Monk of the Order of St. Francis. Nocturnal Revels, or the History of King’s Place and Other Modern Nunneries. Vols. 1 and 2. London: Printed for M. Goadby, 1779. http://archive.org/details/NocturnalRevelsOrTheHistoryOfKings-placeAndOtherModernNunneriesVol
Nevinson, John L. Origin and Early History of the Fashion Plate. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press, 1967. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34472
Perigal, F. The Year 1800, or the Sayings and Doings of Our Fathers and Mothers 60 Years Ago As Recorded in the Newspapers and Other Periodicals. 3rd ed. London: Published by Edward Standford, 1861.
Pickering and Chatto. A Collection of Choice, Old and Rare Books. London: Pickering and Chatto, 1921. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101073853770;view=1up;seq=611
Price, Julius M. Dame Fashion: Paris—London. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1913. http://archive.org/details/damefashionparis00pricuoft
Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, Vol. 7. London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1825. https://books.google.com/books?id=swUVAAAAQAAJ
Smeeton, George. Doings in London: or Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis. London: Orlando Hodgson, 1828.
Stanley, Louis T. The London Season. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956.
Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1873.
Tibbits, Charles. Trials from the Newgate Calendar. London: Sisley’s, 1908. http://archive.org/stream/trialsfromnewgat00lond#page/n5/mode/2up
Tinperley, Charles H. Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical Anecdote. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1842.
Weatherby, Charles. The General Stud Book: Pedigrees of Race Horses. London, England: C. and H. Reynell, 1832.
Weatherby, Edward and James. The Racing Calendar for the Year 1816. London, England: C. and H. Reynell, 1816.
Weatherbys Creative. 2013. http://www.weatherbys.co.uk/stud-book/history
Wheble, John. “Address to the Public.” The Sporting Magazine. October 1792.
Wheble, John. “Address to the Public.” The Sporting Magazine. June 1811.
Whitney, William Dwight. The Century Dictionary an Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language. New York: Century Company, 1889. http://archive.org/details/centurydictipt1300whituoft
Wilcox, R. Turner. Mode in Hats and Headdress (Masterwork of Fashion and History) New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. http://archive.org/details/ModeInHatsAndHeaddressmasterworkOfFashionAndHistory
Wyndham, Henry. The Annals of Covent Garden Theatre from 1732 to 1897. London: Chatto and Windus, 1906. http://archive.org/details/annalsofcoventga01wynduoft
Additional Books
Alexander, William. Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the English. London: Thomas M’Lean, 1813. http://archive.org/details/picturesquerepre00alex
Cooper-Hewitt Museum; Harting, Joan Lancaster. Fashion Plates in the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. New York: The Museum, 1982. http://archive.org/details/fashionplatesinc00coop
Cosnett, Thomas. The Footman’s Directory, and Butler’s Remembrancer, or The Advice of Onesimus to His Young Friends: Comprising, Hints on the Arrangement and Performance of Their Work, Rules for Setting out Tables and Sideboards, the Art of Waiting at Table, and Conducting Large and Small Parties, Directions for Cleaning Plate, Glass, Furniture, Clothes, and All Other Things Which Come Within the Care of a Man-servant, and Advice Respecting Behaviour to Superiors, Tradespeople and Fellow-servants: with an Appendix, Comprising Various Useful Receipts and Tables. London: J. Hatchard and Son, 1823. http://archive.org/details/footmansdirector00cosn
Fairholt, Frederick William and Harold Arthur Dillon, Viscount. Costume in England: A History of Dress to the End of the Eighteenth Century. Vols. 1 and 2. London: George Bell and Sons, 1896. http://archive.org/details/costumeinengland01fairuoft
Gardiner, Florence Mary. The Evolution of Fashion. London: Cotton Press, 1897. http://archive.org/details/evolutionoffashi00gardiala
Hill, Georgiana. A History of English Dress from the Saxon Period to the Present Day. Vols. 1 and 2. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1893. http://archive.org/details/historyofenglish01hill and http://archive.org/details/historyofenglish02hill
Hughes, Talbot. Dress Design: An Account of Costume for Artists & Dressmakers. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, reprint 1920. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34903
Levy, Martin. Love & Madness. New York: William Morrow, 2004.
