Dear Reader, the fifth part of the Regency Tales series, Offers of Atonement, is a story of finding love certainly, but it’s also a story of challenging one’s prejudices, of letting go of past wounds, and of building new beginnings.

Lady May, the female lead of Offers of Atonement, has a habit of telling little anecdotes from her village in Herefordshire. In this excerpt, Captain Hartcourt has just apologised for behaving badly.

—‘It is forgot’, she interrupted. ‘A lapse of judgment might happen to anybody, even good men… or women. Why, take the Widow Greene for instance! For years, she and Isidor Bray grew vegetables in neighbourly rivalry. One year, he won first prize at the Michaelmas Fair for his giant turnip; the next, it was her turn to be awarded for her cucumbers. So it went, until last year when Farmer Bray had got his hands on seeds of an uncommon gourd, a new variety of vegetable marrow, as he called it. Oh, what fuss he made over that plant nursing it! Watering it constantly, feeding it only manure from his best bull, tucking straw beneath it so that it would not be soiled… But, although he bragged to all and sundry of its development, of how large and plump it was, he would not let anybody see it. In boasting that the year’s coveted prize was as good as his, he so taunted poor Iris Greene that she was quite driven to distraction. Now, the thing is that the good widow has a taste for gin…’ Blue-grey amusement glittered as she told the story. ‘Takes “a drop” for her sore tooth, as she puts it. At any rate, one night when her tooth must have been particularly painful, she made her way into Mr Bray’s patch, determined to have a look at the infamous vegetable. And what do you think? She stumbled on a rake, dropped her lantern, the straw was set ablaze and the marrow… was cooked!’ Her laugh was contagious and he found himself chuckling with her.
—‘I suppose you shall go on to tell me that the Great Marrow Cooking was the spark of a feud between families?’
—‘What? No! Not at all, they were married within three months.’

© M Y Rönneus 2023

 Offers of Atonement releases on September 1st. Meanwhile, watch the trailer and have a fabulous Sunday, where ever you are!