A Christmas Ball by Jennifer Ashley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Getting my Dec #tbrchallenge review up late in the day but on time!
This anthology was connected by all three stories having their characters end up at the Hartwell Christmas Ball. This could have been a cool idea but none of the characters from different stories interact or even brush by each other at the ball, so I was a little baffled why that would be used as a connection. Even though the title is Christmas Ball, I'm not sure it delivered on a strong holiday feel, there is snow, mistletoe, and bobbing for apples but unfortunately the holiday vibes end there. This was published in 2009 and I did appreciate how the stories had a uniqueness to them, I've struggled with recently published Regency feeling very same-y, by rote, and boring. The first story had me blinking like that Cary Elwes gif., the second had a half demon half human (Jennifer Ashley's Nvengaria series), and the third was my favorite with a fantastic emotionally hitting story. This had some heat and steam to it, so if you want to be perked up during short holiday break reading, this would be a good pick.
My Lady Below Stairs by Emily Bryan 3.5 stars
This story had some wilding out, y'all. It stars a head groom, Ian Michael MacGregor, and a scullery maid, Jane, who also happens to be the bastard daughter of the Earl who's estate they work on. Ian and Jane have a romance going but Jane has been reluctant to go all the way, she doesn't want a child born out of wedlock because of how she herself has been treated. Ian is about to tell Jane that he has been offered a man-of-all-work position that comes with a private cottage and ask her to go with him when they get interrupted by a maid named Agnes and she drags Jane away.
Turns out that Jane's half-sister Lady Sybil has run away with the artist who has been painting her portrait. Gasp! The Earl's man, Roskin, comes up with a plan to have Jane impersonate Lady Sybil at the Hartwell's Christmas Ball because there, Viscount Eddleton is going to propose to her and the estate desperately needs the funds that will come with Eddleton's offer of shares in a venture contingent on marrying Lady Sybil. Jane wants to do something for her father, even though he doesn't pay attention to her at all, she's hoping this favor will change that but not knowing when Sybil will be found, she doesn't want to actually end up married to Eddleton. With information Roskin got from the spill the beans maid Agnes, he gets villainy (Terrified people were always so much easier to manipulate) and threatens to let go Ian and without a character. This is almost a death sentence for a servant and Jane agrees to impersonate Sybil to save Ian.
Ian gets concerned about where Jane ran off to and finds out from Agnes that Jane has agreed to a deal to impersonate Sybil. He decides to impersonate a footman and when she is sitting alone at the dinner table pretending to be Sybil, he makes his presence known: “Is aught amiss, milady?” the footman behind her asked, his tone restrained, but his accent unmistakably Scottish. He knows that Jane is doing this to in some way get a show of affection from her father but he also gets a bit in his feels thinking she wants to live the good life. Jane, of course, doesn't tell him his job was threatened (remember that offer of another job he had, he wouldn't care he was getting fired but alas we need more page count) and after a heated kiss, they part frustrated with each other.
We get a pov from Sybil, she's rolling around in the sheets with her painter and then has an attack of conscience and decides that she will show up at the ball and accept Eddleton's proposal to save her father and then keep her painter on the side.
We then get a pov from Eddleton and learn that his future as an heir is in jeopardy when his uncle gets married and the wife is pregnant. Eddleton's creditors are starting to come calling. Then we get an introduction to, who I consider anyway, the star of the show, Lady Darvish. Lady Darvish, the Black Widow of Wembley Street, was on the prowl once again. She's apparently buried four husbands and has heard from a friend that Eddleton is good in bed, so now she's set her sights on him. She clues him into this by calling him Bertie and when Eddleton says that's not his name, “I called all my husbands Bertram. It kept things uncomplicated.” I mean, I want a full novel about this woman. Eddleton wants nothing to do with her but she lets him know she has bought all his vowels.
We switch back to Jane and Ian, Ian's now an outrider so he can talk to Jane on the way to the ball. He's starting to think Jane can have a better life without him (sigh) and ready to give her up. He wants a look at her fiance first, though. They arrive at the ball and as he's walking around the side of the house, he sees a lord banging a maid, his buddy with him tells him the lord is Eddleton! After Eddleton is rude to the maid, Ian decides he ain't letting Jane go now! We then get Ian sneaking into the party and stealing clothes from the lord of the manor and, you guessed it, now impersonating a lord. Jane sees him and freaks out, dragging him upstairs to the return the clothes. They talk, argue, admit their love for each other. They end up banging in the lord's bed. Rude. Here's where it starts to wild out, while they are upstairs banging, Lady Darvish manipulates Eddleton to proving his manhood and they are banging in the library.
