I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (35 page)

A Word About Gypsies, Rogues, and Revolution

There is an overwhelming fascination about them and their mode of life. It is the fascination of freedom. We think that we are free: indeed we boast that we are. But of our civilisation we have made a tyrant.

Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald,

The Gypsies of Britain (1944)

T
he word Gypsy evolved from the word Egyptian. Lore had it that when the first Romany people entered Europe in the later Middle Ages, they claimed to have come from Egypt. The name stuck, eventually becoming the most popular in English: Gypsy. Today the word is often considered a pejorative. My characters—all but Taliesin—use it because it was the typical terminology of the era.

The early nineteenth century saw increasingly strict laws across Britain against vagrancy. Tinkers, peddlers of all kinds, disabled war veterans, and “lunatics” were often lumped together in anti-vagrancy laws with “Gypsies” or “Egyptians” as “rogues” and “vagabonds.” A resolution passed at the quarter sessions of Norfolk in 1817, for instance, indicated that “all persons pretending to be gipsies, or wandering in the habit or form of Egyptians, are by law deemed to be rogues and vagabonds, punishable by imprisonment and whipping.” (Mayall, 258) Most of these laws were reiterations of centuries-old legislation against vagabondage that penalized “rogues,” fortune-tellers, and “Egyptians” with crippling fines, imprisonment, and forced removal from their homes, including deportation.

The struggle for domestic tranquility in the shifting social landscape of early-nineteenth-century England after the end of the Napoleonic Wars led reformers in and out of Parliament to seek solutions, including “domesticizing” England’s Romany. Many of the reformers, some of whom were religiously motivated, perceived Gypsies as lawless, irreligious creatures of an inferior nature to “civilized” man, who could nevertheless be educated to become moral, law-abiding subjects and integrated into mainstream society. I drew Martin Caulfield’s comments about Gypsies—those in Eleanor’s memories of childhood and those he speaks in court for the benefit of the magistrate—directly from the writings of contemporary reformers. With Martin I hoped to paint a portrait of a common type of reformer of the era whose heart and actions were directed toward justice and equality, but whose notions of culture were nevertheless still essentially racist. Scholars have done exceptional work on attitudes towards Gypsies in British history, including David Mayall’s
Gypsy Identities, 1500-2000: From Egipcyans and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany
(quoted above) and Deborah Epstein Nord’s
Gypsies and the British Imagination, 1807-1930
, among others.

A word on deportment is in order here. While deportment was a punishment for Gypsies for hundreds of years in Britain, by the beginning of the nineteenth century English law was more likely to prohibit than require it. Hefty fines and imprisonment were the most common punishments for those identified as “rogues,” including Gypsies whom many lawmakers considered threats to the proper order of society. Since Taliesin’s years of vagabondage included many episodes of incarceration, some for acts of violence, and since local lord magistrates in this period still had significant autonomy, I allowed the elder Lord Baron to lay down an especially severe threat.

Across an ocean from England, the West Indies (today the Caribbean) in this era was a bubbling cauldron of abolitionism, revolution, and rebellion. Despite popular ideas that included liberty for all men regardless of race or ancestry—and rebellions by slaves who were forced to live as property and labor in unspeakable conditions—the European nations that had long since claimed the islands refused to relinquish the bases of their vastly lucrative sugar industries. At war both at home and across their empires, they switched alliances swiftly according to the complex politics and dangers of the moment. The French Revolution, which created warring factions within that country, complicated alliances further. At the time Edward Bridgeport-Adler deserted his regiment to fight with Spanish and French rebels in the mountains of Santo Domingo (today the Dominican Republic), which bordered French San Domingue (today Haiti), English military forces were supporting the French plantation owners on San Domingue. England’s leaders perceived their greatest threat at the time to be the French Revolution. Since the plantation owners were fighting the revolutionaries, who were abolitionists, in order to keep slavery alive and prosperous, England briefly defended those plantation owners. That years after his incarceration Edward was quietly forgiven his briefly rebellious past reflects the swiftly shifting waters of British domestic and foreign policy. Many in Britain sympathized with the horrifying plight of slaves, and Britain’s abolitionist movement during these decades was fierce. In 1807 Britain forbade the slave trade from Africa and in 1833 become the first colonial nation to entirely and permanently abolish slavery. I also take up these themes in my novels
Swept Away by a Kiss
and
Captured by a Rogue Lord
.

