Читать книгу Lady Beneath the Veil - Sarah Mallory - Страница 3

The very first page in LADY BENEATH THE VEIL is, in fact, the very first idea I had for this story. I wanted to explore what would happen if a man suddenly found himself married to a woman he had never seen before. Of course this is not a new idea—throughout British history many sons and daughters of the aristocracy have been married off for political or economic reasons to virtual strangers—but this was to be no reasoned alliance: it was to be a cruel hoax.

You might think that no one would play such a trick … Well, one only has to look into history to see that life in Georgian England could be cruel and brutally short and, as if in response, the Georgians could be tough, crude and boisterous. There are the much-recorded practical jokes of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland, who played the most outrageous practical jokes upon visitors.

Mechanical hoists were installed so that when unsuspecting guests were undressing the bedroom walls would suddenly be lifted up, exposing them. In one bedroom the bed could be lowered into a tank of cold water, and in another guests would wake to find everything upside down—the whole room inverted—with furniture suspended from the ‘floor’ and a chandelier rising up from the middle of the ‘ceiling’. It must have been a most unnerving experience. One elderly (but rich) widow was even persuaded to marry Sir Francis after a charade involving a fortune-teller and an ‘accidental’ meeting.

So I thought the marriage of Gideon and Dominique might well have happened—but what about the happy-ever-after? Could such a marriage work when it was not the fairytale wedding that either of them had wanted? Well, they struggle, of course, but I think I have found a way for them to resolve their differences and find happiness together. I hope you agree. Please feel you can contact me at www.sarahmallory.com