When I started reading romance novels, as a very, very young person back in the 1980s, my introduction to the genre was via the medieval.

My very first romance novel, still on my shelf in rather battered and dilapidated form, was one set during the civil wars of the twelfth century, featuring Eleanor of Aquitaine in a cameo role, with lots of “By my troth!” and “By God’s wounds!”  Most of my subsequent romance reading was pre-sixteenth century: there was Jude Deveraux’s Velvet quartet (which I very cleverly managed to read backwards, from Velvet Angel all the way back to The Velvet Promise, which meant that I got to see the major plot threads in re-wind mode rather than the right way around) and Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s Wolf and the Dove, and at least a dozen other Norman knight/Saxon maiden type novels of Wolf and Dove-ish ilk.

I know there was some eighteenth century that crept in there, in the form of Woodiwiss’s A Rose in Winter, a great deal of Scotland in multiple time periods– Julie Garwood’s The Bride, Elizabeth Stuart’s Heartstorm, and pretty much anything by Arnette Lamb– and, of course, Victorian Gothics featuring intrepid governesses beyond number, but I don’t recall reading a Regency qua Regency until the summer I was twelve.

When I spotted Judith McNaught’s Almost Heaven in the supermarket checkout line, I had no idea that it was going to be one of those books that would change my life.

I fell in love with Almost Heaven, with Elizabeth and Ian, with McNaught’s zany side characters and signature mix of humor and pathos.  In retrospect, McNaught’s Regency world isn’t terribly Regency-ish at all, but the basic trappings were there: the ton, the gossiping society matrons, the dukes, the dowagers, and the sharp-tongued chaperones.  It was Almost Heaven that led me to Georgette Heyer, via a McNaught endorsement on the cover of a Heyer reissue, and from Heyer to the entire Zebra Regency aisle in the bookstore.  Who needed those Norman knights with their bulging thews?  (For some reason, those medieval heroes always did seem to have thew bulge issues.)  There was an entire sub-genre featuring clever men with quizzing glasses and not a spare thew in view.

I abandoned the Victoria Holt knock-off I was writing at the time and started writing a McNaught knock-off instead.  (Which no one will see.  Ever.  With the sole exception of my ninth grade classmates, who may or may not have had bits read dramatically aloud to them on the bus during a class trip.  But that was a very long time ago, so it doesn’t count.)

And that’s the very long and roundabout story of how I came to the Regency, via Judith McNaught and the Fishkill ShopRite checkout line.

I’ve moved on to other favorite authors since then, but Judith McNaught’s Almost Heaven will always have a special place in my heart.

What was your first Regency romance?

I’ve been away from the Ballroom for a week as I’ve been trotting around on book tour, but I really hadn’t expected it to have changed as much as this. The spindly gilt chairs have been pushed to one side of the room, making way for old chests filled with dusty papers. A vast oak table is piled high with scrolls, parchments, and decaying chronicles.

Has Lady B taken up antiquarian scholarship in her spare time?

“Nothing of the kind!” snaps Lady B, making me wonder whether I spoke aloud, or if Lady B had taken up mind-reading among her other hobbies. I wouldn’t be surprised. “I shouldn’t wish to be thought a bluestocking. I am assembling my application for the DNC.”

I stare at her blankly.

“The Daughters of the Norman Conquest,” she elaborates. “In order to join, one must prove one’s Norman ancestry, as well as produce a ticket from the boat upon which one’s ancestor sailed with the Conqueror. Some of those boats,” she continues with asperity, “are becoming suspiciously crowded.”

“If it had gone the other way, do you think they would have called it the Daughters of the Saxon Resistance?” I wonder.

Lady B gives me one of those looks she saves for frivolous authoresses.

“Besides,” she says, as though I hadn’t spoken, “it’s past time Monty learned something of his family heritage. I was just telling—Monty? Where has that boy gone?”

Out the window, if the open shutter is any indication. I think I catch a glimpse of the heel of a well-polished Hessian boot, but I can’t be quite sure.

“Hmph,” says Lady B. “And after I took the time to read all sixty pages of the Chronicle of Sir Guillaume de Beaufeatheringstone aloud to him—in the original Norman French!”

There is the sound of a distinct groan from the vicinity of the window.

“That’s all quite interesting,” I say politely, “but don’t you think Monty would rather hear about his parents? Wasn’t there some sort of story about them?”

