The Wilder Heart, a Traditional Regency: Regency Escapes, #1

By Alicia Rasley

Widow Madeleine Gray keeps up the family legacy of poetry by penning love poems for the love-starved sailors in 1811 Portsmouth. But she is no romantic herself-- she will never love again. 

Then David Wilder requests a customized Valentine poem for the girl of his dreams... and Maddy realizes that she has dreams of her own for the dashing captain! 

Award-winning Regency author Alicia Rasley sends a valentine of a book for those who think love might be sweeter the second time around. Her women's fiction book, The Year She Fell, was a best-seller. 

This valentine of a Regency novella is recommended for those who like holiday stories, poetry, military heroes, stories with sailing ships, widow heroines, independent women, adventure, sea stories, and stories that are set in England. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alicia Rasley
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524226640

Book preview

The Wilder Heart

by Alicia Rasley

Published by Alicia Rasley

Copyright 2011 Alicia Rasley

ISBN: 978-1-4661-4104-9

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

To my readers

––––––––Chapter One

Portsmouth, January, 1811

They say that Hope is happiness;

But genuine Love must prize the past,

And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:

They rose the first—they set the last.

—Lord Byron

The door crashed back against the wall, and Paul brought winter into the snug parlor. His cheeks were red with cold, his bare hands almost white, and the newspaper he clutched was spotted with melting snowflakes. I got it, Mama! I bought the first one!

Did you lose your gloves again? And where is my change?

Sullenly, Paul held out a few coins, and Madeleine Gray, with a kiss on his damp dark curls, gave him a tuppence back. Thank you, darling. Go buy a sweet.

Paul marveled at the coin for just a second before he tore out again, leaving the door open behind him. Madeleine sighed and went to close out the cold, wishing she had more tuppences for him, wishing she had an unlimited supply of boys' gloves, wishing she could afford to heat their cottage better against the chill harbor breezes.

Returning to her seat by the fire, she opened the Naval Gazette. She had just turned to the advertisement section in the back when her sister-in-law Caroline set the tea tray down on the table.

It is in here, Madeleine said, with mingled triumph and trepidation. She folded the paper along the midpoint, so that the discreet advertisement was in the lower corner.

Caroline traded a cup of tea for the paper, pulled her shawl around her thin shoulders, and shook her head over the announcement. Maddy, I cannot believe you did this.

Caroline was six years younger, but a century more decorous: becomingly shy, sweetly proper, obligingly obedient. Madeleine wondered yet again that Caroline and Ned were born to the same parents. Ned had always prided himself on impropriety.

But Caroline was reading aloud, letting her soft voice express all the anxiety Madeleine refused to feel. Valentine Poet for hire. A respectable widow with significant writing success will write verses to win your valentine. References, samples, and fees available on request, from Mrs. Gray, Lane's End, Eastney, Portsmouth. Oh, Maddy, what if disreputable sorts—there are so many in the Navy yard—come here to our home?

Madeleine only shrugged. If they can get past Eastney's gauntlet of elderly gossips, I shall give them their verses for free.

I can't think what Ned would have said.

Madeleine couldn't answer for a moment, thinking that if her husband were around to say it, she needn't resort to such measures. Then, with renewed spirit, she replied, He would say I had found my niche in the poetic world. He always thought my verse too conventional. But that is just what our patrons will want. St. Valentine's Day is the time for sentimental verses.

Caroline was shaking her head in the manner of an elderly church organist. She has gotten so prim, Madeleine thought sadly, and not twenty yet. Oh, she did not yet look like a spinster. Caroline was a pretty girl, even with her brown hair braided and bundled in a knot at her neck, even with her little mobcap, the kind Madeleine would never wear no matter how long she lived a widow. But Caroline had always been quiet, orphaned early, reared in the shadow of a brilliant elder brother, whose radiance, sadly, had died too soon. Now Caroline was the only retiring member of a household also containing a slightly eccentric widow, an ungovernable six-year-old boy, and a tyrannical old nurse. Poor Caroline, Madeleine thought, no wonder she despairs of us.

Madeleine herself had never truly despaired, not even in those bleak days when Ned's spirit faded from his body and finally from the world. The task of supporting the family was made easier by her talent with a pen and an aunt's legacy of a cottage in the only sedate section of Portsmouth. So far they had managed to live on her little widow's portion, eked out with earnings from pieces she wrote for ladies' magazines, and occasionally, under a male pseudonym, for gentlemen's magazines. It was a life without luxury but with a bit of comfort, and she might never have thought of selling valentine verses to sailors had she not decided to marry off Caroline.

Dearest, take off that Friday face. I have already started to make up the valentine cards. Caroline opened her mouth to protest, but Madeleine went ruthlessly on, I stopped at Ward's and bought paper lace and oh, acres of pink and red paper—pink for those proclaiming innocent admiration and red for the rest of them. She pulled from her wicker workbox a lace and paper heart the size of her hand and laid it on the newspaper. Look, I made up a sample. I haven't your skill at cutting, but my verses are delightful, so no one will notice the card itself is not quite perfect.

She had cut the edges of the heart a bit raw, and this subterfuge had its intended effect. Caroline might be retiring, but she was artistic, and proud in her quiet way. Oh, no, you can't use this as a sample. Look, the halves do not match, and the lace is coming loose—no, don't you see! This is not a suitable presentation for your verses. Let me make a few to use as samples.

And a supply of hearts that can be decorated to order? Oh, that would be such a help. Having won her point, Madeleine was inclined to be generous. Indeed, that was her aim all along. "So we shall split our fee, shan't we? And we must agree—we must agree, Caro, for I shan't hear of anything else—that we