Lovric, Michelle. (Ed.) Love Letters: An Anthology of Passion. Shooting Star Press, 1994.
O’Donoghue, Power. Ladies on Horseback: Learning, Park-Riding, and Hunting, with Hints upon Costume and Numerous Anecdotes. London: W. H. Allen and Company, 1881. http://archive.org/details/ladiesonhorseba00dongoog
Smeeton, George. Doings in London: or Day and Night Scenes of the Frauds, Frolics, Manners, and Depravities of the Metropolis. London: Orlando Hodgson, 1828.
Stone, Elizabeth. Chronicles of Fashion: From the Time of Elizabeth to the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century, in Manners, Amusements, Banquets, Costume, etc. London: Richard Bentley, 1845. http://archive.org/details/chroniclesoffash02ston
The Toilette of Health, Beauty, and Fashion. London: Wittenoom and Cremer, 1832. http://archive.org/details/toiletteofhealth00londrich
Webb, Wilfred Mark. The Heritage of Dress; Being Notes on the History and Evolution of Clothes. London: E. Grant Richards, 1907. http://archive.org/details/heritageofdressb00webbuoft
William, Jesse. The Life of George Brummell, Esq., Commonly Called Beau Brummell. London: Saunders and Otley, 1844. http://archive.org/details/lifegeorgebrumm01jessgoog
Wingfield, Lewis. English Costume and Fashion from the Conquest to the Regency. London: Hope and Company, 1884. http://archive.org/details/englishcostumefa00wing
An Excerpt from Seven Minutes in Heaven
Coming soon in early 2017
SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN
The sequel to Four Nights with the Duke
Click here to preorder!
[9780062389466]
Chapter One
April 16, 1801
Snowe’s Registry Office for Select Governesses
14 Belgrave Square
London
Nothing ruins a dinner party like expertise. A lady who has attended fourteen lectures about Chinese statuary will Ming this and Ming that all evening; a baron who has published an essay about vultures in a zoological magazine will undoubtedly hold forth on the unpleasant habits of carrion-eaters.
Eugenia Snowe’s area of expertise, to the contrary, would have made dinner guests squeal with laughter, if only it were appropriate to share. For example, she knew precisely how the Countess of Bedford’s second-best wig had made its way onto the head of a terrified piglet, who dashed across the terrace when the vicar was taking tea. She knew which of the Duke of Fletcher’s offspring had stolen a golden toothpick and an enameled chamber pot and, even better, what he did with them.
Not only did she have to keep those delicious details to herself—she couldn’t even burst into laughter until she was in private. As the owner of the most elite agency for governesses in the whole of the British Isles, she had to maintain decorum at all times.
No laughing! Not even when her parlor maid ushered in a boy wearing a tapestry curtain pinned like a Roman toga—although the gleaming, glistening blue that covered the exposed bits of his body warred with the senatorial drape of his clothing.
His mother, Lady Pibble, trailed in after him. Eugenia didn’t see many blue boys in the course of a day, but she often saw mothers with the hysterical air of a woman who has failed to corral the species of wild animal known as an eight-year-old boy.
“Lady Pibble and the Honorable Marmeduke Pibble,” her parlor maid announced.
“Good afternoon, Winnie,” Eugenia said, rising from her desk and coming around to greet her ladyship with genuine pleasure. Her old school-friend Winifre
d was lovely, as sweet and soft as meringue.
Alas, those are not helpful characteristics when it comes to raising children. Fate or Nature had cunningly matched Winnie with her opposite: Marmeduke was a devilishly troublesome boy by any measure, and Eugenia considered herself an expert on the subject.
“I can’t do it!” Lady Winifred wailed by way of greeting, staggering across the room and collapsing on the sofa. “I’m at my wit’s end, Eugenia. My wit’s end! If you don’t give me a governess, I shall leave him here with you. I mean it!” The way her voice rose to a shriek made her threat very persuasive.