Lady B slams the chronicle shut. “Recent history is so uninteresting, don’t you agree?” she says, tight-lipped. “And, really, quite uninspired. There’s no chain mail, no jousting. Just assemblies and routs and—”

“The odd scandal?” I venture, watching Lady B closely. There’s some secret there, I just know it.

“Hmph,” sniffs Lady B, and plunks a heavy volume down in front of me, raising a cloud of dust. As I cough, she says, “If you are so interested in the past, Miss Willig, you might as well make yourself useful. I expect to see that entire chronicle transcribed—and footnoted!—by tonight’s ball.”

I risk a peek at it. This isn’t going to be fun. I haven’t seen handwriting that illegible since the last time I had to get a prescription from the doctor.

“But Monty’s parents….”

“BOTH these chronicles,” says Lady B, and drops another on top of the first. In the resulting dust cloud, she makes her exit.

The top of a man’s fashionable hat bobs briefly up above the sash of the window—and then disappears again.

Sighing, I settle down to transcribing the Chronicle of Sir Guillaume de Beaufeatheringstone, as recorded by his faithful scribe, Patsy—but I can’t help wondering, just what is it that Lady B doesn’t want us to find out? And how much does Monty know?

Maybe there’s really nothing to discover, but thanks to The Ashford Affair, which is all about a Big Family Secret and the ramifications thereof, I’ve had family mysteries on the brain recently.

Have you come across any surprising stories about your family?

Thanks so much to everyone for sharing your crazy travel stories this past Thursday!  It certainly made my own flight delays seem a great deal less traumatic.

I apologize for the lack of responses after about mid-day on Thursday.  Whether it was Lady B or the internet gremlins, I somehow managed to get myself locked out of the Ballroom while I was en route.  (I suspect Lady B.)

The winner of The Ashford Affair is… Geraldine Lucas!  Congrats, Geraldine!  You should be hearing from me shortly….

I am really not sure how my airline managed to route me from Scottsdale to Ann Arbor via the Ballroom, but I have my quilty Vera Bradley bag over my shoulder, and I’ve just managed to clear Ballroom security (limping a bit as I wiggle my feet back into my black leather wedges), when I hear the pitter patter of slipper-shod feet approaching.

And we’re not talking dainty, little Cinderella-sized feet here. It’s more fee fie fo fum.

In her usual, dulcet tones, Lady B barks, “Miss Willig, you are scurrying.”

So much for making it to my gate without Lady B seeing me. “Is that so scurrilous?”

Lady B presses her eyes shut in an expression of extreme weariness. “And now you are punning.”

Fair enough. I could point out that she’s been speaking in italics, which you can only really get away with if you’re Anne of Green Gables, but that would require explaining Anne of Green Gables to Lady B, and, at the moment, I just don’t have the time. With Lady B, it’s always easier to just go the mea culpa route straightaway, without passing Go and without collecting two hundred guineas.

“Sorry,” I say, with what I hope is a convincing air of contrition. “It’s just that my new book, THE ASHFORD AFFAIR, just came out on Tuesday, so I’m in the middle of book tour right now—”

Lady B cuts me off with an imperious wave of her lorgnette. “Book what?”

“Tour,” I say meekly, backing away towards the door, the colorful paisley satchel out of which I’ve been living for the past few days slung over my shoulder. “Actually, I’m supposed to be in Michigan right now to give a book talk, so if you’ll excuse me….”

Lady B draws herself up to her full height, which is pretty impressive when you add in the ostrich feathers. “What is this tour of which you speak?” she demands.

“It’s something authors do,” I say, in the hopes that she’ll decide to ask someone else. I look around to see if Sarah or Kate might be lurking behind a potted palm, but, unfortunately, they seem to be actually working on their books, well away from the Ballroom fray.

Lady B is not to be swayed. “Miss Willig, I have learned that there are MANY strange things authors do. Many. Strange. Things.”

She speaks with such conviction that I’m almost tempted to drop my overnight bag and ask her what she means. But the clock is ticking… and Lady B is still speaking.

“I have not asked you, Miss Willig, about any of THOSE things. I have asked you about this… ‘book tour’,” Lady B says, pronouncing the term rather like the King of Siam when he’s particularly annoyed with Mrs. Anna.

I surreptitiously check my watch. I have to be at Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor at seven o’clock in the evening real time, so, allowing for the time space continuum and the occasional wrong turning around Victorian London on the way to modern now, with a slight possibility of Hogwarts… I really should be getting going.

But Lady B is in the way.

