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On The Shelf: Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady

He’s fought for his country, now he’s fighting for his heart.



The battlefields of Badajoz are nothing compared to the cutting tongues of polite society, but Jack Vernon has never been very “polite.” A canvas is this brooding artist’s preferred company—having once been the outlet for the horror he witnessed at war, it’s now his fortune.

Painting the portrait of stunningly beautiful Ariana Blane is his biggest commission yet. Learning every curve of her body ignites feelings he thought were destroyed in battle. But he’s not the only man who has Ariana in his sights….

In writing Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady RITA Award winning author Diane Gaston has created a true page turner. Really. I picked up the book at 7 p.m., and the next time I looked at the clock it was 9 o’clock. I finished it at 10:30 – read straight through! While the story is touted as a romance, and it is that, it’s so much more – it’s a richly detailed tale peopled with characters who are not only believable, but who ring true.  I never once wanted to kick a character in the arse and scream, “For God’s sake get on with it/open your mouth/grow up/use your head and move the plot along!”

Jack Vernon is a talented artist plagued by waking nightmares of the horrors of Badajoz, Ariana Blane is the gorgeous actress who intrigues him since their first meeting at the Royal Academy. But one of the backers of the play Ariana currently appears in is the odious Tranville, who wants Ariana for himself. No matter that Tranville has made Jack’s widowed mother his mistress for years and made the family beholden to him through his financial support. As if that isn’t enough for a wealth of plot twists and turns, there’s Jack’s sister, the sweet natured Nancy, and the matter of the plans surrounding her upcoming marriage – deviously arranged by Tranville. And, the entire plot is deliciously tied up and culminates on the field of Waterloo! You can read the first chapter here.

I so enjoyed Gallant Officer, Forbidden Lady that I immediately went online to buy The Mysterious Miss M, which reviews say is Diane’s tour de force. For all the news about Diane’s past and future books, you can visit her website here.

Do You Know About The English Home?

The English Home magazine bills itself as Celebrating the Essence of English Style and it’s perennially been one of my favorite publications. It’s so much more than a style or decorating magazine. Each issue, you’ll meet the owners of period homes and learn the stories behind their search for the perfect property, the renovation process, their hunt for furnishings and their trials and tribulations with building departments, contractors and English Heritage, who holds sway over renovation decisions involving Grade I, II and III listed properties. The latest issue, March/April 2010, includes pieces on Colour Past and Present (period color choices), luxurious fabrics and fantastic period shoes made to wear today from Henry Kaye. They’ve also begun a new series, Guardians of History, this issue featuring the Duke and Duchess of Rutland and their efforts to maintain Belvoir Castle. The property section is always fun to read, with descriptions of each residence more in-depth than those found in Country Life Magazine – yet another enduring favorite of mine. The English Home is available on U.S. newsstands or by subscription. Enjoy!       Kristine

The London and Waterloo Tour – Our Itinerary

It occurred to me that before Victoria and I begin posting about the things we plan to see and do on our tour, you should know just what it is we plan to see and do. To that end, here’s our itinerary:

Thursday, June 10th – Victoria arrives in London

Saturday, June 12th – Kristine and Brooke arrive in London, and within hours we head out to the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace to see the Victoria and Albert: Art and Love exhibition. Then it’s over to Apsley House (Yes!) and a walk round the St. James’s area, taking in the Square, the side streets, the shops and Piccadilly. No doubt we’ll be dropping in to the Red Lion Pub, a few doors up from the Almack’s Building, for a pint. Or two. That night, we’ll be dining at the Grenadier Pub in Wilton Row, once the local pub for the men in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment and filled with military and Wellington memorabilia.

Sunday, June 13th – This one is subject to change. It’s either off to a Sunday roast at Gordon Ramsay’s Chelsea restaurant, Foxtrot Oscar’s, and then on to the National Army Museum and perhaps to Liberty’s before they close at 6 p.m. Or, Victoria will be doing research while Brooke and I head out to Hampstead, the Heath and Kenwood House.

Monday, June 14th – To Kensington Palace, with tea in the Orangery, and then we’re off to Cecil Court and Charing Cross Road for book browsing, to Grosvenor Prints in Seven Dials for print browsing, followed by drinks at the Landsdowne Club and perhaps a dinner of Peking duck in Leicester Square.

Tuesday, June 15th – We’re off to Windsor to spend the day with author Hester Davenport. A tour of the Castle, old Windsor and a meal are all on the agenda. No plans for this evening, as no doubt we’ll be knackered.

Wednesday, June 16th – Victoria’s husband, Ed, arrives and she’s off to spend the day with him. If they haven’t yet made it to Hampstead, Brooke and Kristine will do that. If they have, then instead they plan to visit lots of pubs, browse at Top Shop and Sephora and God only knows what else.

Thursday, June 17th – We all head out to Dover, cross the English Channel and end up in Waterloo – Woooo Hooooo!