Somehow, everyone ends up in the library and I do mean everyone. Jane, Sybil, Ian, and Eddleton coming out from behind a curtain with Lady Darvish are talking and figuring things out when Sybil and Jane's dad shows up. We learn that Roskin was bilking the estate (?) and now on his way to Australia. Jane and Sybil's dad ends up seeming like a dude who walked in at the last act, has no idea what the hell is going on but doesn't care (??) and is just happy to be there, while being loving/nice to Jane in a way that he wasn't for the vast majority of her life. Remember when I said, everyone? The painter shows up to the library, too! Turns out he's not just a painter but an Italian count! It's a Christmas miracle! Sybil jumps into his arms and he ends up just carrying her out of there (???). See, wilding (I had to rate this an extra star for Lady Darvish). I was kind of feeling thrown about at sea but I'm pretty sure in there Ian and Jane live happily ever after.
The Longest Night by Jennifer Ashley 3 stars
Like I said, this is set in Ashley's Nvengaria series, I haven't read any of those but it was pretty clear Mary and Valentin have appeared before. Valentin was recovering from a gunshot wound and Mary was taking care of him and they developed a tendre for each other. I'm not sure if this was shown in previous series books but Ashley did a nice quick job of relaying their past but keeping the story in the present. Not having read the Nvengaria series, I was a little thrown by the paranormal aspect of this one, Valentin is a logosh, which is a half demon, half human, he can turn into a werewolf thingy, I'm guessing from description. Apparently Valentin had to return to Nvengaria but told Mary to come to him but after a few months went by, she thought he just got caught up in the heat of the moment, she's 35 years old with a seventeen year old son and he's 27. There's also some Nvengaria politics at play and some revenge background that has Valentin being a bodyguard but also a spy and Mary doesn't like him putting himself in danger.
Anyway, Mary ends up being a chaperon for the daughter of a dear friend who passed away, the main event she's to chaperon is the Hartwell's Christmas Ball. At one of the parties they're at, the ambassador for Nvengaria is there, with his bodyguard Valentin. The spy aspects come into play for why Valentin is with the ambassador and not being a reader of the Nvengaria series, all that political drama, Valentin had some emotional personal drama to go along with it, kind of passed me by. It also plays into the angst between Mary and Valentin and why she's scared to allow herself to be with him but towards the end when everything was getting revealed, I felt a little lost with the tangled web of it all. If you are a reader of the Nvengaria series, you mileage would definitely vary from mine.
Traditions by Alissa Johnson 4 stars
Clearly, he was the only gentleman to have discovered the secret Miss Byerly. He found himself both pleased and irritated by the idea. He rather liked the notion of being the only man to recognize her charm. He cared less for the idea that she’d never before received flowers. A woman like Patience shouldn’t want for flowers.
This was my favorite of the anthology and oh what lovely emotion and depth it had in it's formulaic/trope, told before structure. I don't use formulaic and trope to be insulting but to acknowledge how these told a million times formats and characters can still bring the emotion if crafted with care.
It starts off with William Renwick, Earl of Casslebury, stating he has a plan. He's going to marry a lady with all the “good” qualities. He was a soldier for ten years before he very unexpectedly inherited the earldom. He has his sights set on Miss Caroline Meldrin but every time he tries to approach her at a party, she's disappeared with her plain, quiet friend, Patience Byerly. When he is determined to speak to Caroline to move the courtship along, he discovers them in the library and stops to eavesdrop. I kid you not, what opens his eyes up to Patience and gets him intrigued about her, is when he eavesdrops, Patience has just bet Caroline that she can fit a huge piece of chocolate cake fully in her mouth without cutting it up. That's right, Patience just snagged her man by shoving an ungodly sized piece of chocolate in her mouth. You never know, ladies!
Patience has secretly been crushing on William the whole little season but with her outdated gowns and awkward social graces, she never thought he would pay attention to her. We get more of a background on Patience and it drives the angst of the story. Her mother died when she was very young and while her father was knighted for his scientific work, he's always been eccentric, bordering on mad. The responsibility of taking care of herself and her father fell to her very young and still at 26 years old. When they finally had no money and were evicted she had to go one of her father's old students who was kind to her as a child and ask for help. She's staying with the Meldrin's on their charity and she feels awful because of it and how her father is much worse now and the secret of his madness could not only ruin her but also the Meldrins they are staying with.