“It’s one of those rites of book passage,” I explain hastily. “Authors go from place to place talking about their books—sort of like mummers. Or wandering minstrels. Except that we don’t sing. Usually. Except when large quantities of alcohol are involved.”

Lady B strikes her best Mrs. Siddons pose. “Why are you not touring through the Ballroom? Am I not worthy of your time and attention? After having housed you, clothed you, fed you my very own ratafia….”

There’s a dangerous glint in her eye. One might even call it militant.

I so regret having given her that sword parasol for Christmas.

“Er…. I didn’t want to bore you?” I venture. Lady B doesn’t exactly look mollified, so I quickly add, “And the book isn’t really the right time period. It’s set in 1920s England and Kenya and 1999 New York, so it’s at least a hundred years out of the way.”

“I shall be the one to determine what bores me,” Lady B declares. (And, yes, she usually does.) She sets her arms akimbo, and says, in chilling tones, “All right, Miss Willig, TOUR THE BALLROOM.”

I don’t think she’ll be amused if I simply take a turn about the room, so, with Albert squawking sardonically above me, I take out The Ashford Affair and begin to read the Prologue.

Lady B interrupts about three lines in. “Is that all?”

Her reaction makes me think of Elizabeth I, promised the riches of the new world by an enterprising courtier, instead being presented with a bushel of potatoes. And some weedy stuff.

I mark my place with my finger. “Usually there’s also a Q&A at the end.”

Lady B waves a dismissive hand at me. “Go along, Miss Willig.” As her long train brushes the floor, I hear her mutter, “I thought there would be more mumming….”

As I make a run for my plane, what are your craziest travel stories?

(And, authors, what are your best book tour stories?)

I’ll be giving away a copy of THE ASHFORD AFFAIR to one person who comments on this post today!

Do you ever rediscover books you haven’t read for years and take new inspiration from them?

For me, this week, it was the first two books of Iris Johansen’s Wind Dancer trilogy. These are books I adored in my teens. In proper, sweeping epic 80s fashion, the first book takes place in the fractured Italy of 1503, in the waning years of the Borgia papacy; the second during the bloodiest phase of the French Revolution. There are some… interesting… sexual politics involved (we’re talking Old Skool romance here), but what really impressed me about these books after all this time was their daring. These are no drawing room novels. They encompass battlefields, sea journeys, sieges, warring city states, corrupt tribunals, upheavals on a grand scale.

What I love even more? How they interweave with history along the way. “The Wind Dancer” involves a fictional statue in a fictional city state, but Cesare Borgia, who plays a more than cameo role, is real enough, as is the disarray of the beleaguered and fragmented Italian city states– not to mention tongue in cheek references to meeting a Messer Machiavelli. Likewise, the fictional cast of “Storm Winds” is firmly anchored in the real people and events of a revolution rapidly deteriorating into the Terror, with all its factionalism, crosses and double crosses.

These books reminded me of the joy of using fiction as a window onto history, not just one period of history, but a grand sweep of dramatic events. There’s something to be said for books that tackle tumultuous events that fearlessly….

What are your favorite rediscovered books?

“Merciful heavens!” exclaims Lady B. “Is that a door I see before me?”

Lady B went to the theatre last night, escorted by Lord B, and I’ve notice that it always seems to affect her speech patterns. Don’t even ask about what she’s like the morning after one of their operatic evenings.

“Four of them?” I offer.

I don’t know why I make it a question. There are unquestionably four portals plonked right in the center of Lady B’s otherwise pristine ballroom. Each is shaped differently: one is very art deco, another is the sort you might find on a Bath townhouse, one is Victorian faux gothic, and the final door is decidedly dark and creepy.

“I can see that,” says Lady B dryly. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the cacophony coming through the various doors. “But what are they doing in MY BALLROOM?”

Somewhat breathlessly, I manage, “It’s a vortex.”

Lady B turns sharply, peering behind the potted orange trees. “It’s that physician fellow, isn’t it?” she demands triumphantly. “The one with the sorcerer’s wand!”

“Er, no.” Ever since Dr. Who landed in the Ballroom by accident, Lady B has been keeping a weather eye out for him. She was just a little too intrigued by his sonic screwdriver—even if she does persist in referring to it as his wand.

Can you imagine Lady B in space?

I try to explain. “It’s not that kind of vortex. It’s a book vortex.” I gesture helplessly at the four doors. “Each of these is a book in a different stage of production—that I’m meant to be working on right now.”