Marmeduke didn’t seem in the least dismayed at the idea of being deserted in Snowe’s Registry Office. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Snowe,” he said cheerfully, making a reasonable bow considering that he was holding a homemade bow, a fistful of arrows, and an extremely fat frog. “I’m an ancient Pict and a smuggler,” he announced.
“Good afternoon, Marmeduke. I didn’t realize that smugglers came in different hues,” Eugenia observed.
“Smugglers may not be blue, but Picts always are,” he explained. “They were Irish warriors who painted themselves for battle. My father told me about them.” He held up his frog. “I started to paint Fred too, but he didn’t like it.”
“Fred is looking considerably plumper than last time I met him,” Eugenia said.
“You were right about cabbage worms,” he said, grinning. “He loves them.”
“I can smell beeswax—which I gather turned you blue—but is that odor of river mud thanks to Fred?”
Marmeduke sniffed loudly, and nodded. “Fred stinks.”
“Don’t say ‘stinks,’ darling,” his mother said from the depths of the sofa, where she had draped the handkerchief over her eyes. “You may describe something as smelly, but only if you absolutely must.”
“He smells like a rotten egg,” Marmeduke elaborated. “Though not nearly as rank as Lady Hubert when she came out of the river.”
Winnie gave a stifled moan, the kind one might hear from a woman in the grips of labor. “I almost forgot about the river. Eugenia, I am not going home until you give me a governess.”
“I cannot,” Eugenia said patiently. “I’ve explained to you, Winnie, that—”
Winnie sat up, handkerchief clutched in her hand, and pointed to her son. “Tell her!” she said in throbbing accents. “Tell her what you said to Lady Hubert! I wouldn’t drag him here if it was simply a matter of turning blue. I am inured to dirt.”
For the first time, Marmeduke looked a bit fidgety, shifting his weight to one leg and tucking the other up so that he looked like a blue stork. “Lady Hubert said that I should always tell the truth, so I did.”
“That sounds ominous,” Eugenia said, biting back yet another smile. “Where were you when Lady Hubert gave you this inestimable advice?”
“We were having a picnic by Thames, down at the bottom of our lawn,” Winnie said, answering for her son. “Did I mention that Lady Hubert is Marmeduke’s godmother and has no children of her own? We had rather hoped. . .but no. After today, no.”
“She gave me a sermon just like those in church except that she’s a lady,” Marmeduke said, apparently deciding to get it over with. “She said as how deceit and hippocrasty are barriers to a holy life.”
“Hypocrisy,” Eugenia said. “Do go on.”
“So I did it.”
“What?”
“Well, first I entertained her by doing the dance of the Picts. They’re wild savages. They howl. Would you like to see?” He gave Eugenia a hopeful look.
She shook her head. “I shall use my imagination. Did Lady Hubert enjoy your performance?”
“She didn’t like it much,” Marmeduke conceded, “but she wasn’t too stuffed. Then she asked me what I thought about the book of church history that she had brought me for my birthday last month, and had I read the whole thing.”
“Oh dear,” Eugenia said.
“I was being honest, like she said to, so I told her that I didn’t like it because it was boring and three hundred pages long. Mother was kerfluffled after that, but she settled down and after a while, Lady Hubert asked me what I thought of her new gown. I said that it would look better if she hadn’t eaten an entire side of beef. Father always said that about her.”
“It was not kind to repeat your father’s comment,” Eugenia said. She had discovered over the years that children learned best from simple statements of fact.
He scowled. “I was being honest and besides, after I did the warrior dance she said that my father likely passed on because he needed a rest cure.”
“That was truly unkind,” Eugenia said with her own scowl, “and very untrue, Marmeduke. Your father was a war hero who would have done anything to stay with you and your mother.”
She glanced over at Winnie, who was flat on her back again with an arm thrown over her eyes.
Marmeduke hunched up one shoulder by way of reply.
“Did you throw, push, or otherwise inveigle Lady Hubert into the Thames?” Eugenia said, feeling a wave of dislike for the lady in question.
“No! She fell in all by herself.”
“After a horned beetle that my son had around his person found its way onto her arm and ran inside her sleeve,” Winnie clarified.