Friday, June 18th – Tour of the Waterloo sights and battle camps, with fireworks in the evening. Wooo Hooo again!

Saturday, June 19th – Visit the battle locations in and around Waterloo, with evening tour in Brussels titled “Walking in Wellington’s Footsteps.” Double Woooo Hoooo!

Sunday, June 20th – The re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo – Huzzah! After which, Brooke and I again follow in Wellington’s footsteps and head off to Paris for a few days, while Victoria and Ed embark on a Rhine river cruise.

So there you have it. As I’ve indicated before, Victoria and I will be doing in-depth blogs on the various places we plan to visit and . . . . we’ll be bringing along a video camera, which neither of us really knows how to use beyond the old “point and shoot” method. If you can put up with the shaking, weird camera angles, any light problems and the like, we’ll be posting the videos on this blog for all to see. . . . as they say in England – oy vey.

It's Your 240th!!

                               

Happy Birthday to William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850), once the Poet Laureate of Great Britain (1843-50). We associate his work with the Romantic Movement. He was a close friend and colleague of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth defined poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”.

Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, lived in the famous Dove Cottage in the Lake District. Later, he moved to a larger nearby home, and married, though Dorothy continued to live with him. William and Mary Wordsworth had five children but only three survived childhood, and beloved daughter Dora died in her thirties.


Here is a fragment of one of his most famous works

Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798

…For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. …

Above, Tinturn Abbey by Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1794

My London by Kristine Hughes

I’ve been to London many times and whenever those who don’t know me very well ask why I keep returning to the same city, I’m hard pressed to explain to them what London means to me. My London is not the city that exists now. Madame Tussaud’s and the London Eye are all well and good, but my London is the old city, the Square Mile that was bordered to the north by the Oxford Road, to the South by Vauxhall Gardens, to the east by Mile End Road and to the west by Hyde Park. To my mind, Richmond, Hampstead, Brixton and Golder’s Green are not in London. Though I may visit these places, they lay outside the parameters of the London I see in my mind, the London I see when I walk the streets today. You can still see Georgian, Regency and Victorian London on practically every street. Kensington Palace, St. James’s Palace and Apsley House still exist. Hatchard’s bookshop and Fortnum and Mason, the Burlington Arcade and the Tower are still to be found. True, there are no longer Hansom cabs or sedan chairs for hire, no hawkers crying their wares in the streets and, certainly, no dandies strolling in St. James’s Street, but every now and then you come across a London view so perfect, so historically right, that it makes the trip worthwhile.

One of the stops I always make while in London is Apsley House, London home of the Dukes of Wellington, where today you’ll find all of the many paintings and gifts bestowed upon the first Duke by grateful nations on display. While the current Duke of Wellington does live there, the portions of Apsley House now open to the public have a museum feel, there’s nothing of Wellington the man left to see except for a small room in the basement that houses some of his army gear. But again, portions of the upstairs rooms do offer views onto 19th century life. Enough to make me return time and again.

Perhaps what I love best about London are the modern day memories my visits have provided and the people I’ve met along the way. There was the time I was strolling down the Mall with a tour group and our way was suddenly blocked by a burgundy Rolls Royce coming out of a drive and stopping right in front of us. It was an older Rolls and the windows were as large as those found in some houses. Looking through the back passenger window, my gaze met and held that of Prince Charles. He was dressed in full regimental regalia no less. He smiled at me and raised his gloved hand to the visor of his hat in a jaunty salute before the car pulled away. Then there was the day that I was taken to the Victoria and Albert Museum and for a cruise up the river by David Parker, then curator of the Dickens House Museum. At one point during our ramblings, David took hold of my elbow, stopped me and pointed to a second story window. Looking up, I saw Inigo Jones’s ceiling of the Banqueting House through the upper storey windows. Amazing. Another memory I’ll always cherish is the time Anthony Lejeune, author of The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, invited me to dinner at Brooks’s Club. Walking up the stairs to the second floor dining room, I came face to face with Sir Thomas Lawrence’s full length portrait of George IV. Having port after dinner in library, I gazed at the portraits of the Dilettanti Society that range the walls and marveled at the fact that there were bed billows, in white pillow cases, placed on the arms of the leather couches, ready for any member who felt the overwhelming need of a nap.

On our upcoming trip to London this June, as soon as I land on the Saturday, I’ll meet up with Victoria Hinshaw and the first thing we plan to do is to walk the St. James’s area. We’ll visit the lesser streets, give a nod to the Almack’s building, stroll by the statue of Beau Brummell and, no doubt, raise a pint at the miniscule Red Lion pub in King Street, a perfectly preserved time capsule of a Victorian pub.  No doubt I’ll be returning home with many more memories to treasure . . . . .  . More musings on adventures ahead soon, as well as detailed blogs on the sites Victoria and I have on our itinerary.