Beneath the Regency Layers with Kristabel Reed

Such a divine guest today! I'm a sucker for a good historical read. Add in the erotic and ménage elements, and heaven! Make sure to comment to enter Kristabel's contest!

So many believe it was a world of the prim and proper. Of rules and chaperones, the proper etiquette of calling on someone and strolling along the promenade. But there was so much more to them.

And there was so much more wickedness to them!

In Covet: A Regency Ménage Tale, Charlotte, one of those debutants finds herself wanting not one but two returning solders. Not quite the typical Regency romance! My ménage tales explore the very wicked situations that could (and probably did!) exist in this era. It was very common for a Regency bride to already be pregnant on her wedding night. Chastity before marriage wasn’t as important to the Regency set as it was to later societies such as the highly virtuous Victorians.

Granted, I go to the extreme in the ménage tales of not just parings but trio love, but there’s really nothing to say it didn’t happen. It’s not exactly something they would have advertised or wrote a journal entry on. I try to explore situations that are eminently plausible but are deliciously debauched.

Imagine Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice ball scene with Mr. Darcy. Across the room, Charlotte eyes her two lovers knowing that society is none the wiser as to her living (and sleeping!) arrangements. Or from Risqué, Alix searching the room for her lovers so they can sneak off for an illicit, and highly erotic, tryst.

Playing with the erotic situations in my various stories is not only fun but challenging. Servants can be an issue! As of course can those pesky chaperones. But as I discover ways around both inquisitive servants and curious chaperons, I also realize that the real Regency couples would have been far more creative than this!

I hope my ménage tales provide a glimpse into the erotic Regency past! Come join the decadently corrupt Jane Austen book club.

I’ll be giving away a PDF copy of Covet: A Regency Ménage Tale, to one commenter. Just tell me what you’d like to see in a Regency! (and leave an email address to be contacted)

Blurb:

The truest torment is wanting something you know you can never have. Charlotte Tremaine knew this feeling all too well. She covets the freedom to do as she pleases, but has never let herself dream of being with the man she loves. The problem is, she loves two men.

For the last three years, Charlotte has survived her stifling home life by living through correspondence with two childhood friends now off at war. Once they return, will she be able to summon the courage to tell them of her feelings? Or will she let the convenience of mourning an aunt she despised keep her hidden and isolated?

Fear lurks in the shadows and threatens to keep her cloistered. When William Stanton and Grayson, Earl Warrington return from war, she teeters on the brink of having what's she has always wanted. Torn between William and Grayson, Charlotte must first learn to trust herself before she can trust her heart and body to them.

  

Excerpt from the end of chapter 1:

“Thank you for your advice, Lydia,” Charlotte began. Even she could sense the expectation in her voice and knew all her self-control had vanished with the arrival of that carriage. “However, if you don’t mind—”

Lydia shook her head, a resigned grin on her face. “Go ahead,” she said with a wave.

Charlotte barely heard her. In no time she had on her sturdy walking boots and new cloak and stood before Cook as the older woman prepared a pot of stew for Lady Warrington, her excuse for visiting unannounced.

With a deep breath, Charlotte tugged on her gloves and exited Willow Hall. It didn’t occur to her to ask for a horse, or even take the carriage the short distance between her manor and Fox Hollow. She walked across the frozen field that separated their two estates, slipping on spots of ice in her haste.

It took entirely too long, yet the walk was over before she knew it. Charlotte stood before the front door, out of breath from the cold and anticipation of seeing them, either of them, both of them, again. She knew she looked like a ragamuffin with mud staining the hem of her gown and her cheeks no doubt pink from the cold and walk.

Charlotte didn’t care. They were home, and that was all that mattered.

The butler greeted her warmly, as he did every day, and took the pot to deliver to the kitchens. She handed him her gloves and cloak, and only then did she become aware of another person in the foyer. Not a servant, not one of the many footmen or maids Lady Warrington employed.

Another presence, a commanding one that captured her attention.

She spun on her heel and saw him.

Grayson stood there, hands clasped behind his back as he silently watched her. Just as handsome as she remembered: his dark brown hair cut short, the childhood scar cutting across his temple by his left ear, the angular jaw and patrician nose. His light blue eyes met hers for the barest of moments.

Charlotte wanted to run and embrace him, but held herself immobile. Too many servants lingered in the foyer, too many people watching their every move. But she needed to feel him, touch him, to make sure he truly was real. That he stood before her as she had dreamed.

“Grayson,” she said with a happy smile and knew it radiated from her. Charlotte forced herself to close the distance between them as gracefully and calmly as she could.

Grayson, Earl of Warrington, nodded formally to her, face as expressionless as a statue as he looked at a spot just over her shoulder. He showed no reaction, no smile on his face. When she looked into his light blue eyes again, she saw no joy in them. He stood at attention as if he was back in His Majesty’s Army.

Did he tease her? Surely this was a jest. Charlotte hesitated slightly but there was no change in his demeanor.

Her pleasure vanished with each step she took toward him. The smile fell from her face, but she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin as she stopped before him. There seemed to be absolutely no response to her presence; only cold formality.

 “Good day, Miss Tremaine.”