Cerise DeLand joins us this week with facts about the Napoleonic wars that demanded spies planted in Britain.
The true bits in my novel, LORD HALSEY’S TEMPTESTUOUS MINX, provide motivation and the central problem for my characters, Inès Bechard and Evan, Lord Halsey, to solve.
In 1805, after the victory at Trafalgar, Bonaparte’s turn of his army toward the east gave a blow/counter-blow to the British efforts to defeat the French rise to power. William Pitt, the Younger, was indeed prime minister, and did reorganize the finances of the government to subsidize growth of the navy and army. He was dedicated to defeating Bonaparte. But he also suffered from digestive distress, for which he did indeed drink too much alcohol. He died in his home in Putney Green, greatly mourned by many.
The blackmailing of Inès by René Vaillancourt is fictitious. But so many French émigrés lived in Britain at that time that persuading a French man or woman to commit a crime against the government or an official was certainly probable. Agents of the French roamed Britain, sent there by Fouché and his subordinates. Vaillancourt is, of course, my villain of choice.
The information about the Grand Army of Bonaparte at the camp in Boulogne as described in the book is true. Many thousands of soldiers were stationed there and did refine their organization to their advantage. Their quick victory in December at Austerlitz is the result. It paved the way for Bonaparte’s continued victories for the next few years.
The primary goal for Halsey and Inès is to break her brother free from the Conciergerie, the same prison that held Marie Antoinette earlier. You may wonder if that was possible. It was! Evidence exists that one escape occurred in 1801. Many more attempted it. Bribing guards is always a good device.
That piano that Inès buys for her new house is a replica of one Mozart favored. It was called a fortepiano and had long black keys, small white ones.
As for our young American lady, Zephora Burton, she is modeled on Eliza Monroe, daughter of the fifth president of the United States. Eliza did attend Madame Campan’s school for young ladies, and she was a close friend of Hortense de Beauharnais, later wife to Louis Bonaparte, and Caroline Bonaparte, sister of Napoleon.
Zephora’s background is slightly different, but her soul is that of a free, wild American. Look for her and Rafe Durham’s love story in my next book in this series, SIR DURHAM’S DISARMING ASSET.
About the Book
Inès believes she can do any deed to free her brother from prison. What she cannot predict is how one man’s love can destroy her illusion.
About the Series: Scarlett Affairs
Thank you for reading my series. I read for serenity. I know you do, too!
Excerpt, Lord Halsey’s Temptestuous Minx, Copyright, Cerise DeLand 2026. All rights reserved.
“What reason do you have to remove yourself up here?” Evan asked, stoic as a statue before her as he surveyed the servant’s small quarters.
She lifted her face to gaze at him. He deserved that she tell him with her eyes in his, firm and resolute. “I am…” Not myself. Another whom you do not know. “Ill.”
His face paled. “How so?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Not well.”
“Are you with child?”
She had not considered that. She might be, and she would count the weeks later. But even if she were, she could not stay for him or the child or herself. “I don’t think so. No.”
He let out a strangled breath. “It is cold up here.”
She said nothing.
“You don’t like the cold.”
She shuddered.
He came to his knees before her. As he had the night she told him of her actions in Boulogne, he caressed her cheeks. “My darling, this is torture. Why have you left me?”
“I must. You must not ask me more.”
“Why not?” He brushed a tear from her cheek.
“I love you and I will not ruin you.”
“Oh, my darling, the only thing you have ruined me for is life without you.”
She shook her head.
“Come back to me.”
About the Author
Cerise DeLand is the USA Today Bestselling Author who believes love brings rich rewards from a life lived with honesty, valor—and a functioning funnybone.
Known for her poetic elegance and accuracy of detail, she’s won awards for many of the more than 70 novels she’s written.
Her work has been nearly life-long! First published in 1991 by Kensington, then Pocket Books, St. Martin’s Press and independent presses, she is now published by Dragonblade Publishing. Plus her books have been monthly selections of the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild.
To research, she’s dived into the oldest texts and dustiest library shelves. She travels abroad taking good walking shoes, big notebooks, trusty pens and a camera! She visits chateaux and country homes she loves to people with her own imaginary characters.
And at home every day? She cooks. (Every night.) Never dusts. (That can be a problem.) She goes swimming or pumps iron once a week and tries (desperately) to grow vegetables in her arid backyard in south Texas!
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