A Winter’s Romance: A Regency Anthology on preorder now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Winters-Romance-Regency-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0DG3R12L1
Can blindness and deception keep them from love? When scandalous James Thornton suffers a hunting accident, he is carried broken and unconscious to Ardenmere, where schoolteacher Eliza Blinker is spending her holidays. All hands are required to nurse the patient, but for Eliza’s protection Lady Arden insists she pose as an older, plainer woman. Blinded as he is, Thornton may be told anything, after all. But what if love truly is blind, and he begins to care for Eliza despite what he’s been led to believe?
“Epiphany Day” is a short story found in A Winter’s Romance: a Regency Anthology.
Excerpt
The maid trailed her to the bottom of the stairs like a faithful mastiff and hovered while Eliza gave instructions to the footman Hoskins. Then, when she glanced toward the drawing room doors, Kirby said, “Lady Arden says I am always to accompany you, if you are a-going in there. ‘Don’t you let her be alone with him, Kirby,’ she told me.”
“Well then, together it is. But perhaps we need not go in. I don’t hear anything now.”
As if to spite her, a protracted moan struck their ears, one ending in a sudden whuff.
Oh, dear. Suppose he had rolled from the sofa and could not right himself? Or that he had pulled off his bandages and was dragging himself across the room in search of light? Eliza found herself regretting her earlier bravado about broken bones. What precisely had she imagined she knew about injuries? Especially injuries the magnitude of Mr. Thornton’s!
Taking a deep breath and nodding at Kirby, she opened the doors quietly and crept around the side of the lacquered screen. To her great relief, the man still lay upon the sofa, his bandages intact, though one hand fumbled at them.
“No, no,” said Eliza, hurrying forward. “You mustn’t. Your eyes must not be exposed.”
Though she had not touched him, his hand froze in its exploration.
“Can you hear me, sir?” she asked. “Do you understand me?”
There was a long, long pause. Was he too muddled to speak?
But no.
His hand fell back. “Have I…died?” was his unexpected question, the thrilling voice she remembered thick but recognizable.
“Died!”
“Am I…in the infernal place?”
That made Eliza grin. “You are at Ardenmere, sir, and very much alive by the grace of God, though considerably impaired after your accident.”
“Accident?”
“A hunting accident. Your horse caught a foot on a rail, I believe, and there was a drop into a field, and you were somehow entangled with—” Eliza broke off when she saw his nails dig into the upholstery. Better not to mention Mr. Marvin’s part in it, then. Quickly she tacked about. “—With another rider,” she resumed. “The surgeon Mr. Ponsonby has made inventory of the damage. He reset your collarbone, but you still have a sprained ankle, two cracked ribs, and a—blow—to your head. It is a very promising sign that you have regained consciousness, sir, and that you seem lucid. Mr. Ponsonby does fear—possible damage to your eyes, however, which he hopes to forestall or mend by keeping you quiet and in the dark for some weeks.”
Now the patient’s hand clenched in a fist and struck the back of the sofa, but if the action relieved his feelings any, it exacted its own cost. A string of muffled oaths followed, which Eliza could not interpret, though her eyes widened at both its length and variety of emphasis. Kirby’s more worldly ears caught enough that she clicked her tongue and advanced a step, as if she would—what? Press a pillow to the man’s face to silence him? A shake of the head from Eliza stopped her. He was in a great deal of pain and confusion, she imagined, and therefore allowance must be made.
“Is it that bad, sir? Because Mr. Ponsonby left laudanum drops, and he said he would come again to see how you were doing.” Even as she spoke misgiving filled her, because what did she know about administering laudanum? And where had that thrice-blasted Mrs. Chop gone?
The muscle along his jaw stood out, and Mr. Thornton’s finely-cut mouth twisted in a grimace. He might have read her thoughts, for he bit out, “Are you the nurse? Or Lady Arden? Who are you?”
“I’m neither. I’m—nobody,” she uttered, caught off guard. Given Lady Arden’s warnings, Eliza hardly wanted to confess to being the unmarried female houseguest.
The vagueness of her reply only served to anger him. “Then you may take yourself off, Miss Nobody! I want no one with me. I suppose I must suffer Ponsonby’s fussings and fiddlings, but I need not suffer yours.”
“Fussings and fiddlings” indeed! When she had not laid so much as a finger on him!
Had Eliza been ten years younger she might have made tart reply, but as it was she managed to swallow it. He is in pain, she reminded herself, and likely confused. Without another word she withdrew, crooking a finger for Kirby to follow and then holding that same finger to her lips to enjoin silence.
Nevertheless, when they were safely shut in the morning room, the maid burst out with, “Miss Blinker, the face of that fellow, speaking to you like that! Why, he’s every particle the rogue they said he was at the inn!”
About the Author
Christina Dudley is the author of two complete series of sweet Regency romances, The Hapgoods of Bramleigh and The Ellsworth Assortment, as well as contemporary Austen adaptation Pride and Preston Lin. Her novels have been called “sparkling,” “swoon-worthy,” and “compulsively readable” (Publishers Weekly). Pride and Preston Lin was the February 2024 Fiction Editor’s Pick for Kirkus Reviews (starred review) and chosen as a 2024 Top 10 Best Debut Romance by Booklist (starred review).
Author Links
@christinadudleyauthor
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