When Will first witnesses her father's madness, she lets him think her father was just in his cups. Patience's plan is to enjoy the rest of the little season and then retire to the country with her father to take care of him and not be an in your face burden to the Meldrins. With this emotional stress we get some great lines from Patience's thoughts and feelings:
“Never know with girls.” His eyelids drooped. “Boys are easier. Should have had one of those.”
“Boys aren’t likely to bring you tea. Overly creamed, or otherwise.”
“All the same. Boys are easier.”
“I rather wonder if mothers aren’t, as well,” she said quietly, and watched as his eyes closed and his breathing evened out in sleep. She stood and bent down to place a gentle kiss on the wrinkled brow of Sir Franklin Byerly. “I’m sorry, Papa."
The “I rather wonder if mother's aren't, as well” is so, gah!
You can feel the emotion, love, and frustration from Patience as she has to care for her father and how it takes away from her own life. We don't get quite as much from William but we know his home life was filled with strife, he gets along with is sister but his parents and other brother seem to have animosity. William shines in his attraction to Patience.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Patience.”
“I…” Flustered, she attempted to make light of the compliment. “Without my spectacles, you mean.”
With exquisite gentleness, he slid her spectacles back into place. “You’re a beautiful woman,” he repeated.
I loved how he kept thinking he was the only one let in on the secret of how great Patience is and how she did loosen him up and add the joy to his life he was looking for.
Patience does have a moment thinking that his courting her has to do with trying to get information about Caroline but that doesn't linger too long as she straight up asks him. We love a Big Misunderstanding squashed! William doesn't see why he would think she wasn't good enough for him (not yet knowing her main issue is her mad father) as he was a solider and inherited by luck. Unfortunately, he rather doubted, “I wouldn’t mind marrying a poor woman,” would serve to make her smile again. And he very much wanted to see her smile again.
“Perhaps there is one holiday tradition I wouldn’t mind adhering to.”
She blinked very slowly. “Bob-Apple?”
Laughing softly, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Kissing you.”
There's some cute and depth/layers additives, William's sister has 12 kids (all boys!!!!) and the little side threads William tells added some charming moments and when the sister invites Patience to a dinner at her house, we get a sweet bobbing for apples scene. However, the angst comes to ahead when the Meldrins hold a party and Patience's father has a meltdown as the servants lock him in a room, after he was seen by some dandy dude who was trying to court Caroline.
She wasn’t a good girl, and she certainly wasn’t being a good daughter. Since the night of Lord Welsing’s ball, she’d allowed the staff to keep, even lock, her father in his room in the evenings so she could enjoy herself without worrying what trouble he might get into while she was out. She’d left him isolated and alone while she flirted and danced and indulged in dreams of a future that included her happiness, but not necessarily his. She’d been horribly selfish.
Patience feels awful for trying to have a good life at the expense of her dad and decides she must leave early to the countryside with her dad. William doesn't stop her from leaving as he is thrown and thinks it's too early to propose marriage. After talking with the father Meldrin (and some weird pimple, mountains out of mole hills talk), he knows something is up with Patience's father and he goes to the dandy dude to make sure he doesn't spread talk about Patience and her father and to learn the truth. He doesn't really bat an eye at her father's madness. +1 William. He regrets not being able to be spontaneous enough to ask Patience to marry him before she left and Patience regrets not fighting for William.
We jump time one month and it's the night of the Hartwell's Christmas Ball. Caroline gets Patience to go to the ball and as soon as she enters, William's sister drags her to the library. (If you're wondering, GOD YES, all I wanted to do was peek around and look for Lady Darvish rocking Eddleton's world behind some curtains. Huge missed opportunity to not tie them into this novella, imho) Alas, only William is in the library but he's there with a declaration of love. They decide to bang it out and I have to say, it felt like a scene added/forced in to bring this novella up to the heat level of the other two. After love and loving, their love fest is broken up with the news that Patience's dad is missing. William is instantly organizing a search party for him and Patience takes him aside to finally tell him that her father is mad, which he already knows but let's her be honest with him and she is relieved and falls even more in love with him because it doesn't bother him.
The mad father ends up galloping up the drive, as mad father's are wont to do, just before everyone leaves to search for him. Whew! We get a hint/line that Caroline might have found love and that line alone has me ready to search out if she got her own book (if you know, please tell me!). Most importantly though, along with the happily ever after, William gives Patience the gift I was waiting for him to give to her since the scene in the portrait hallway and gah!, it was as make me smile like a fool as I thought it would be.