“I wouldn’t have thought she could leap like that,” Marmeduke said, with an air of scientific discovery. “Being as she was so large and all, but she did, and into the water she went.”
“Head first,” Winnie added hollowly.
“I wish I’d seen it,” Eugenia said, pulling the cord to summon her parlor maid.
“It was funny,” Marmeduke confided, “because her clothes were all frilly pink underneath, though of course they had turned black by the time we hauled her out. I had to run for the footmen, and then two grooms as well, because the bank was so slippery with mud that it was hard to haul her out. The butler said later that it was like getting a water buffalo out of a mud hole.”
“That’s an extremely vulgar description,” his mother said, with the patient voice of a vicar sermonizing in Latin to an audience of laborers.
The door opened. “Ruby,” Eugenia said, “I should like you to take Master Marmeduke into the garden and throw a few buckets of water over him.”
“Mrs. Snowe!” Marmeduke said, dropping back a step, his eyes widening.
“It’s not only Fred who smells. What did you mix in the beeswax to get that color?”
“Indigo powder from my paint box but the color wasn’t right so I mashed up some blueberries too.”
“A good washing should get off the blueberries,” Eugenia said to Ruby. “I’m not sure about the indigo powder.”
“I don’t want to,” Marmeduke wailed. “Mommy said that I could keep it on until bedtime.”
“Fred is looking very dry,” Eugenia said firmly. “He needs a bath as well.”
Ruby was the eldest of seven; she walked over Marmeduke, took his arm, and marched him straight out of the room.
Winnie sat up to watch him go, blotting her eyes. “He wouldn’t have gone with me, nor with Nanny either. May I borrow your parlor maid for a governess?”
Eugenia sat down beside the sofa. “Marmeduke needs to go to school, dear.”
“He’s my baby,” Winnie said, her eyes filling with tears again. “I merely need a governess, Eugenia. Why won’t you give me a governess?”
“Because Marmeduke needs to be around other boys. Didn’t his father put his name down for Eton?”
“I can’t let him go.”
“You must.”
“You don’t understand,” Winnie wailed. “Darling Marmeduke is all I have left of John. You just don’t know how hard it is to be widowed and all alone!”
There was a moment’s silence.
“I didn’t mean that,” Winnie said hastily. “Of course, you’re a widow too.”
“But it’s different for you,” Eugenia said. “For me, it’s been seven years.”
“That
’s what I meant,” Winnie said, blowing her nose. “I just want my son home with me, where he belongs.”
“He belongs with other boys. This is the third time you’ve been to see me in as many weeks, isn’t it?”
Winnie nodded, her blue eyes filling with tears again. “There was that thing that happened to the cat—its fur is all growing back in, thank goodness—and then all the frontispieces of the hymn books. Yesterday the vicar greeted me in a horridly stiff manner. And my Uncle Theodore still believes that we have a monkey as a pet; I daren’t tell him what really happened to his corset.”
Eugenia wrapped her arm around Winnie. “Eton,” she said firmly. “Send them a letter and tell them Marmeduke will attend the Michaelmas Term. I’ll send you a tutor, a young man who can take your son fishing when they’re done with studies.”
“His father planned to teach him to fish, just as soon as he got back from fighting in Portugal,” Winnie said, hiccupping and then dissolving back into tears.
“Oh, honey,” Eugenia whispered, easing Winnie’s head onto her shoulder. When she had begun the registry office seven years ago, she’d had no idea that she’d find herself at the center of so many domestic crises. She could write a book about the hidden dramas of high society.
Of course, when it came to widowhood, birth or place in society was irrelevant.
The desk was piled with letters, and there were undoubtedly parents waiting to see her in the parlor. Eugenia rocked Winnie back and forth as she watched Marmeduke scampering around the back garden.
“I suppose I’ll take him home now,” Winnie said damply, straightening up. “Nanny will not be pleased by what’s happened to the nursery curtain.”
“I think tea and cakes are in order,” Eugenia said. “Eight year old boys are always hungry.”
“I couldn’t! You don’t want him to sit down on your lovely chairs.”
That was true.
“Take him to a tea garden,” Eugenia suggested. “You can sit outside, which means Fred won’t cause a commotion either.”