It’s 1923. The legacy of the Great War is evident at an afternoon tea-party in a London square. Mrs Kentisbury tries to speak to her lost son; Clarissa asks for guidance on whether she should marry again; and nine-year-old Beatrice encounters an angel in the garden.

Angel

“Do I have to go, Mamma?”

I’d finished lessons for the day and had been looking forward to reading by the nursery fire. I squirmed at the itchiness of the grey worsted material of my winter coat as Nanny buttoned it up and sat the matching hat on top of my head. The only consolation was the white muff Uncle Bill had just given me for Christmas – it was so soft and fluffy that my hands were more often patting it than tucked in.

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Kathryn Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, was a young lovestruck girl. Unfortunately the love of her life was not the great King who desired her… Kathryn sends out her heartfelt thoughts to her lover through those who visit Hampton Court…

Blood on the Rose

You see me not.

How could you see me? I am no more than the morning mist which rises from the dewed grass as the sun touches it at dawn. I am no more than the fleeting touch of a spring breeze as it passes by your face and you reach out to touch it only to find it gone.  I am no more than a name in history, even if that name does resonate with you in your lessons on monarchs of the past.  No one knows the truth but those who lived then, those who walked, talked, cried, laughed and loved.  Oh, how we loved!

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The French revolution brings difficult and confusing times to a Paris journalist.

Chop Logic

Marcel Desailly made an average income writing letters for the illiterate, poems for lovers, plays for amateur actors and scandal sheets about the wealthy elite.  Citizen Robespierre liked to read of the sexual shenanigans of French society; Marcel’s words added strength to his convictions about the despots that ruled the country.  Consequently, Marcel gained employment as an agent provocateur for the Committee for Public Safety.  He was to become a diarist of The Reign of Terror, as Robespierre liked to call his campaign.  Many of Marcel’s stories fit the Committee’s political agenda and politically correct actors performed his zealous tracts.

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Burke and Hare were not the only bodysnatchers working – the London gangs were very busy. Ben Crouch and his associates supplied endless bodies to Barts …

For The Greater Good

‘Shut the damn door, Crouch!’

‘What’s up, Joseph?  Too cold for you?  Get too hot in here and the stiffs’ll start to rot.  That what you want?’

‘ No, just some heat for them as are drinking, is all.’

Ben Crouch studied the belligerent face of the landlord, wondering what the problem was this night.  He’d had his share of the advance paid out by the surgeons to get the bodysnatching season underway, what else did he want?

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Teresa is neither psychic nor a thief, so why is she being haunted by a dead Queen?

Marie’s Necklace

The audacious weekend theft made headlines around the world – ‘Priceless Marie Antoinette Necklace Stolen’.  On Monday morning, the newspaper office was still buzzing when Teresa Piccolo arrived at work.  Ordinarily cheerful and fresh faced, her uncharacteristic gaunt and dishevelled appearance might have been mistaken for the flu.

A veteran newspaper man, Editor Harold Bartlet, was still doggedly pursuing the story, when he saw Teresa approaching his office.  Her lifeless eyes and trance-like state, were enough to tell him that something was terribly wrong.  He opened the door and beckoned her inside.

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London, 1853. An orphaned boy, Timmy, had to leave the orphanage when he was big enough and work as a chimney sweep in houses when their residents were not home.

That night didn’t start well for Timmy. He lost his coat and the money he earned earlier to some bullies before he went to clean a house’s chimney. It wasn’t so bad despite the smothering dust, but that was before he fell and cracked his ankle.

O Res Mirabilis!

London, 1853

“Hey, Sooty!”

A bunch of scruffy-looking chaps stood idly about, some leaning against the dirty brick wall behind them, picking their teeth or folding their arms on their chests.  Timmy walked past them, head down, stealing glances toward those men once in a while, making as though he was about to turn around and run but a small voice inside his head warned him not to.  Slowly he advanced, careful not to make jerking movements that would stir those bullies’ attention toward him if their attention had not been toward him already.

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In which the Scarlet Pimpernel’s right-hand-man is rescued from a dangerous encounter, and unwittingly contributes to a masterpiece of English literature.

The Basingstoke Affair

“… so, Percy, as you ordered,  I started in immediate pursuit of  our old friend Citizen Chauvelin. I caught up with him at Golden Cross early in the morning where he was creating a lot of noise:  the ignorant foreigner making a great fuss about booking a place on the Dover Mail for the following day. I knew my man, however, and kept him in sight and after the clerk had begun to deal with another traveller he slipped out, went to a stables nearby and quietly ordered a fly, to start at once. Fortunately I had my horse ready and when he set off, so did I.

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The flamboyant outrageous ultra rich George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, is a discontented spirit. He has complaints to make about the way historians depict him and a score to settle with the man who killed him…

The Fragrance of a Poisoned Flower

You want beauty? I have it. You want wealth? I have it. You want flamboyance? Your current ‘gays’, if I may use that crude expression, have nothing on me! Sex? I could bed every last one of you and still look for more. But apart from that, the real thrill, the real reason for living, is power. And I have that, so much of it! Who else could work with and influence and dominate TWO kings?

