Welcome to Peggy Lovelace Ellis. Congrats to the happy reader who wins a free copy!
February 23, 2025
I’m pleased Gail invited me to her Author Visit page again. I will give a signed copy of An Independent Woman to one reader in the United States who leaves a comment. https://www.amazon.com/Independent-Woman-Peggy-Lovelace-Ellis/dp/B0DW42V4TQ/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=
I conceived the idea for An Independent Woman, my new Regency Romance standalone set in 1815, when a distant relative gave his beautiful, petite 13-year-old daughter in marriage to a man in his fifties. She was home-schooled and had no friends. A complete innocent. I was appalled but couldn’t do anything about it. I dealt with it in fiction.
Lady Judith Ainsley was young, but smart, when she learned of her father’s devious schemes. Despite the pain of deception and the illusion of a loving father destroyed, Lady Judith devised safeguards for her protection and independence. She had help: a companion, a guardian angel, and a duke whom she could not decide whether to love or to hate.
Major Richard Chadwick inherits a near destitute duchy. As he searches for ways to increase revenue, he uncovers a means to benefit himself but hurting the infuriating, adventurous, reckless woman he is coming to care for. However, before Lord Richard breaks the news, the lady disappears, and everything comes to a standstill while he rushes to her rescue. Will he make it in time? And if he does, will she want him after he reveals the truth?
Here’s an excerpt
Hampshire, England, October 1801
The seven-year-old ragamuffin kicked off her half boots, laughing with delight while she wiggled her toes among dead leaves. The earthy smell rising from beneath the top layer made her nose crinkle. She sneezed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, then tucked her skirts into the top of cotton drawers and climbed the tree until she stood on a broad limb. There were many trees around, but this one had limbs near the ground. Mattie didn’t let her climb trees.
The little miss sank small teeth into a juicy red apple, delighting in the noise. Mattie would frown about that too. Eating whole apples is beneath your social position, she would say. What would she say about all the smudges on her charge’s face? The child didn’t want to know. She didn’t want a governess, but Father insisted she needed lessons Nanny couldn’t teach her, so Miss Matthews had moved into Ainsley Park.
Susanna’s scolds are different. After all, she’s an angel and whispers into her small charge’s mind.
Horse’s hooves interrupted the child’s thoughts about the ridiculous whims of her elders. Probably a groom from Ainsley Park looking for her. She didn’t want to give up these few minutes of stolen freedom. The child peeked through the leaves.
Reining his gray horse to a standstill beneath the tree, the rider reached for an apple. Not an Ainsley groom, but a young gentleman she’d never seen before. Relief bubbled into a mischievous impulse. She tossed her half-eaten apple toward him. It hit the horse, which reared, white-stockinged feet clawing the air.
The unexpected movement sent the rider backward off his mount. His brimmed hat flew in one direction, his apple in another. He scrambled to his feet and soothed the mare. “Sorry, old girl. That apple chose a bad time to separate itself from the tree.”
The girl couldn’t control her giggles, which brought the man’s frowning gaze upward. Afraid now, she lost her footing, tumbling unceremoniously toward the ground. He jumped forward and caught her. They landed in the leaves barely missing the horse’s hooves.
She rolled off him and scooted backward, staring into the prettiest face she’d seen outside her storybook about Greek gods. Glittering green eyes beneath fair curls that tumbled over his forehead stared back at her.
“Did you throw the apple?” He smoothed his face into a superior smirk. “Oh well. You’re only a little girl, not old enough to know better, but don’t throw apples at horses again, understand?”
The voice of the Greek god in her storybook must sound like his, light, not a deep rumble like her father’s voice.
“Little hoyden, your face is filthy.” He stood, hauling her up beside him. Without warning, he kissed the tip of her nose. “There, I’ll wager that’s your first kiss—also your last if you don’t wash your face.”
“My name’s Judith,” she blurted. “What’s yours?”
“Richard.” He rescued his hat from a low limb, then swung himself onto the saddle and spurred his mount.
She shouted after him, “I’ll marry you someday, even if you are prettier than I am!”
His laughter floated back until his mount’s long strides carried him from her sight.
“I will marry him,” she muttered, “or my name is not Judith Elizabeth Ainsley.”
Don’t make rash promises. They might come back and haunt you someday. Now, you must return home.
Judith trudged toward Ainsley Park. Susanna telling her what to do again.
In An Independent Woman, Lady Judith Ainsley learns that the very thing she strived for—independence—might not be what she truly wants. We live in a different era and have vastly different lives, but I believe we experience the same circumstances today.
Thank you for reading!
KATHERINA VON BORA’S LIFE was one of hard work and solid virtue. When she was a young girl, her father placed her in a German convent following his remarriage. She heard Luther’s teachings in her early twenties and accepted his doctrine of justification by faith alone. With some other nuns she contacted the reformer, requesting help to escape the convent. Luther arranged for a delivery-man to smuggle the women out in empty fish barrels. Luther asked the families of the young women to take them back. When they proved unwilling, he found husbands for all of them. However, he was not able to find a place for Katie. Eventually he proposed to her and married her the same day. They seem to have been a happy couple. Her hard work and practical domestic skills (budgeting, raising livestock, and brewing beer) fed and clothed them, their children, several orphans, and the many students who boarded with them. After Luther’s death, Katie reared their younger children alone for six years. Elector John Frederick, the ruler of Saxony, set up a small trust fund and helped her purchase a farm near Wittenberg. However, her land was taxed unmercifully by contending armies during the Schmalkaldic War, leaving her in crushing poverty. As a result, she had to flee. Her animals were confiscated and her house burned to the ground. After peace was restored, Katie borrowed a thousand gulden to rebuild. To repay her loan, she took student boarders. When plague broke out in Wittenberg in 1552, the university staff and students moved to Torgau, a place less affected by the disease. With her boarders gone, Katherina was again in dire financial straits. She decided to follow the university, but her decision proved catastrophic. At the end of the sixty mile trip, not far from the gate of Torgau, her horses bolted and she had to leap from the wagon into a lake. She was lifted from the water severely bruised. Friends carried her into the city. Although she fought for life for three months, the pain and hardships of her latter years sealed her inevitable end. Her last recorded words were, “I will cling to my Lord Christ as a burr on a coat.” On this day, 20 December 1552 she died. Next day, the entire university turned out for her funeral.—Dan Graves
