Camy's Loft

The Warning Behind the Smile

Two women in blue and cream Regency gowns sit together in an elegant English drawing room, exchanging a knowing smile and suspicious glance, illustrating a female spy secretly warning her companion of danger in a Regency historical suspense story.

Lena had never met a Mr. Thornwell. And none of their acquaintance should know the Neybridges were in Wittenden.

Perhaps this was an agent going by another name, sent with a message for Mr. Neybridge. But if so, why hadn’t he gone by one of a dozen secret keywords given to Lena and Mr. Neybridge so that they would recognize any Ramparts agents sent with messages for them?

Melinda looked confused and glanced at Lena with raised eyebrows. To Lady Faine, she said, “I am afraid I am not acquainted with him.”

“Perhaps he is known to Mr. Neybridge,” Lena said. “We should greet him, if you would not mind, my lady.”

Melinda turned to Lena with eyebrows raised. “Oh yes,” she said in a flat voice, “I so enjoy meeting complete strangers in the absence of my father.”

Lena turned to her with a too-wide smile and an aggressive twitch of her eyebrow. “If he is indeed an acquaintance of Mr. Neybridge, would it not be better to see his face so that we may tell your father all about him later?”

“You mustn’t be so distrusting, my dear Melinda. I’m certain he is a perfectly nice man.” Lady Faine nodded to the butler, who withdrew.

“And you have your companion to protect you with her life,” Lena added. Her smile was sweet, but she gave Melinda a sharp look.

The young woman’s smile faltered, but she heard the unspoken command. In the face of any danger, she was to heed Lena’s instructions and escape. Hopefully, it would not come to that.

Soon, they heard the heavy footsteps as the man followed the servant to the first floor drawing room.

—From Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 7: Spinster

Continue reading chapters 1-5 here.

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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.

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This Was Not How Michael Expected the Evening to Go

Regency-era gentleman in formal black coat, brown waistcoat, white cravat, and buff trousers raises his hands as a flintlock pistol is held to his head in a dark, candlelit London room, illustrating a tense scene from a Regency spy and historical romantic suspense story.

Michael slipped unnoticed into the antechamber and retrieved his own cloak, hat, and gloves. He had ridden in a hackney to the party, and so he walked to the corner and hailed another one, giving the name of a street a few minutes away, but on the edge of a less affluent part of town.

The brothel was discreet, without a sign. Once inside the unmarked door, the entry hall had a closed set of double doors to the right, guarded by two very tall and broad men in livery, and a servant’s door directly ahead in the shadow of a set of stairs leading to the next floor. Michael didn’t acknowledge the two door guardians and instead headed up the stairs.

The narrow hallway was dimly but elegantly lit by brass wall sconces, set into the striped wallpaper. Each door had a numbered brass plate, and Michael entered number six.

He thought at first that the room was empty, but then he felt the hard, cold barrel of a pistol against the back of his head, and he froze. He raised his empty hands and asked, “Ought I to have knocked?”

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

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• Lady Wynwood’s Spies Series Reference Page

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Regency Hare Soup: An 1808 Recipe with a Red Herring

I was writing the below dinner scene in Lady Wynwood’s Spies, Volume 4: Betrayer, and since I wanted to be authentic, I went looking in some antique cookbooks that had been published around that time period.

In the cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald, I found an interesting recipe, Hare Soup. (If you click the link, you can download a pdf copy of the scanned antique book.)

The book was reprinted many times over the Georgian and Regency eras (the edition I was looking at was published in 1808, which is 3 years before the events in Lady Wynwood’s Spies), so this soup would have been served at Laura’s dining table.

Laura’s heart ached for Phoebe, and she had prayed over her niece. But Phoebe hadn’t appeared calmed by the prayer. She declined dinner and retreated to her room down the hallway, and so now Laura was sitting to a solitary meal.

After Aya had set a bowl of hare soup in front of her, she asked the question Laura had been expecting. “What will you speak with Mr. Drydale about?”

I was really excited to try this soup since I had enjoyed authentic Regency White Soup quite a bit.

Here is the original recipe:

Cut a large old hare in small pieces, and put it in a mug, with three blades of mace, a little salt, two large onions, one red herring, six morels, half a pint of red wine, and three quarts of water; bake it in a quick oven three hours; then strain it into a toffing-pan; have ready boiled three ounces of French barley, or fago, in water; scald the liver of the hare in boiling water two minutes; rub it through a hair-sieve, with the back of a wooden spoon; put it into the soup with the barley or fago, and a quarter of a pound of butter; set it over the fire; keep stirring it, but do not let it boil: if you do not like liver, put in crisped bread steeped in red wine. This is a rich soup, and proper for a large entertainment; and where two soups are required, almond and onion soup for the top, and hare soup for the bottom.

My changes

I did not have access to hare or rabbit, so I substituted chicken thighs, which (according to the internet) is about the same texture as rabbit.

The soup seems to have quite strong flavors, which I am guessing is to mask the gaminess of hare. The meat is strained out of the soup, and it was probably repurposed for a stew or pie for the servants.

