Mr. Coulton-Jones didn’t see Phoebe because she was sitting behind the enormous flower arrangement, but he had just approached a man who stood against the wall near the fireplace. Mr. Coulton-Jones’s fine, coffee-brown hair had been forced into a fashionable style, and his cravat was elegantly tied, his shirt-points high but not overly so. His jacket was perhaps a couple of years old but not out of style, and it suited his muscular physique admirably.

“Aunt.” Phoebe nodded toward the two men.

“He only just arrived a moment ago.”

She wasn’t certain how she ought to feel upon seeing him again. Now that she knew the connection between the symbol she had found on the Heath, her late Uncle Wynwood and Uncle Sol, Mr. Coulton-Jones’s meeting with that strange man took on a more sinister cast.

Was he involved in something to oppose the government or the war? Because if Uncle Sol were investigating something for the Home Office, it possibly involved one of those two. Yet remembering her conversation with him, and her impressions of his personality, she had a hard time believing that possibility. Or was she simply blinded by her attraction to him?

There was a purr in her aunt’s voice as she said, “It’s very interesting that as soon as he entered the room, he chose to speak to that man.”

—from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer

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This post relates to Camille Elliot’s Lady Wynwood’s Spies, a Christian Regency romantic suspense series set in 1811 London and featuring intrigue, espionage, botanical alchemy, slow-burn romance, and themes of faith and redemption.

• Lady Wynwood’s Spies Series Reference Page

• Reading Order: Lady Wynwood’s Spies Reader Journey Roadmap

          

Phoebe remained aware of their surroundings as they walked the narrow streets, and at one point, she thought that they were being followed. She turned to boldly confront the man following behind them, and when his heartbeat pulsed and he pulled a knife from his sleeve, she made a fist and punched him solidly in the nose.

His cry of pain as he dropped to the cobblestones echoed off the buildings on either side. Even better, it accomplished what she had intended—two other men who had been lying in wait several yards ahead of them on either side of the road abruptly withdrew.

The three women were not accosted by anyone else on the way back to the tannery.

—From Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 9: Shelter

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This post relates to Camille Elliot’s Lady Wynwood’s Spies, a Christian Regency romantic suspense series set in 1811 London and featuring intrigue, espionage, botanical alchemy, slow-burn romance, and themes of faith and redemption.

• Lady Wynwood’s Spies Series Reference Page

• Reading Order: Lady Wynwood’s Spies Reader Journey Roadmap

          

Laura opened the note immediately, not bothering to move back into the drawing room. She frowned as she read the hastily scrawled lines:

Placing a hand to her throat, she felt the pulse racing there. She forced herself to take a deep breath, and then she told Aya, “I must go to Saffron House immediately.”

Her maid frowned. “The gall of her, to order you about as if you are a servant.”

“No,” Laura said thoughtfully. “She is not normally so forceful. I fear something is wrong.”

—From Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 9: Shelter

Curious how it all begins?

Click below to read the beginning of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer for free and step into a world of Regency intrigue, danger, and slow-burn romance.

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You can join my newsletter and get a free ebook copy of Lissa and the Spy, a romantic Regency mystery introducing another pair of spies in my world.

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This post relates to Camille Elliot’s Lady Wynwood’s Spies, a Christian Regency romantic suspense series set in 1811 London and featuring intrigue, espionage, botanical alchemy, slow-burn romance, and themes of faith and redemption.

• Lady Wynwood’s Spies Series Reference Page

• Reading Order: Lady Wynwood’s Spies Reader Journey Roadmap

          

Phoebe realized the sound was coming from the partially opened door at the end of the drawing room that led to the library.

“M’lady, please come out from under the desk!” Aya sounded mortified.

“I was simply checking in case a re—in case something might have fallen behind the drawer.” Aunt Laura’s voice was muffled.

But as Phoebe approached, the strange tone of Aya’s voice made her slow her pace and pause out of sight of the half-open door.