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The battle of Barnet was a bloody affair and in it, Richard Neville, the great Earl of Warwick, was killed. The Earl has a lot to say about his cousins, Edward IV, George duke of Clarence, Richard of Gloucester, as much in fact as Edward IV has to say about his cousin, the Earl of Warwick!

The King Maker is Dead, Long Live the King

Welcome, friend. I see you start; my apologies, I have frightened you. It is so rare I find anyone who is capable of hearing me, so when one such as you happens to arrive, I forget and rush forward to talk, for the loneliness becomes unbearable at times. It is I, Richard Earl of Warwick, who is speaking with you at this time. I believe you know me if only by reputation, I who once owned half of England, I once employed 30,000 people in my estates, all there to serve me – and my wife and my children and those I took under my wing.

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The Johannes Vermeer painting, ‘The Love Letter’ has no known story behind it.  I have invented one.  A licentious rogue falls in love and asks his friend, Jan to deliver a love letter to the object of his desire.  No-one could foresee the results of his action.

The Love Letter

My name is Pieter van Eyken and I put pen to paper to let you know of the great injustice done to me.  The year is 1667 and I live in Delft, The Netherlands, where both men and women know of me as an excellent swordsman.  Women wish to experience my prowess with the sword I keep in my elegant breeches whilst men rarely want to experience how I use the sword I keep in my scabbard.

My friend, Johannes Vermeer, or Jan, has landed me in a pile of manure that reaches my neck and threatens to engulf me.

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Thomas is a lute player and composer of songs at the Tudor court of Henry VIII.  He writes a love ballad for one of the Queen’s ladies, a dark-haired beauty he nicknames the Lady Greensleeves.  But the lady has set her ambitions on a lover much richer than a minstrel.

The Minstrel’s Gallery

Her feet in woollen slippers made no sound, only the scrape of tired velvet across the gallery’s timber slats told me of her coming.  That day the courage of a lion roared in my heart, as I looked up from my lute to brave a smile.

The lady stopped to perch on the window seat beside me, dark midnight eyes glinting.  “Do you have a tongue as well as teeth, minstrel boy?”  Her voice was sweet as honey-cake, but with the tart after bite of sour apple.

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The Pied Piper doesn’t often get to tell his side of the story, how he was cheated out of the money the town owed him for ridding them of rats, here he does!

The Pied Piper’s Story

It was a fairly stylish town, as they go, beautiful buildings, soaring churches, elegant homes, wide spacious streets and a town council that were doing no more than looking out for themselves.

Pompous they were, in expensive suits and silk shirts, elaborate ties, highly polished shoes.  Oh I must mention the carefully barbered hair, the manicured nails, the air of affluence they carried with them.  It was as strong as a perfume.

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It’s 1942 and Katya’s life has been torn asunder by the horror of German occupation, but in the midst of starvation, terror and loss, there’s a glimmer of hope as she meets the love of her life. Dashing and sweet, he is everything she’s ever wanted but he’s a German officer.

Three Months of Summer

Katya walked as fast as she could through the nearly empty streets of occupied Kharkiv, trying to keep up with her brother Anton. Gentle afternoon sun played on the walls of war damaged buildings, illuminating gaunt faces of the town’s inhabitants. At least it’s warm again, Katya thought with relief, shuddering at the memory of last winter when so many people died from cold and hunger. The old and the young, strangers and people she knew. For Katya, war meant living in fear for everyone she loved. More and more each day, it meant thinking about nothing but food. And most of all, it meant losing hope.

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Towton, the bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, is here related by Antony Woodville, who fought alongside his father, Richard Woodville, on the Lancastrian side, in the disastrous battle which claimed 28,000 lives in just ten hours. The Woodvilles survived…

Towton Nightmare

The array went out, once more we were to take up arms against the king – and if you ask which one, then I say the question is a fair one. There can be but one king to rule a country, all else is not fair and right in the sight of God.

So we rode out yet again. My mother clung to us in turn, begging us not to be in the thick of the fighting, to stand back from the crush if we could, to come back for she could not live without us.

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Set in the 1950′s, we find out how a teenage boy is inspired to earn money so he can contribute towards the cost of a new bicycle.

Youthful Enterprise

“Colin’s got a new bike.”

“Oh yes.”

“It’s maroon, with dropped handlebars.”

Rob’s mother looked him in the eye, her head on one side. “Has he had a birthday then?”

“No, his Gran died and left his dad a lot of money.”

“She always looked like she didn’t have two halfpennies to rub together.”

“Well, she left over two hundred pounds. His dad’s had a new bike as well, and he’s going to extend his pigeon house.”

“I think it’s called a loft, Rob.”

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