Real history is a complex and intricate creature. I thank my husband, Laurent Dubois, one of the world’s foremost experts on the Caribbean in the age of revolution, for helping me create the story of Martin’s fiery preaching that inspired his friend to sail across an ocean to fight for justice; Edward, Grace and Alejo’s love triangle during these years of tumult; and Grace’s sacrifice that sent her daughters away from danger to what she hoped would be safety. In the time since I began planning my Prince Catchers series, my husband and I have spent countless hours pouring over the details of these events that happen decades before the stories in the three novels occur. But such is history: while it appears comfortably in the past, its effects never fail to impact the present profoundly.

For readers of a geographical bent, you will not find Piskey on any map of Cornwall. It is an amalgamation of several coastal towns in Cornwall and Devon that I adore. In the Cornish dialect I named it after the fairies (“little people”) who inspire me to write fiction. Normanton is also fictional, mostly because I couldn’t bear to populate any one charming historical Devonshire village with bigots. I fell in love with Devon and Cornwall while researching and writing these books, and will return to them in future books without doubt. The small, independent Andalusian principality of which Taliesin is heir is also a creation of my imagination.

And so we come to the end of my Prince Catchers series. I hope you enjoyed the Caulfield sisters’ adventures. You can find another glimpse of the prince-catching sisterhood in my novella
Kisses, She Wrote
.

Once a character appears on the stage of my nineteenth-century Britain, he or she is likely to appear again. Master swordsman Evan Saint returns in the fourth book of my Falcon Club series, featuring Lady Constance Read, also known as “Sparrow.” Evan’s fastidious chess partner, Joshua Bose, appears in the second book of that series,
How to Be a Proper Lady
.

For more about my books, including extra scenes from
I Loved a Rogue
, I hope you will visit me at www.KatharineAshe.com.

Thank-yous

F
or their angelic influences on this story (some knowingly, others not), I thank Mary Chen, Erin Knightley, Melinda Leigh, Lisa Lin, Caroline Linden, Helen Lively, Teherah Mafi, Mary Brophy Marcus, Jennifer McQuiston, Miranda Neville, Lydia Olander, and Maya Rodale. To the good people of Saladelia Café, without whose welcoming haven this book would not exist, I raise a glass in thanks. For their inspiring title ideas, my gratitude goes to Amanda Banks, Nova Conover, Angela Daffern, Melody B. May, Tin Ong, Joanne Pall, Ashley Seamon, and Celia Wolff, with special thanks to Celia for coming up with
I Loved a Rogue
.

Thanks to my assistant, Cari Gunsallus, who is all that is good and patient and industrious when I am at my most scattered and frantic, which is, in fact, always. And to my Princesses, the best street team in The Entire World.

Georgie C. Brophy and Meg Huliston’s reading and suggestions shaped this book meaningfully. For their generosity and wisdom I am deeply grateful.

Thanks to artist Jennifer Wu for the Torres family symbol that graces the first page of each chapter in this book. She rendered it perfectly.

Copious thanks to all the fabulous people at Avon who make publishing each of my books look so easy, especially Gail Dubov whose gorgeous covers make me sing, Eleanor Mikucki whose copyediting is superb, and Eileen DeWald whose patience astonishes me, and to Nicole Fischer, Pam Jaffee, Shawn Nicholls, Megan Schuman, and everybody in Sales & Marketing. Thank you most especially to my wonderful editor, Lucia Macro, who makes all my books so much better and especially this one.

To my agent Kimberly Whalen, a hundred, thousand, million thank-yous.

To Mary Buckham, who once told me to be the heroine of my own life, my most sincere thanks for mentorship which has sustained me ever since.

To my readers, for your open, generous hearts and your thirst for goodness and joy in this world. I wish that I could wrap each one of you in a bear hug and imprint stars upon your brows.

To my mother and father, who gave me both the permission and the privilege to write fiction, I am eternally grateful—really, beyond words. And to my husband, son, and Idaho, whose love and companionship and support sparkle in my heart like the heavens, thank you, beloveds.

