ES: Where did you get the inspiration for Duels & Deception?
CA: At any given time, I have five or six plots running around in my head. It is soooo hard to remember the seed of inspiration. It usually springs from research; and if pressed, I would likely attribute learning the rules of honor in regard to duels as being the beginning. It was hard to fathom the foolishness of placing your life on the line for something as minor as an insult.
ES: What’s your process? Are you an outliner or do you just start at the beginning and make it up as you go?
CA: I am absolutely an outliner. However, even as I write out the plot, I know that the characters will alter the plan. I adjust as often as I need; it’s always a better story if I give the characters free rein. I tried to wing it one time and wrote myself into a corner.
ES: What do you want readers to remember about your books?
CA: Do I get a list?… I would hope that my books have made the time period come alive, that it makes the readers want to explore the Regency era. But more important, I would hope that the readers have found my books uplifting and funny—a happy escape from life’s stress, even if only for a short time.
Duels & Deception
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.?How would you characterize the relationship between Lydia and her female relatives? How do you think they have affected her character?
2.?To what extent do you feel Lydia’s challenges in gaining control of her family farm are due to her youth and which aspects are due to her gender?
3.?What drives Robert? What are his motivations to become a lawyer, and how does that change throughout the book?
4.?How important are Lydia’s friends, Cora and Shelley, to the story? How significant is the role of female friendship to Lydia?
5.?Robert and Cassidy seem to have very different natures, but they also have a tight bond. How important was this to your understanding of Robert?
6.?Lydia’s kidnapping was designed to ruin her reputation. It is implied that Lydia’s good name is her worth. Do you feel that society still has the same expectation of young women?
7.?The characters are skeptical about the utility of Scotland Yard. Do you think that Burt Warner has redeemed this institution?
8.?Who did you first suspect was the culprit behind the plot against Lydia? When the villain’s identity was revealed, how did it change your perception of the book?
9.?Were you surprised that after Lydia and Robert discussed the challenges to their communication, they both still operated as individuals trying to save the other at the duel? How do you think this reflects real relationships?
10.?Do you like Lydia’s proposal to Robert? Do you feel, considering their characters and situations, that this was realistic?
In which plans for a Season without romance are unapologetically foiled.
In this hilarious homage to Jane Austen, a lady with a penchant for trouble finds a handsome spy much more than merely tolerable.
CHAPTER
1
In which a young lady clinging to a cliff will eventually accept anyone’s help
“OH MY, this is embarrassing,” Miss Juliana Telford said aloud. There was no reason to keep her thoughts to herself, as she was alone, completely alone. In fact, that was half of the problem. The other half was, of course, that she was hanging off the side of a cliff with the inability to climb either up or down and in dire need of rescue.
“Another scrape. This will definitely give Aunt apoplexy.”
Juliana hugged the cliff ever closer and tipped her head slightly so that she could glance over her shoulder. Her high-waisted ivory dress was deeply soiled across her right hip, where she had slid across the earth as she dropped over the edge.
Juliana shifted slowly and glanced over her other shoulder. Fortunately, the left side showed no signs of distress, and her lilac sarcenet spencer could be brushed off easily. She would do it now were it not for the fact that her hands were engaged, holding tightly to the tangle of roots that kept her from falling off the tiny ledge.
Juliana continued to scrutinize the damage to her wardrobe with regret, not for herself so much as for her aunt, who seemed to deem such matters of great importance. Unfortunately, her eyes wandered down to her shoes. Just beyond them yawned an abyss. It was all too apparent how far above the crashing waves of the English Channel she was—and how very small the ledge.
Despite squishing her toes into the rock face as tightly as possible, Juliana’s heels were only just barely accommodated by the jutting amalgamate. The occasional skitter and plop of eroding rocks diving into the depths of the brackish water did nothing to calm her racing heart.
Juliana swallowed convulsively. “Most embarrassing.” She shivered despite a warm April breeze. “I shall be considered completely beyond the pale if I am dashed upon the rocks. Aunt will be so uncomfortable. Most inconsiderate of me.”
A small shower of sandy pebbles rained down on Juliana’s flowery bonnet. She shook the dust from her eyes and listened. She thought she had heard a voice.
Please, she prayed, let it be a farmer or a tradesman, someone not of the gentry. No one who would feel obligated to report back to Grays Hill Park. No gentlemen, please.
“Hello?” she called out. Juliana craned her neck upward, trying to see beyond the roots and accumulated thatch at the cliff’s edge.
A head appeared. A rather handsome head. He had dark, almost black, hair and clear blue eyes and, if one were to notice such things at a time like this, a friendly, lopsided smile.
“Need some assistance?” the head asked with a hint of sarcasm and the tone of a …
“Are you a gentleman?” Juliana inquired politely.
The head looked startled, frowned slightly, and then raised an eyebrow before answering. “Yes, indeed, I am—”
“Please, I do not wish to be rescued by a gentleman. Could you find a farmer or a shopkeep—anyone not of the gentry—and then do me the great favor of forgetting you saw me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I do not want to be rude, but this is a most embarrassing predicament—”
“I would probably use the word dangerous instead.”
“Yes, well, you would, being a man. But I, on the other hand, being a young woman doing her best not to call attention to herself and bring shame upon her family, would call it otherwise.”