Christmas Regency Romance: Perfect for curling up with this Christmas by Sheila Walsh

Author:Sheila Walsh [Walsh, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christmas regency romance, regency christmas romance, regency historical romance, historical romance, regency fiction, clean and wholesome, clean regency romance
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Regency Romance)
Published: 2020-11-17T05:00:00+00:00

Preview: A Woman of Little Importance

If you enjoyed Sheila Walsh’s Christmas Regency Romance, then you will also want to read her many Regency Romance novels. Here is a preview chapter of one of them, A Woman of Little Importance.

Chapter One

Brussels, June 1815

Even with the window open, the room was hot and airless. For the second day running black cumuli rolled around overhead, and from a long way off came an ominous rumbling, but there was no way of knowing whether it was thunder or guns. Charity Wynyate’s muslins clung damply to her slim figure as she leaned out, suppressing the now familiar feeling of panic as yet another stream of carriages clattered past heading for the Antwerp road, carrying the last terrified remnants of the pleasure-seekers who but a short time ago had been rejoicing in the prospect of witnessing a great Allied victory. It was yet another reminder that they, too, might have left days ago, had her sister not dismissed the idea as absurd.

‘I refuse to be coerced into flight in such a scrambling way, and besides it would mean missing the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, which, you may depend on’t, she would not be holding if there were the slightest danger. Ned told me that she consulted the Duke of Wellington and he had assured her that all was well, and that he would in fact attend himself with all the important allied officers.’ Arianne, still full of pride that her husband, Lord Edward Ashbourne, had been appointed to Wellington’s staff with the rank of colonel, had been quite immovable. ‘He calls them his family, you know. It will be Ned’s first official social function, and I simply must be there!’

Charity had listened with something approaching despair. No one but Arianne would account a ball, however prestigious, above the danger to life and limb, her own or anyone else’s, of remaining in Brussels; in fact, no one but Arianne would even contemplate attending such a ball in her present condition, though it had to be admitted that even a figure thickened by advancing pregnancy could not detract from her sister’s looks ‒ if anything, approaching motherhood lent an added luminous quality to her loveliness. Every feature was perfection and only those closest to her knew how swiftly the deliciously curving mouth could take on an obstinate pout when things did not go her way, as it had threatened to do at that moment.

Yet Charity persisted in her attempt to persuade ‒ not out of fear for her own safety, for she placed no credence in the rumours, doubtless put about by French sympathisers, that Napoleon had promised his army the sacking of Brussels when they had triumphed. It was rather the worry that her sister’s delicate condition would make a last-minute decision more difficult, which might in turn jeopardise the safety of her young son.

‘I am quite sure that Ned would be much happier to know you and Harry were safe,’ she had ventured persuasively, though with little hope of being heeded.

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