Guest Post & Giveaway: A Fashionable Indulgence by K. J. Charles
A Fashionable Indulgence
A Society of Gentlemen # 1
By:
K.J. Charles
Releasing
August 11, 2015
Loveswept
Blurb
In
the first novel of an explosive new series from K. J. Charles, a
young gentleman and his elegant mentor fight for love in a world of
wealth, power, and manipulation.
When
he learns that he could be the heir to an unexpected fortune, Harry
Vane rejects his past as a Radical fighting for government reform and
sets about wooing his lovely cousin. But his heart is captured
instead by the most beautiful, chic man he’s ever met: the dandy
tasked with instructing him in the manners and style of the ton.
Harry’s new station demands conformity—and yet the one thing he
desires is a taste of the wrong pair of lips.
After
witnessing firsthand the horrors of Waterloo, Julius Norreys sought
refuge behind the luxurious facade of the upper crust. Now he
concerns himself exclusively with the cut of his coat and the quality
of his boots. And yet his protégé is so unblemished by cynicism
that he inspires the first flare of genuine desire Julius has felt in
years. He cannot protect Harry from the worst excesses of society.
But together they can withstand the high price of passion.
Excerpt
Silas
made a face. “Alexander Vane married Euphemia Gordon. You were born
a Vane, you lived as a Gordon, not hard to make the link. It doesn’t
make a difference, lad. They’ve nothing, or they’d have arrested
you by now. Keep a closed mouth and no harm will befall, understand?”
“Right.”
Harry felt a sinking sensation in his gut. “Yes. Right. Uh, Silas .
. .”
There
was a short pause.
“Hell’s
tits.” Silas took his hand off Harry’s shoulder. “What did you
do, you bloody fool?”
“Nothing!”
Harry protested. “Really, it wasn’t much.” He swallowed, aware
this would not sound impressive. “I was in the Spotted Cat—”
“Were
you tupping the barmaid?” George asked eagerly.
“No.”
Harry had, a few times, and he’d hoped to do so again last night,
but he’d found himself rejected for a man with a catskin waistcoat
and a pocketful of silver. “I went for a jug of ale and a man
bumped into me. Spilled my drink. Bought me another.”
“For
Christ’s sake.” Silas growled in his throat. “How many drinks?”
A
lot. Much of it gin. Harry had had the devil’s own head all day,
but that was nothing compared to the lurking fear that he’d said
something he shouldn’t. “Uh, a few. We talked, idly.” Silas
gave him a look of combined exasperation and resignation that made
Harry flush. “I didn’t say anything of importance! Nothing about
here. Just, uh, about my travels on the Continent.”
“Did
you tell him who your parents were?”
“No.”
Harry swallowed. “But I did say that they were . . . political.”
“Blast
you, Harry.” Silas put his hands through his cropped, grizzled
hair. “Who was this fellow?”
“I
don’t know. He had red hair, like a Scotsman, but an English voice.
Slim. Brown eyes. He said his name was . . . something odd, what was
it . . . Cyprian? Do you know him?”
Silas
shook his head. “If he’s an informer, he’s a new one. No less
dangerous for it. You’re a damned fool.”
“I’m
sorry. I just wanted a drink.”
Harry
sounded plaintive. He felt
plaintive. Since the cholera had taken his parents and left him
orphaned in Paris, aged seventeen and a known democratic agitator,
life had been hand to mouth. He’d returned to London, hoping things
might be easier there, but men and women were out of work across all
of England thanks to the new machines, the endless taxes, and the
war. There had been no work for a friendless youth. He’d had only
the old radical crowd to turn to, and that was no great comfort, with
the law ever harsher against them.
Harry
hadn’t wanted to be a radical again. He didn’t want the fight,
the fear, any of it. But his heart had lightened with that old
boyhood feeling—or, rather, illusion—of safety when he’d come
back to Theobald’s Bookshop for the first time in more than a
decade. When he’d walked in and seen Silas there, grizzled and
lined now as befitted his forty years, but still thick-muscled and
indomitable, still setting his face against the world, it had felt
like coming home.
Not
an easy home. Silas’s rough, powerful embrace, once he recognized
the hungry young man in Frenchy rags, had been all the welcome Harry
could have hoped for, and he’d given Harry work and what wages he
could without question, but he would never be a comfortable man to
live with. It didn’t surprise Harry that nobody dared try.
Silas
was glaring at him now as though it were a crime for a man to seek a
jug of ale and a warm body to hold. Harry hadn’t even had the
latter, since the barmaid had preferred coin to compliments.
It
had crossed his mind last night that his drinking companion, the
fellow Cyprian, might be amenable. Harry wasn’t at all averse to a
man in his bed when he couldn’t have a woman, and Cyprian was quite
appealing in a foxy sort of way, except for that dreadful hair. Thank
God that, even in his befuddled state, Harry had decided not to make
an approach. Sedition was bad enough; sodomy could see a man hanged.
“Nothing
happened. I’m sure I didn’t say anything important,” Harry told
himself as much as Silas. “It was probably innocent. Just a man
wanting company.”
Silas
grunted. “Well, we’ll face trouble when it comes. Enough of this
nonsense, back to work. Watch your back. And don’t sup with
strangers again.”
Romancing the Readers would like to thank K. J. Charles for visiting with us! Show her some love!
My new book, A Fashionable Indulgence,
is the first of a trilogy set in 1819-20. This is a remarkable period in
English history, which you don’t tend to see in Jane Austen adaptations on TV.
England was in turmoil at the end of the Regency period. The Industrial
Revolution and the aftereffects of the Napoleonic Wars had caused widespread
poverty, political unrest, and popular demands for change.
The government of the time was openly preoccupied with maintaining the
power of the incredibly wealthy few at the expense of pretty much everyone
else. People were literally starving in the streets, while the rich lived in
unimaginable luxury and gambled fortunes on such subjects as which of two
raindrops would reach the bottom of a windowpane first. (On that famous
occasion the sum wagered was equivalent to about $200,000 now. Yes, I meant all
those zeroes. Yes, on a raindrop.)
It turned to violence, inevitably. In August 1819 a huge but peaceful
crowd of protesters for parliamentary reform were charged down by
sabre-wielding cavalry sent in by frightened magistrates, killing around 14
people and injuring more than 500. There was popular outrage at what was
quickly dubbed the Peterloo Massacre; in response the Government introduced the
Six Acts, perhaps the most repressive legislation ever passed in the UK, aimed
at stamping out protest meetings and writing against the regime.
And through it all the aristocrats danced on, in their glittering
existence of balls, silks and scandal.
The Society of Gentlemen trilogy is set between these worlds,
with the wealthy few clinging to power, and the radicals fighting for change.
In A Fashionable
Indulgence, young
radical Harry Vane discovers his noble birth and is lifted out of poverty into
the clubs and ballrooms, with dandy Julius Norreys helping him to become a
gentleman. Harry must learn proper behaviour, conceal his past, and make a good
marriage, all the while keeping his hands off the icy exquisite who’s teaching
him. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as all that…
Author
Info
K.
J. Charles is a writer and freelance editor. She lives in London with
her husband, two kids, an out-of-control garden, and an increasingly
murderous cat.
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