Poetic Justice (36 page)

Author's Note:

The character of Alfred Wiley is inspired by the Rev. James Wilmot, an Oxfordshire vicar who in 1780 started a search for books and papers that Shakespeare might have owned. Finding none, he concluded that the great plays had not been written by the man from Stratford-on-Avon, as he must have been illiterate. Wilmot named Bacon as the leading candidate for the position of playwright. Frightened by his own theory, he burned his notes and confided in only a few people. It was another seventy years before others began questioning the identity of the author of the Shakespeare plays.

In reality, the play Sir Thomas More had been banned during Elizabethan times as subversive and thus was apparently never duplicated or performed. Its manuscript surfaced in the early nineteenth century in the Harleian Collection and is now in the British Museum. The script has been written in several hands, one of which was in the 1860s tentatively identified as Shakespeare's. From the 1920s, scholars have generally accepted that Shakespeare wrote three pages of that play. It is the only extant literary work known to be in Shakespeare's hand.

I am naturally taking a few liberties in placing the manuscript in the St. Germaine trunk. But I am not inventing the manuscript, or the idea of Bacon-as-Shakespeare: They were both in England, however unnoticed, at the time of my story. That Alavieri and John identify it as Shakespeare's work so early is the biggest fiddle with the facts. I presume their theory was scoffed at for fifty years, but their expertise proved impeccable in the end!

***

From the author:

If you enjoyed
Poetic Justice
, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this book, too.

Lend it.
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About the author:

Alicia Rasley is a RITA-award winning Regency novelist who has been published by major publishers such as Dell, NAL, and Kensington. Her women’s fiction novel
The Year She Fell
has been a Kindle #1 bestseller in the contemporary fiction category.

Her articles on writing and the Regency period have been widely distributed, and many are collected on her website, www.rasley.com. She also blogs about writing and editing at
www.edittorrent.blogspot.com
. Currently she teaches and tutors writers at two state colleges and in workshops around North America. She lives in Indianapolis with her husband Jeff, another writer and a retired attorney. The elder of their sons is training to become a military officer, and the younger is a production assistant in Hollywood.

To my readers:

Thanks so much for reading! This is the companion book to
Royal Renegade
, so if you ever wondered how Michael met and won his Russian princess, you can find the story there. I attached an excerpt from that book below. I love writing about the elegant, exciting Regency period, and setting a romance within the political and military upheaval of the time.

If you like this book, please click the "like" on the sales page, and leave a comment. That really helps authors get the word out, and we appreciate it so much.

Happy reading!

Alicia

If you enjoyed this book, you might enjoy other books by Alicia Rasley, all available at Amazon Kindle Store:

The Wilder Heart,
a Regency novella.

The Year She Fell.

The Reluctant Lady
, a Regency novel.

Royal Renegade
, a Regency novel.

An Excerpt from
Royal Renegade
by Alicia Rasley:

Tatiana finally looked up at him, and in her eyes he saw glittering a desperation that frightened him. "Michael," she whispered. "When you come back—" Then, all in a rush she said, "Lady Sherbourne said all the married ladies here have a special friend—
a cher ami
."

A chill settled over him as he heard that pretty mouth speaking such a vulgar term. For a moment he couldn't reply. Her meaning was clear enough; her motive baffled him. Did she want him only as a lover? Or was she telling him they'd have to settle for that? Either way, he was flooded with rage. "Are you speaking hypothetically, or are you measuring me for that position? For I'll tell you right now, Your Highness, I won't play that role with you."

He saw the hot flush of shame on her cheeks and was instantly sorry. But Tatiana was never cowed; she only jutted out her chin and hissed, "I wonder if Lord Harburton is so convinced of your principles on this matter."

He missed a step as she wrenched her hand out of his. But she had finally learned some discretion; she smiled brilliantly up at him for the benefit of their audience. Quietly he said, "Did you ever think that, having sampled that experience once, I might not want to do it again, especially with you?"

His intended meaning was so far from insult that he didn't understand, at first, why she was so angry. "That's not what I meant and you know it," he exclaimed with some exasperation. "I meant—"

Now her great green eyes were veiled, her full mouth trembling a bit. "I know. You told me before, you couldn't bear to see me. I understand. I'm sorry. I shan't plague you again."

"No," he whispered, undone by the terrible sorrow in her eyes. "We must talk alone, Tatiana, tonight."

But she only shook her head blindly. He could hear the click of sapphire against sapphire over the hollow of her throat. "I can't. You must leave me alone. You must. Do you remember that night in France, when we walked through the rain to that farmhouse?" Her hand stole into his as the movement of the dance brought them into touch again. "I dreamt last night that we were walking along that road again, you and I, only it was already dawn, and the sun was rising over the water. For a moment I thought that it was really a miracle. But then you told me this must be a dream because the sun does not rise in the west, and then I realized there were no such things as miracles."

Her voice trailed off as the music ended, and her hand slipped out of his, and she was gone into the crowd before he had time to answer. He started after her, to tell her that he would make the sun rise in the west or the north or the south, if that would make her happy.