Details from a Gentleman’s Study

Images taken by me (Leenie Brown) at Uniacke Estate Museum Park, Nova Scotia

Today’s excerpt takes place in the study at Longbourn so I thought I’d gather a few images of different desks and desk items I’ve taken pictures of over the years when visiting various historical houses. However, I found that I only needed images from one historical house.

These pictures were taken at a Sunset and Shadows a few years ago at Uniacke Estate Museum Park. That evening, those in attendance were allowed to go behind the ropes and into the rooms. We were even allowed to peek inside drawers (that’s how I got the top middle picture) and cupboards. It was wonderful getting to see and photograph the rooms from different angles.

Uniacke Estate was built as a summer home between the years 1813 and 1816. The study is a small room with lots of interesting things in it. More things than I have pictured. The gentleman who owned the home, Richard John Uniacke, was, at one point in his career, Nova Scotia’s attorney-general. So, as you might imagine a study would have been an important room for such a man. And the shelves were lined with many legal books.

I have no idea if Mr. Bennet had any books in his study that would also have been on Mr. Uniacke’s shelves, but I do think he would have loved the little room with it’s desk, chairs, walls of books, and scientific equipment.

It is Mr. Bennet’s study in which the following prologue to Not an Heiress is set. This prologue lays the foundation for the scheme that will play out in the book.

I must warn you a little bit about this book. If you like your reading to be squeaky clean. This one is not that. It’s clean, but it’s closed door/fade to black clean. The hero and heroine do fall into a compromising position or two over the course of the story and we know that impropriety has taken place. There is no sex on the page but there is off the page and before the couple is married.

And if you expect all good-girls like Mary Bennet who read sermons to always be good and beyond the temptation that is presented by a handsome officer, then, this book is going to disappoint you because even good-girls can fall prey to desires when circumstances are arranged to leave no means of escape. 😉

However, if you like a different sort of Lady Catherine who is fun, that you’ll find in this story.

Not an Heiress is set in the spring around Easter a few years after Darcy and Elizabeth are married and is a sequel to Discovering Mr. Darcy in which Lady Catherine with the help of Colonel Fitzwilliam scheme to see Darcy and Elizabeth happily married. In this book, it’s Richard’s turn to find his happily ever after via a trap laid by his aunt.

And as a special treat to welcome spring, today, and today only, Not an Heiress, which is in Kindle Unlimited, is FREE to download in the Kindle store.

Continue reading Details from a Gentleman’s Study

Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly (Cinderella 2015)

I thought we would start this week with a lovely song from a screen version of my favourite fairytale and a few lines from a story where a lady with little by way of fortune finds an unlikely “fairy godmother” who provides her with the opportunity to marry her very own prince, I mean, colonel. 😉



Not an Heiress is part of my Dash of Darcy and Companions collection and is a sequel to Discovering Mr. Darcy. This novella is available as a single title and also as part of Cottage Collection 1.

I would say Not an Heiress falls in the realm of being rom-com and pushes at the upper end of my PG-13 rating since an actual compromise does happen. (Not on the page, but it does happen.)

Currently, you can get Cottage Collection 1 for the same price as Not an Heiress by itself. Cottage Collection 2 is on sale for 40% off at Kobo, so I decided to lower the price of Collection 1 at the same time. More info and links can be found on the Current Book Promotions page.



House of Commons (Microcosm of London)

Microcosm of London Plate no. 021, House of Commons. Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) and Augustus Charles Pugin (1762–1832) (after) John Bluck (fl. 1791–1819), Joseph Constantine Stadler (fl. 1780–1812), Thomas Sutherland (1785–1838), J. Hill, and Harraden (aquatint engravers)[1], Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“Do you truly love me?”

He held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. This woman, who lay beneath him, whose hands had slid from his hair to rest on his jaw as a finger traced his ear, was all he wanted.  Not a seat in parliament and definitely not some lady of the ton even if she had bags of money.  “Yes, very much.  Marry me.”

from Not an Heiress


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Music Monday: Dance of the Imagination (Greg Maroney)

Guess what starts tomorrow? 😀

Grace Love was not the sort of lady who sat on the side during dances. She was not the sort of lady who stayed at home when there was an outing to the park. She was not the sort of lady who avoided any sort of fun. Or, at least, she had not been such a lady until now. And all it had taken for Grace’s world to change had been one house party.

With eyes narrowed, she watched the progress of her sister’s hat as the carriage Felicity was perched in made its way down the street.

“Grace, dear, do not spill your tea on that chair.”

“Of course, Mama.” Grace pulled her attention back to the sitting room in the house they were renting for the season and away from her treacherous sister.

[from Her Secret Bea, Touches of Austen Book 3]

Provided to YouTube by CDBaby. Published on YouTube on July 5, 2015.

I had considered attempting to find songs with either the word secret or whisper in the title for each week that this story posts. However, I do not know how many weeks that will be, and I thought I might get bored of that. 😀 So, I might toss in a few secretively titled songs over the weeks but not every week. This week, I have selected a song that is on my Music to Write By playlist on Spotify that has a title which reflects what must happen as a story is being written. The imagination must dance! 🙂

And my imagination has been dancing. I am not sure how many conversations Mary and Wes have had in my mind this week. It all has to do with future possibilities, however, and not the portion of the story I am currently writing. They are even making it a bit of a challenge to focus on any other story but theirs. But then, we should expect Lord Westonbury to be a bit troublesome, shouldn’t we? LOL  Continue reading Music Monday: Dance of the Imagination (Greg Maroney)


Music Monday: Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms

Today, I am reaching into Georgiana’s Music Folder and am including both a beautiful instrumental version of this song that has a wonderful storytelling video with it and a lovely vocal version so that you can hear the lyrics.

The instrumental version has this bit of information about the song as part of the introduction. I typed it out here so that it would be easier to read. It’s a beautiful story.

“Thomas Moore, the Irish Poet, upon his return home from war, found his wife to be unwilling to let him see her. During his tour abroad, she had contracted smallpox, disfiguring enough to hide her face from him. Ever devoted to her and their love, Thomas penned a song that he sang softly to her through the bedroom door. He was hoping to woo her back into his graces and to once again see her face.”

Published to YouTube by Jenny Oaks Baker on February 9, 2015.

Published to YouTube by JamesPigBandit on November 28, 2010.

There is a story connection that goes with this song, but I am not revealing that today. I’ll let you discover it on Thursday in the last chapter of Loving Lydia. 🙂 If you’re the sentimental softy sort like I am, you might want to have a tissue handy for that last chapter, just in case your eyes get misty. 😉 At least, I hope I’m not the only one who needed a tissue as I did when writing it and then every time I have read the chapter since. But then, sentimental sweetness (I had read his story about Thomas Moore so that was in my mind) mixed with the end of a story always tugs on my heartstrings.

Because of the story about Thomas Moore which accompanies these videos today, I have chosen not to include a snippet from tomorrow’s Sweet Tuesday story,  but I will include an excerpt from a previously published book below so that you are not left without a bit of an interesting tale to start the week off.

My writing news is not very elaborate this week. There are just a few items to mention.  Continue reading Music Monday: Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms