hero, so I immediately pictured him as...you guessed it, tall and blond.

I swear I don't have a death wish for blond men. I can even name several I think are very hot.  I mean, Sean Bean, ammirite?

And Matthew on Downton Abbey (Dan Stevens) is really quite pretty:

But in real life, my husband has black hair, and my ex-boyfriends and serious crushes from middle school on up? Brown or black hair. The last time I wanted to go out with a blond was, oh, fourth grade. So my default hero coloring is dark, and when I want to give the heroine a past with someone handsome, but not really my type, I go blond. And I like writing widows, since it allows me to write heroines slightly older and sexually experienced without needing any complex or historically unrealistic backstory. Therefore, by definition, the men in my heroines' pasts tend to be dead.

Still, I'm due for a blond hero soon.  At the very least, I promise to find a way other than hair color to draw a contrast between my heroes and their heroines' first husbands.

What about you? Writers, do you have Personal Cliches? Readers, have you noticed such patterns in authors you follow?

Help me name my next heroine!

I turned in the manuscript for my next Carina book, An Infamous Marriage, less than a week ago, so I’m taking the first half of April off from writing. But that doesn’t mean a break from thinking about my next (as yet uncontracted) project.

I’m still in the earliest research and brainstorming stage, but I’m planning to write a novella, working title Widow’s Choice, set in the same milieu as my debut book, The Sergeant’s Lady--i.e. with Wellington’s army on the Iberian Peninsula. Only this time neither the hero nor the heroine is an aristocrat.

The hero already has a name--Elijah Cameron--and as soon as I thought of it I knew I couldn’t possibly call him anything else. The heroine remains nameless...but you can help me change that!

I’m still working out the details of her backstory, but I know she’s an English country girl, possibly a farmer’s daughter or a former dairymaid. She’s very pretty in what I think of as a classically English way--chestnut hair, blue or gray eyes, and rosy cheeks. She’s the kind of woman you’d expect to meet walking down a lane like this, if you happened to be walking down it 200 years ago:



So I want her name to capture that essential Englishness, and in a way that sounds distinctive without sounding upper-class. Here are my ideas for her first and last name. The last name list is much longer because, as I sometimes complain to my critique partners, The Big Book of Historically Accurate Regency Baby Names is more like a pamphlet. Let me know which combination you think would best fit my character, or feel free to suggest alternatives. Right now I’m waffling between Jenny Steptoe and Rose Longshaw, but I’m willing to be persuaded.

First Names:

Sarah
Jenny
Rose

Last Names:

Barnshaw
Fairbrother
Hawcott
Holyoak
Hopcraft
Lamborn
Longshaw
Lovegrove
Maycock
Mellidew
Merrifield
Narroway
Snowhouse
Steptoe
Wellstood
Dowsing
Oxborrow

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Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience are available now from Carina Press.

Ads of yesteryear

As part of my research on the Hundred Days and Waterloo for my next Carina book, An Infamous Marriage, I've been poring over March and April 1815 editions of the Times of London to find out how the news of Napoleon's escape from Elba and resumption of the French throne spread through England--i.e., what would my hero and heroine know, and when would they know it?

Having access to the Times archive dating all the way back to 1788 is one of the nicer perks of my day job. I'm a grant analyst at the University of Washington, and my staff ID and login give me full access to the university's library resources. I love to just walk the upper floors of the Suzzallo-Allen Library, drinking in the old book smell. If anyone ever made that a perfume, I'd wear it.

But since the Times archives are online, I can view them from home, with my manuscript open in another window. So convenient...if I didn't keep getting distracted by everything else in the paper. The papers of 200 years ago look nothing like the ones we read now (or were reading until we started getting all our news from the internet instead!). There are no big headlines screaming out Bonaparte's deeds, and the front page is occupied by something our papers bury deep within: classified ads. (Whether or not that's the period-appropriate British term, I don't know, but that's exactly what they look like.)

I never thought I'd spend hours of fascination reading classified ads, but when they're almost 200 years old, they're a window into a bygone world. Here are a few that particularly caught my eye:

INSANITY -- WANTS a SITUATION, a middle-aged Woman, who has for many years been accustomed to attend the most respectable persons labouring under a state of MENTAL DERANGEMENT, and can have the most satisfactory recommendation. Address, post paid, to Mr Grinly, apothecary, 42 Marsham-street, Westminster.