I thought removing the meat was a waste, so after making the soup (and taking pictures), I added the solids (minus the bonito flakes) back into the soup.

Since I have IBS, I had to make several substitutes. I can’t eat most dried mushrooms so I didn’t add the morels, but I included it below since that’s what was in the original recipe. I also substituted 1 cup of chopped leek tops instead of the onions. For the bread, I used homemade sourdough.

The red herring threw me a little (haha), but I realized that the term “red herring” had to have come from somewhere, so it was likely an actual fish. When I looked it up, red...

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A Pistol, Two Knives, and a Gentleman Spy

A serious Regency-era gentleman spy in a dark tailcoat, patterned waistcoat, and white cravat stands inside a warmly candlelit gentlemen’s club in 1811 England, evoking historical espionage, danger, and Regency intrigue.

Mr. Norton is a gentleman spy for the Crown, but he broke every rule in his agency to save one woman's life. Now his superior officer has come to collect.

Norton was about to settle down to a delicious dinner prepared by his club’s cook and a bottle or two of wine when a man seemed to appear out of thin air.

“Norton,” the harsh voice said. The tall, spare man addressed him familiarly, but there was no warmth or cordiality in his grating tones.

Norton liked to play the reckless fool, for it caused men to underestimate him. In actuality, while his actions were usually very daring, most of the time he had already looked at the situation and conjured up a dozen different ways that everything could go wrong, and considered what he might do in response if any of those occurred. So he had accustomed himself to a certain level of preparedness no matter where he found himself, and he did not like being surprised.

But this man, being here and approaching Norton, was not only a surprise, but a nasty one.

“Mr. Antingham,” Norton said carefully. “I was unaware that you were a member of The Runny Knees.”

Mr. Antingham couldn’t quite suppress the curl of his upper lip as Norton mentioned the name of the club. But he attempted to paste a polite smile upon his face as he said, “Yes, I have been a member for many years, although I rarely spend time here.”

Norton gave terse nods to the two men behind Mr. Antingham. “Mr. Maghew, Mr. Golding.” They were both Antingham’s agents at the Ramparts, and Norton had worked with them a few times.

But Mr. Maghew and Mr. Golding were not members of The Runny Knees, as far as he knew, which meant that all three of them were here for Norton.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he reluctantly asked Mr. Antingham.

“I’d like to have a word with you in private, Mr. Norton. Perhaps you would be so good as to come with me?” Mr. Antingham gave a close-lipped smile.

The senior officer had a wide jaw and a wide mouth, so even his stiffest smile often fooled people into thinking that he was more congenial than he actually was. But Norton knew to look at his cold blue eyes instead to gauge his true emotional state. And he didn’t like what he saw there.

Mr. Antingham looked triumphant, the victor collecting his spoils and trampling his enemies. Norton didn’t have to guess whom he considered his enemy.

He didn’t fool himself into thinking that Mr. Antingham’s request was anything less than a direct order. And the fact that Mr. Antingham wanted to remove Norton from the very public surroundings of this club meant that he wasn’t going to like what followed.

But Norton couldn’t refuse, and Mr. Antingham knew that.

Regency-era gentleman in a dark tailored coat and brocade waistcoat glancing warily across a candlelit London club — a tense scene from the Christian Regency romantic suspense series Lady Wynwood's Spies, Volume 8: Traitor.

Norton sighed. He had been looking forward with great pleasure to the beefsteak with red wine and mushroom sauce, which was a specialty of the chef of the club.

Instead, he was aware that his idyllic days were over.

Norton gave a smile as false as the one on Mr. Antingham’s face. “Of...

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The Shape of a Forgotten Memory

Young Regency noblewoman in a pale blue Empire-waist gown kneels beside a tree in an English woodland, holding a torn piece of paper marked with a mysterious botanical symbol. The scene evokes Regency mystery, historical espionage, hidden clues, and Christian Regency romantic suspense.

It was only a torn piece of paper—until Phoebe turned it over.

A piece of watercolor paper wasn’t something Phoebe would have expected Mr. Coulton-Jones to carry with him when meeting someone about a horse. But after what happened today, she began to suspect that there was much about him that was unexpected. Perhaps the smooth facade he showed to the rest of the world was far more fake than she had realized.

She flipped the piece over.

A circular symbol had been drawn on the paper, but the majority of it was missing because of the torn edge. The symbol had two long narrow leaves radiating from the center, and the stalks of two flowers in between the leaves.

She gasped and nearly dropped the paper. She recognized this symbol. Or rather, it triggered a hazy memory from her childhood. She had seen the symbol carved into wood somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where or when. She remembered the smell of dust and maybe a bit of dirt and mold.

She also knew that the symbol was circular, and originally of five leaves and five stalks of flowers between the leaves, even though there were only two on this partial symbol, which proved that her memory was not faulty.

Where had she seen this symbol before?

And why had Mr. Coulton-Jones had it in his possession?

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

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