Don’t miss

THE ROGUE

the first book in a brand new series

THE DEVIL’S DUKE

by KATHARINE ASHE

Coming Spring 2016

Read on for a sneak peek!

The Rogue

EVAN
SAINT TOOK
what he wanted when he wanted it. Whether by the tip of his blade or the finesse of his words, he rarely lost a battle.

Yet when he stood within reach of her, his tongue faltered.

“You were staring at me.” Blanketed in the brilliant blue of her eyes peeking out from ivory silk, he could contrive no other words, no empty seductions for this girl.

“You were staring at me,” she replied, her voice a whisper of satin or cream or something equally pure and rich. Unmistakably aristocratic, with a lilt of Highland music. She was not one of the hired women in this den of hedonism tonight.

“One of us must have begun it,” he said.

“Perhaps it was spontaneously mutual.” Her lips like generous rose cushions curved. “Or coincidence and both of us imagined the other began it.”

“How mortifying for us both then.”

The beautiful lips smiled again, an arc of delight.
And mischief
. She knew of him. Of his reputation.

“Dance with me,” he said.

From within the mask, her eyes darted into the dim ballroom beyond. “I cannot.”

“Or you will not?” he challenged, but his heartbeats were quick. “With me?”

She caught him in her wide, brilliant gaze. “If I could, I would only with you.”

Then Evan knew, with the certainty of a warrior, that what they had begun so innocently, so easily now, would ruin them both . . .

About the Author

KATHARINE ASHE is the award-winning author of historical romances that reviewers call “intensely lush” and “sensationally intelligent,” including
How to Be a Proper Lady
, an Amazon Editors’ Choice for one of the Ten Best Books of the Year, and
How to Marry a Highlander
, a 2014 RITA® Award finalist. She lives in the wonderfully warm southeast with her beloved husband, son, dog, and a garden she likes to call romantic rather than unkempt. A professor of History, she writes romance because she thinks modern readers deserve grand adventures and breathtaking sensuality, too. Please write to her at PO Box 51702, Durham, NC 27717-1702 or visit www.KatharineAshe.com.

www.avonromance.com

www.facebook.com/avonromance

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

Praise for the Novels of Katharine Ashe

I MARRIED THE DUKE

“Just the kind of rollicking romance you want if you’re in the mood to be swept away on a grand adventure.”

RT BookReviews “TOP PICK!”

“Historical Romance of the Year”

Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee 2014

KISSES, SHE WROTE

“Smoldering.”

Library Journal
(
starred review
)

“Finished it with tears in my eyes. Yes, it was that good.”

Elizabeth Boyle,
New York Times
bestselling author

HOW TO MARRY A HIGHLANDER

RITA® Award Finalist 2014

Romance Writers of America

HOW TO BE A PROPER LADY

Amazon Editors’ Choice 10 Best Books of 2012

HOW A LADY WEDS A ROGUE

“The characters are textured, deep, and believable. The writing is strong and lyrical, easily supporting agile, polished dialogue . . . an intriguing, engaging plot and healthy doses of both humor and emotion.”

Kirkus Reviews

WHEN A SCOT LOVES A LADY

“Lushly intense romance . . . radiant prose.”

Library Journal
(
starred review
)

“Sensationally intelligent writing, and a true, weak-in-the-knees love story.”

Barnes & Noble “Heart to Heart”
Recommended Read!

IN THE ARMS OF A MARQUESS

“Every woman who ever dreamed of having a titled lord at her feet will love this novel.”

Eloisa James,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Immersive and lush. . . . Ashe is that rare author who chooses to risk unexpected elements within an established genre, and whose skill and magic with the pen lift her tales above the rest.”

Fresh Fiction

CAPTURED BY A ROGUE LORD

“Best Historical Romantic Adventure”

Reviewers’ Choice Award winner 2011

SWEPT AWAY BY A KISS

“Best First Historical Romance”

Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee 2010

“A breathtaking romance filled with sensuality and driven by a brisk and thrilling plot.”

Lisa Kleypas,
New York Times
#1 bestselling author

“A master storyteller.”

Sandra Hill,
New York Times
bestselling author