WANTS a SITUATION, with a single gentleman (if with a foreigner, no objection), a Man who perfectly understands the capacity of travelling as VALET, &c, having had long practice in various parts of the Continent, France, &c; can speak French, English, &c; and prefers travelling on the French territories if convenient. Reference for character can be strongly obtained from an established family he is about to leave, which he has served for several years. Address, post paid, to Z.A.D., 20 Old Cavendish-street, Cavendish-square. No office letter can be admitted.

WANT of EDUCATION in Adults or young Persons SPEEDILY REMOVED; Greek, Latin, English, &c. are taught upon an easy method known to the ancients. Ista facile discuntur si habeas qui docere fideliter possit. Address by letter only, post paid, A.X. Eaton, stationer, 31, Strand.

N.B. Due to my own WANT of EDUCATION, I'm not sure I transcribed the Latin in the ad above precisely. The PDF scans are a little blurry in spots, which in English I can fill in from context clues. In Latin, NSM.

IF the PERSON who LEFT his FAMILY on Wednesday, the 7th instant, in the forenoon, will forward his BOOKS and PAPERS, together with such explanations as the nature of the unpleasant business may require, to the Jerusalem Tavern, St John's-square, Clerkenwell, properly packed up and secured, it will have a very material tendency to remove the present very great difficulty under which the different parties labour. J.D., of Berners-street, pledges his honour that if, in addition to the foregoing, the above person will appoint a time and place for an interview with J.D. only, nothing unpleasant shall result therefrom.



DOG LOST - TWO GUINEAS REWARD. LOST, about three weeks since, a POODLE; his hind quarters are sheared, both ears, and the top of his back, and the end of his tail, are of a dark brown; answers to the name of Hussar; had on when lost a collar, bearing the name of his master, --Rue St Dominque, Paris. Any person who will give such information as shall lead to recovery, shall receive a reward, at 5 Arlington-street, Piccadilly.

I swear any one of those could be the springboard of a plot. If I ever run short of ideas, I know where to go.

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Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience are available now from Carina Press.

Where were you?

There are a handful of events that for good or ill (more often for ill, unfortunately) are unforgettable. I’ll never forget where I was when I heard about the Challenger disaster--I was in 9th grade, and they announced it over the intercom during 4th period Alabama History.

I found out about the 9/11 attacks when I was awakened by a phone call from my parents, who were supposed to be flying into Seattle for a visit later that day. Mom said, “All flights have been canceled.” Assuming she meant all flights out of Birmingham, I asked if there’d been some kind of storm or problem at the airport. She told me there had been a terrorist attack and to turn on the TV.

And most recently, last spring I was waiting for dinner at Red Robin with my husband and daughter. Mr. Fraser and I were checking Twitter on our phones, as internet addicts are wont to do, when tweets started to buzz with the news that President Obama was about to “address the nation.”

It sounded ominous, so we speculated about possible war with Iran or North Korea. I also worried that it might be something like a hideous cancer diagnosis for either the President or the First Lady, and that he might be stepping down and handing the reins to Vice-President Biden because of it--ever since I lost both my parents to lung cancer, my mind goes to the C-word in a hurry.

Instead, of course, the big news was the death of Osama bin Laden. We’d figured it out from Twitter before one of the TV feeds in the restaurant switched from sports to the news--which was neither captioned nor audible in the noisy restaurant, so Mr. Fraser and I leaned over the booths to tell our fellow diners what was happening as soon as we heard their baffled concern. Eventually, the headline at the bottom of the screen said something like, “Bin Laden death confirmed,” and the line cooks, most of whom would’ve been in junior high on 9/11, started cheering and stomping their feet.

We were home by the time the president actually spoke, so Mr. Fraser and I stood together our den--somehow it seemed too solemn a moment for lounging on the couch--and listened.



