Under these circumstances, sometimes love needs a little harmless dishonesty, a liberal use of ruses, dupes and tricks, to flourish. For all those secrets and lies needed to maintain the order of the day, sometimes it takes a little underhandedness to get to the heart of the matter. Under the threat of Regency villainy, sometimes that’s what it takes for young lovers to come together, or older lovers to find their hearts again.
The gentlemen seem to be missing their appointments with their barbers left, right and centre, and the slightly long and unfashionable look attracts the ladies in droves. It is the carelessness, perhaps, among the almost-feminine care lavished by some of the men of the age, that appeals, I imagine, and promises other lapses in convention — like clandestine kisses, a quick grope in the sitting room, or maybe even some hot sex?
Take a look at all the well-dressed skeletons in the Regency closet. Because for all the babies out of wedlock, the midnight elopements to Gretna Green, the young women suffering marriages to old men in penance for a moment of brief happiness on a chaise longue in an empty retiring room — this jaded society has seen and done it all. Any discretion is just one more thing to hide away, to deny, to refute or to forget. But some sensations can be harder to forget than others.
Desperate Measures
Candice Hern
She was going to commit murder. If that scoundrel Philip Hartwell did not show up soon, Lydia Bettridge was going to track him down and rip his heart out. After all, this whole scheme was his idea. If he hadn’t suggested it in the first place, and if he and her brother Daniel had not gleefully concocted the plan, she would not now be waiting on pins and needles to learn whether or not it would work.