“A receipt? A jeweler’s receipt?” Aya spoke quietly, unlike the half-scolding, half-joking tone she usually took with her eccentric employer. When her aunt didn’t reply, Aya continued, “I saw the crest on the watch. It’s the same one that was on that pendant.”

“Of course not,” Aunt Laura replied briskly, but Aya interrupted.

“I was there with you that night. I saw it. That watch is somehow connected to her, isn’t it?”

Phoebe’s limbs had become solid blocks of ice. She had the feeling that whoever that woman was, she was important to her aunt for some very unpleasant reason.

“Will you reach out to the Senhora?” Aya asked.

“No, not yet.”

“You’ll probably have to tell Phoebe.”

“I’m not ready for that yet, either.”

She might be overhearing something she ought not to know. Although she was close to her aunt, naturally there would always be things Phoebe would never know, but she had the impression that these secrets were weightier than normal. It was like a dark, shabby closet that had cracked open, and she knew she would not like the spiders she found inside.

—from Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer

Curious how it all begins?

Click below to read the beginning of Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 1: Archer for free and step into a world of Regency intrigue, danger, and slow-burn romance.

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💌 Prefer to ease into the series?

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This post relates to Camille Elliot’s Lady Wynwood’s Spies, a Christian Regency romantic suspense series set in 1811 London and featuring intrigue, espionage, botanical alchemy, slow-burn romance, and themes of faith and redemption.

• Lady Wynwood’s Spies Series Reference Page

• Reading Order: Lady Wynwood’s Spies Reader Journey Roadmap

          

Costumes are period accurate for the Regency era, and her gown is based on the fashion plate below.

She Had Four Minutes to Make a Good Impression. And She Couldn't Say Anything Interesting.

If you've ever read a Regency romance and wondered why the heroine spends so much energy on not saying things, you're asking exactly the right question.

Regency ballroom conversation had rules. Unwritten ones, which somehow made them worse—because everyone was expected to simply know them.

The short version: say as little as possible, make it pleasant, and never reveal anything that might embarrass your family. The weather was safe. The quality of the supper was safe. Admiring someone's gown was safe. Anything beyond that required careful navigation.

Fashion plate of a Regency ball gown from Ackerman’s Repository, February 1809.

What you absolutely could not discuss:

Politics, religion, and money were off the table entirely. War—even as soldiers were dying on the Continent and families waited anxiously for news—was considered too grim and too masculine for a ballroom. A young woman who expressed a strong opinion on parliamentary matters risked being quietly written off as odd, or forward, or both.

Personal matters were equally dangerous, but in a different direction. Gossip, romantic speculation, or anything that smacked of impropriety marked you as vulgar rather than refined.

Jane Austen, who knew this world from the inside, was endlessly fascinated by the gap between what people said and what they actually thought. In Northanger Abbey, Henry Tilney parodies the expected ballroom script almost the moment he meets Catherine Morland—he rattles off exactly what they're supposed to say to each other, right down to whether she finds Bath crowded. It's funny because it's true. That really was the script, and most people stuck to it faithfully.

The ones who didn't are the ones we still remember.

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet's conversations with Darcy stand out precisely because she refuses to perform. She asks real questions. She pushes back. She teases. Darcy, who has spent his entire social life surrounded by people telling him what he wants to hear, genuinely doesn't know how to respond at first. Their verbal sparring is romantic because it's so unusual.

On the other end of the spectrum, Austen gives us Anne Steele in Sense and Sensibility as a cautionary tale in the opposite direction. Anne's problem is that she shares too much. She chatters constantly about which men might be interested in her and speculates openly about her romantic prospects, which was considered embarrassingly forward. In a world where discretion was the highest social virtue, the Steeles were a walking reminder of how not to overshare.

The sweet spot was to be witty but not sharp, warm but not familiar, interested but not too interested—and it was genuinely difficult to hit. Most young women erred on the side of saying very little at all.

An AI-generated image of...

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