In the time period I write about, there was plenty of momentous news, though of course it rippled through the world much more slowly. I imagine if I’d been born in 1771 instead of 1971, I’d remember where I was when I heard about the French Revolution and Trafalgar and Waterloo, to name a few. So, when I recently read a collection of first-hand accounts of Waterloo in The Hundred Days (compiled and edited by Antony Brett-James), I was intrigued to find a chapter about how the news reached France and Britain. I was then flabbergasted by the following account by Mrs. Boehm, the woman hosting the ball the Prince Regent was at when Wellington’s messenger arrived:

That dreadful night! Mr. Boehm had spared no cost to render it the most brilliant party of the season; but all to no purpose. Never did a party, promising so much, terminate so disastrously! All our trouble, anxiety, and expense were utterly thrown away in consequence of--what shall I say? Well, I must say it--the unseasonable declaration of the Waterloo victory! Of course, one was very glad to think one had beaten those horrid French, and all that sort of thing; but still, I always shall think it would have been far better if Henry Percy had waited quietly till the morning, instead of bursting in upon us, as he did, in such indecent haste; and even if he had told the Prince alone, it would have been better; for I have no doubt his Royal Highness would have shown consideration enough for my feelings not to have published the news till the next morning.

...After dinner was over, and the ladies had gone upstairs, and the gentlemen had joined them, the ball guests began to arrive. They came with unusual punctuality, out of deference to the Regent’s presence. After a proper interval, I walked up to the Prince, and asked if it was his Royal Highness’s pleasure that the ball should open. The first quadrille was in the act of forming, and the Prince was walking up to the dais on which his seat was placed, when I saw everyone without the slightest sense of decorum rushing to the windows, which had been left wide open because of the excessive sultriness of the weather. The music ceased and the dance was stopped; for we heard nothing but the vociferous shouts of an enormous mob, who had just entered the square, and were running by the side of a post-chaise and four, out of whose windows were hanging three nasty French eagles. In a second the door of the carriage was flung open, and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, out sprang Henry Percy--such a dusty figure!--with a flag in each hand, pushing aside everyone who happened to be in his way, darting up stairs, into the ball-room, stepping hastily up to the Regent, dropping on one knee, laying the flags at his feet, and pronouncing the words “Victory, Sir! Victory!”

The Prince Regent, greatly overcome, went into an adjoining room to read the despatches; after a while he returned, said a few sad words to us, sent for his carriage, and left the house. The royal brothers soon followed suit; and in less than twenty minutes there was not a soul left in the ballroom but poor dear Mr. Boehm and myself.

Such a scene of excitement, anxiety, and confusion never was witnessed before or since, I do believe! Even the band had gone, not only without uttering a word of apology, but even without taking a mouthful to eat. The splendid supper which had been provided for our guests stood in the dining-room untouched. Ladies of the highest rank, who had not ordered their carriages till four o’clock a.m., rushed away, like maniacs, in their muslins and satin shoes, across the Square; some accompanied by gentlemen, others without escort of any kind; all impatient to learn the fate of those dear to them; many jumping into the first stray hackney-coaches they fell in with, and hurrying on to the Foreign Office or Horse Guards, eager to get a sight of the List of Killed and Wounded.

I first read that account nearly a month ago, and it still boggles my mind every time I re-read it. I can understand that it would suck to put down the kind of money it would take to throw a ball for the highest of London’s elite and have it all go to waste. But to still resent it, years later (her account is from 1831), when it was abundantly clear just how important Waterloo was? And the way she seems to focus on breaches of propriety above all else--Henry Percy was dusty, and he shoved people out of the way in his haste to reach the Prince Regent. One might almost think he was bearing critical news for his country’s acting head of state or something! Not to mention those ladies running out in their muslin gowns and slippers, with or without escort, all because they had brothers or sons or sweethearts with the army and wanted to know if they were still alive. How shocking! And lest you think her reaction is somehow typical of her time, the behavior of her guests belies it. Also, all the other accounts sound remarkably like what happens now in those moments we all remember--normal social barriers breaking down, everyone turning out into the streets to talk it over, etc.

(The painting illustrating this post is David Wilkie’s Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo Dispatch, which the Duke of Wellington commissioned at a cost of 1200 guineas. I think it’s a more typical reaction than Mrs. Boehm’s, don’t you?)
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Susanna Fraser writes Regency romance with a focus on the Napoleonic Wars. The Sergeant's Lady and A Marriage of Inconvenience are available now from Carina Press.