When Women Had No Legal Rights

By Beverley Eikli

Until 1991 a woman who fled an abusive husband had no legal recourse if he chose to force her return, or deny her her children.

As a writer of historicals and historical romance it's always a balancing act to create a heroine who is on the one hand not too passive for the tastes of the modern reader, nor unrealistic in the actions she takes to exercise her free will. After all, she had no financial or legal independence and was totally dependant on the goodwill of her husband or nearest male relative, unless she were a widow.

Emily, in my Regency espionage historical romance (with mystery, adventure and suspense), has had no choice but to marry Angus, a passionately self-contained war hero, in order to maintain her honour, and that of her family - and keep her child. My Regency espionage romance details Emily's blossoming from downtrodden and ill-used to a woman who deserves the happiness she's fighting for.

Below is the first altercation she has with her new husband which shows something of her feelings for her situation, as well as her self image. 

I hope you enjoy it.

 Here's the set-up:

Angus and Emily, newly married, have just been visited unexpectedly by Angus’s brother and his unsuitable consort. Emily, embarrassed by her highly pregnant state and knowing it will cause gossip amongst Angus’s family, reacts in this scene to her husband’s apologies for the situation Emily has just confronted.

With deliberate care Emily set down the plates once more and turned to look at her husband through narrowed eyes.

‘For contaminating me with a lady of dubious repute? But Angus, how much worse a contaminant would I have been had you not married me?’ She patted her swollen belly. ‘You’d be apologising to your brother. A fallen woman—’

‘Don’t speak like that.’ His wide-set eyes burned with undeserved defence of her. ‘Men’s impulses can be ungovernable, but ladies do not suffer such … urges … You were … taken advantage of.’

Emily stared at him. She sucked in a long, quavering breath as her simmering anger came finally to the boil. Is that what he believed? That she was insensible to passion? And that was a good thing?

‘What would you say if I told you that my impulses were every bit as ungovernable as Jack’s?’ She could barely control her anger sufficiently to speak. For days she had forced her feelings into the background, using the same emotional device against her unwanted husband as she had when her father insulted her, shutting out the hurt by erecting a barrieras impenetrable as steel.

Now, feeling surged through her, blackening her vision and causing her to sway. She put her hand on the back of the sofa to steady herself.

Angus stood awkwardly by the door, as if unsure whether to move closer to support her, or beat a tactful retreat.

Emily glared at him. ‘What if I told you that I was so consumed by passion in Jack’s arms I would not have heeded the Blessed Virgin Mary cautioning me against the temptations of the flesh?’ She tried to regulate her breathing, but the rage was clawing its way further up her body, threatening to make her its puppet. She, who never lost her temper. ‘I loved Jack. I was his slave in passion, every bit as culpable as he. If you are so concerned for virtue, spare your condemnation of innocent Miss Galway. You need only cast your eyes upon your wife to be singed by my sin. There! I have confessed my true nature. Whatever you thought of me before, you cannot but think worse of me now.’ She registered the horror in his eyes and was glad for it. Much better that she banish any pretence between them.

She’d never expressed anger as poisonous as this. At first it frightened her, then it sent exhilaration pulsing through her. Her love for Jack had been cut off at the root. Now hatred filled her veins, making her feel alive again. ‘And so you know, I care nothing for your opinion,’ she added.

She managed to remain upright, though her vision came in waves. She could feel her strength leaving her, but she had to spit out the truth so he’d have no illusions as to the kind of woman he’d married. A woman no good man deserved.

‘You married me because you needed a wife. I married you so I could keep my child. We made a contract. My body is yours to do with as you please, but that is all you will ever have. My thoughts, my feelings, my love will be forever out of bounds to you.

end of excerpt

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Alpha Hero, or Beta?

By Beverley Eikli

I love an historical beta hero. Give me one who has a brooding, taciturn exterior hiding a passionate heart.

That's my Angus in The Reluctant Bride, though having said that, there is a touch of alpha there, too.  As a returning war hero he's proved incredibly courageous but he's also brooding and burdened by events which forced his hand during the retreat to Corunna, in 1809 several years before my story begins.

Angus has unexpectedly found an opportunity to rescue Emily, the woman he's loved from afar, by marrying her, but unfortunately during his first meeting with her to pass on news of the death of her fiancé, he tells her a lie to spare her the pain of knowing how Jack really died.

Now Angus is determined to do whatever it takes to win Emily, his emotionally distant new wife - except tell her the truth. That's not possible. Yet.

Angus is also an alpha hero in that he sets about winning Emily with honour and action when he's sent abroad on a mission of national importance. The beta side of him is revealed in that  he treats Emily with more understanding than she deserves as she’s so stubbornly resistant to his overtures.  One of the challenges I had was showing Emily in a sympathetic light when she's so unkind to Angus to begin with.  But she's just lost her beloved fiancé and the main events in the story span eight months, which isn't terribly long to grieve.

Here's the opening scene in The Reluctant Bride. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter One

‘It’s not a sin, unless you get caught.’

 

The gentle breeze seemed to whisper Jack’s teasing challenge, its soft, silken fingers tugging at Emily’s ingrained obedience. She put down her basket and stared with longing at the waters below, sweat prickling her scalp beneath her poke bonnet as desire warred with fear of the consequences.

 

‘Where’s your sense of adventure, Em?’

 

Still resisting, Emily closed her eyes, but the wind’s wicked suggestiveness was like the caress of Jack’s breath against her heated cheek; daring Emily to shrug aside a lifetime of dutiful subservience – again – and peel off her clothes, this time to plunge into the inviting stream beneath the willows.

