The Art of Deception
or Pride and Extreme Prejudice
This week continues a spy story set in late Georgian England, the year before Trafalgar. Last week saw the return, at least by reference, of Thomas and a discussion of Miss Haytor.
Lord Grey cleared his throat, “Miss Green is a professional; no others, not that I’m aware of. You will need more servants, of course, but your servants started removing the Holland covers and cleaning out the place; should be comfortable, but not.”
“Not up to the standard expected of me.”
“Precisely; however, I should like it if you and Miss Green should discuss your social plans. Perhaps my dear wife and daughter can escort their cousin for a courtesy visit this afternoon; Lady Grey can help arrange for suitable servants; can’t just have any riff-raff in your house, never know what you’ll find. In the meantime, I need to return Miss Green home; before they worry about us.”
Lord Roderick rose, bowed, and said, “That seems wise; Miss Green, say three?”
“I’d be delighted, and I promise not to punch you this time; as long as you don’t rip my gown again.”
Lord Grey approved of the meeting, “Excellent, I see you’re off to a good start, capital; three it is.”
Now that you’ve read my hackery, please see the talented writers in Weekend Writing Warriors.
My apologies for creative punctuation.
Servants were a problem. The bell pull to call them had recently been invented (recently in the relatively slow time frame of the Georgian world – about 1750), so they no longer slept by your door. Still keeping things private was not easy. So Sir Roderick and Lord Grey are correct to be worried about trustworthy servants and not just any riff-raff. The Gilray cartoon shows an old-maid accompanied by a maid/companion and two footmen. You may notice that the footmen aren’t in uniform. It wasn’t until quality cloth became cheap enough in the early years of Queen Victoria that servant uniforms became universal. Before then you could tell a servant from the quality by the quality of their cloth. (By the way – notice one of the footmen is teasing a cat with the lady’s singing bird.)
Still working on a cover idea – hard even though I’m a dashed good photographer (if I say so myself). That and editing the manuscript to put more description/reaction into it. (not to mention a few thousand words).
Frankenkitty is available.
What happens when teenagers get to play with Dr Frankenstein’s lab notebooks, a few odd chemicals and a great big whopping coil? Mayhem, and possibly an invitation to the Transylvanian Neuroscience Summer School.
Like poor Cecelia, ” The Curious Profession of Dr Craven” is back from the dead.
I’ve released a sweet regency romance, Miss DeVere 
This is a fun read.
R. Harrison, Creative Enterprises 
“I promise not to punch you this time” <== Love that line! 🙂
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Jessica took the words out of my mouth, so I’ll add that I like the whole thought: “I promise not to punch you this time; as long as you don’t rip my gown again.”
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Thank you. Alice is tough.
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Thank you. Alice, for all her faults, is one tough cookie. Think ‘my name is Green, Alice Green’ to get her measure.
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Happy New Year.
Lord Grey has a way of getting things done, in spite of any objections.
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Thank you. Lord Grey’s one of my favourites.
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What a great scene. I love Lord Gray’s ability to control the room, so to speak, to push our H/H together into a tentative truce . . . until sparks and possibly fists begin to fly. Can’t wait for the fireworks.
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Thank you. Lord Grey is one of my favourite characters – think ‘M’ from James Bond. He has more than a cameo appearance in the work we’ve put up for Snippet Sunday (though not for a while).
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Not the point, but I like the color names, Grey and Green. 🙂
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I needed something – and unlike Scifi I can’t just string letters together. There was a real Lord Grey – who got in trouble over the american revolution (when according to the Brits we stopped having history). Thank you.
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Wonderful scene. And I thoroughly enjoyed your history lesson about servants, their clothing, and privacy! Thank you.
Happy 2017. 🙂
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Have eins froelich neues jahr auch. Thank you. It’s sort of fascinating how things change, very quickly for the time, with the advent of the first industrial revolution and Queen Victoria.
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Love this whole snippet. It’s fantastic, and that punching line is gold. 😀
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Thank you.
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Good promise she made there, very amusing but actually true to the story’s events. I like Lord Grey – he’s so calm. Excellent excerpt.
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Thank you. Lord Grey is one of my favourites.
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