Crimean Fairy Tale

By Victoria Janssen

Jonas Weston, the illegitimate Black half-brother of a viscount-in-waiting, is barely surviving the traumas of the Crimean War: battle wounds, soldier's heart, hostile weather, and illness. When his fellow soldiers encourage him to seek momentary comfort among the camp followers, he connects intimately with Betsy, the first Black woman he's seen in months. However, after that first encounter, she's elusive...at least until he's in desperate need of a guardian angel.
This hot, sweet, and steamy romance has a fairy tale ending!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victoria Janssen
• Release date: Sep 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301120352

Victoria Janssen

Victoria Janssen has written numerous short stories and three erotic novels: The Duchess, Her Maid, The Groom and Their Lover; The Moonlight Mistress; and The Duke and the Pirate Queen, all from Harlequin Spice. “Under Her Uniform" is her most recent work for Harlequin. She’s a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and Novelists, Inc.. She lives in Philadelphia and loves to research World War One.

Book preview

Crimean Fairy Tale

a time travel romance

Copyright 2021 Victoria Janssen

1854, Crimean Peninsula

Private Jonas Weston emerged from the brutal battle at Inkerman Heights with a shallow lance wound over a broken rib, bad dreams, and hands that would never quite stop shaking. Three nights after the battle, when he'd once again woken screaming, Sergeant Jennings told him, I've a certain cure for the shakes, lad.

Weston took another swig of coarse Turkish arrack and coughed into the embers of their shared campfire. It tasted miles worse than rum, but was thankfully stronger, and it helped numb the sharp pain in his side. If only he could get enough to make him sleep. He feared there wasn't enough in the world. Need more of this, he said, shaking the flask.

Not a bit of it, Jennings said, heartily. You need to dock a bobtail.

Private Dunn, who rarely said anything, piped up in agreement, nodding his head all the while. Plenty of laced mutton here for no more'n tuppence. A healthy fuck's the best thing for nerves. My dad told me so.

Jennings added, So long as you don't get yourself the crinkums, docking'll put you right. Keep your eyes open for shankers or blue boars in her notch; those're sure sign she's a fire ship and you'd be pissing pins and needles before a fortnight was out.

Conversation erupted about the efficacy of these symptoms, and whether an upright was more or less likely to tip a man the token.

Weston wasn't much for women. He'd tupped a few, but only if his friends had talked him into it first, and then he had to get over worrying he would hurt the woman somehow with his big hands and big body. It felt wonderful if she encouraged him and he got going, he liked tupping because who wouldn't, but afterwards he always felt low and lonely for days.

His mother bore him out of wedlock, and though she'd never made him suffer for it in her short life thereafter, he'd never forgotten, either. Even though they were paid and his mother had not been, he could