 

She imagined Jack’s warm brown eyes glinting with wickedness. Taunting her like the burr that had worked its way into the heel of her woollen stockings during her walk.

 

Exhaling on a sigh, Emily opened her eyes and admitted defeat as she succumbed to the pull of the reed-fringed waters.

 

Desire had won, justified by practicality. If she had to remove one stocking to dislodge the burr she might as well remove both.

 

Scrambling down the embankment, she lowered herself onto a rock by the water’s edge. Her father would never know. If he glanced from his study in the tower room, where he was doubtless gloating over his balance sheet, he’d assume she was a village lass making her way along the track. Emily had never seen him interest himself in the poor except …

 

Like most unpleasant memories, she tried to cast this one out with a toss of her head, still glad her father had never

discovered what she’d witnessed from her bedroom window one evening five years ago: the curious sight of Bartholomew

Micklen ushering the beggar girl who’d arrived on his doorstep into his carriage.

 

Then climbing in after her before it rumbled down the driveway and out of sight.

 

Now was just another of those moments when Emily was glad her father remained in ignorance. Her insurance, should she need it, was that she knew a few of her father’s secrets the excise men might just want to know.

 

By the time the first stocking had followed Emily’s boots onto the grassy bank she was bursting with anticipation for her swim.

 

What did one more sin matter when she’d be Mrs Jack Noble in less than a week?

End of Excerpt

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Lady Sarah's Redemption

By Beverley Eikli

 

The Regency Period has been an obsession with me for as long as I can remember, so it was a sad day when I realised I’d finished every Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer Regency Romance published.

By that stage I knew my obsession would only be sated if I wrote my own, so, at 17, I began a rambling attempt which culminated with the drowning, on page 550, of my heroine.

 I’ve learned a lot since then. My heroine, in my first Regency Romance Lady Sarah’s Redemption nearly drowned, but I knew by now that in order for it to be called a romance it had to have a happy ending.

My first three Regencies written under my Beverley Eikli name were passionate stories of angst-filled romance peppered with intrigue, mystery and suspense.

And they all had happy endings.

These romances were originally published by Robert Hale (UK) in hardcover so I am delighted the first two – Lady Sarah’s Redemption and Lady Farquhar’s Butterfly - are now available on kindle.

Below is the premise for Lady Sarah’s Redemption.

When spoiled heiress Lady Sarah Miles assumes the identity of a drowned governess to escape marriage to her best friend, James, she thinks her troubles will be over within the fortnight.

Arriving at the grand estate of reformist MP Roland Hawthorne to take charge of the tortured widower's rebellious sixteen-year-old daughter, Caro, Sarah unexpectedly forms a strong attachment to the occupants of her new household.

But when Sarah’s deceit plays into the hands of an unexpected adversary who uses Caro as a pawn in a high stakes game of revenge, Sarah must risk everything she holds dear - including her love for Roland - to redeem herself.

And here is an excerpt:

Now why was he looking at her like that? Sarah wondered indignantly. Had she dropped sauce upon her dress?

Instantly she saw him colour and his eyes return to her face where they were now fixed, grimly. She stifled the impulse to smile. Oh ho, so the master did appreciate a pretty face and figure. Only right now he was doing his best to fight it.

The observation gave her confidence.

Yes, Sarah had learned a thing or two about men since storming her way out of the schoolroom as a precocious fifteen-year-old to play hostess at her father’s parliamentary dinners after her mother had died.

Mr Hawthorne, however, was unlike any of the men her father entertained. Dangerous radicals like Roland Hawthorne did not receive invitations from Lord Miles.

Yet he hardly looked the threat to law and order, as her father would have maintained. Larchfield, with its exquisite grounds and works or art was a testament to refinement.

Mr Hawthorne, himself, was a fine specimen of civilized manhood, far more to her taste than the pleasure-seeking rakes and popinjays her father entertained and who regularly made up to her. Well, as much as she would allow them. She quickly tired of their vanity and pomposity, although she’d pretended to encourage it. It was, after all, what was expected.

She flashed him another smile and was surprised and gratified by his brief awkwardness.

Clearly, there was more to her employer than met the eye. How intriguing. If this was a man who could smoulder with passion for a heartless beauty seven years ago, thought Sarah, she would be more than interested to find out what excited his passions now that he had apparently adopted a more sober outlook on life.

She bowed her head. “I accept your censure, sir. I will not turn Caro’s head with foolish nonsense. And I shall read the news sheets, for I must admit, I had in fact been reading some gossip column whose talk of the Carlton House Set I had thought might divert the girls—” she stopped, adding ingeniously as she interpreted his glowering look — “with examples of deplorable behaviour to be condemned.”

Mr Hawthorne seemed to struggle for words.

“Miss Morecroft,” he said finally, “you are here to instruct the girls in simple arithmetic, spelling, French and drawing. Not to provide moral guidance. That,” he added, crisply, “is something you can leave to me.”

He nodded in dismissal.

Sarah hesitated, about to cast one of those seductive lures which came naturally and which had successfully hooked many an admirer in the past.

No. Coquetry was not going to win over Mr. Hawthorne despite experience showing her men liked their women beautiful and vacuous. She paused, turning, her hand on the door knob. He nodded stiffly, his eyes nevertheless lingering upon her.

Her heart gave an unexpected little skip. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt such anticipation.  

For a short time Lady Sarah’s Redemption is available on kindle for just 0.99c.

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Beverley writes traditional Regency romances as Beverley Eikli and erotic or sensual historicals as Beverley Oakley.