From the art deco door comes the low whir of an early airplane propeller, a burst of jazz music, and the trumpeting of an elephant. “That’s blog posts about The Ashford Affair that I’m meant to be writing over there—and the one next to it are proofs for The Passion of the Purple Plumeria that I’m meant to be going through.”

That’s the Bath townhouse door, where the sounds of a furious swordfight can be heard. In fact, it’s so loud that it nearly drowns out the faint murmurs of genteel conversation from the faux gothic entry and the Bach toccata from the dark doorway.

“And the last two?” Lady B asks sternly.

“Revisions for my Victorian-set novel”—I gesture to door #3—“and, finally,”—door #4—“another Pink Carnation book, set in London in 1806. The hero is rumored to be a vampire,” I add, in the hopes of diverting Lady B’s attention. (I’ve seen the copy of Byron’s Giaour she keeps under her bed.)

It doesn’t work.

Lady B pulls herself up. “Bad enough that Miss Darby was dropping manuscripts all over the floor last week! Do you mean to tell me, Miss Willig, that you have invited the characters of not one, not two, not three, but FOUR books to the Ballroom all at once?”

I’m too tired to argue with her. “I didn’t invite them,” I say in despair. “And I can’t make them leave! They all say they won’t go until I’m done with them. But I can’t work on all four at once.”

“Then,” said Lady B imperiously, “you must work on one at a time.” She makes a little shooing motion. “Go on now. Get started.”

“Where?” I demand. The characters from all four doors are waving frantically, all trying to catch our attention, trumpeting out their various claims.

Oh, dear. In fact, they appear to have begun arguing amongst themselves, doorway to doorway. Is there going to be inter-book litigation? It’s like something out of a Jasper Fforde novel, only with no Thursday Next and the Book Police to sort it all out.

“Start at the beginning, of course,” says Lady B impatiently, like a souped up version of Maria von Trapp. “Which novel will be published first?”

“The Ashford Affair,” I say meekly. “It comes out in just two weeks, on April 9th.”

Lady B wafts me in the direction of the Ashford Affair door. “Go do your duty by those characters while I have a nice visit with that interesting Miss Gwen in Purple Plumeria. And Miss Willig?” She turns on one satin-shod heel. “By the time I get back, I expect ALL THESE DOORS TO BE CLOSED.”

I nod obediently. There’s no way I’m going to be done with “Ashford” promo, “Plumeria” proofs, Victorian Book revisions and writing a whole new Pink book by Thursday’s ball, but one doesn’t deny Lady B when she speaks in capital letters.

And she may have a point about that “start at the beginning” thing…. Even if only two of those doors are closed by Thursday, it’s still better than dealing with four.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m overwhelmed with too many things at once, my inclination is always to bury my head under the covers and try to hide from all of them.

How do you tackle multiple tasks?

Also, if Lady B were to have the chance to travel with Dr. Who, where do you think she would go?

Congrats to Linda, the winner of my very last advance copy of The Ashford Affair! Linda, expect an email from me to pop up in your inbox in the near future.

Thanks so much to everyone who commented!

The moment I venture into the Ballroom, I know that something has gone horribly wrong.

The scratchy sounds of a gramophone fill the air. Next to the fronds of a potted palm, a blond woman in a black lace dress is taking a long drag on a cigarette in an ebony holder. A dark-haired man in a dinner jacket holds a glass of champagne—er, make that two glasses, one in either hand. And a frazzled looking girl in a cloche hat looks like she’s trying to decide whether to join him or sidle out of the Ballroom doors.

“Miss Willig!”

Ah, the dulcet tones of Lady B. She comes charging into the Ballroom like an enraged rhinoceros— if rhinoceros were known to wield a lorgnette in place of a horn.

“Who gave you leave to invite the characters from Downton Abbey?” Lady B’s eyes take on a speculative gleam. “Although, now that Series Three has ended in such an unfortunate manner….

“These aren’t the characters from Downton Abbey,” I say hastily. I refrain from asking how Lady B knows about a television show broadcast two hundred years in the future. It’s Lady B. She has her ways. “This is the cast from my upcoming book, The Ashford Affair.”

Lady B narrows her eyes at me. “Miss Willig, when I told you to invite the characters from your new book, I meant that charming Miss Meadows. The one with the intriguing sword parasol.”

I pluck at the demure skirts of my empire-waisted dress. “Well, yes, you see, there’s been a bit of a mix-up. I’d meant to invite the cast of my next Pink Carnation novel, The Passion of the Purple Plumeria, but as that doesn’t come out until August, and The Ashford Affair is coming out on April 9th, the Ashford characters felt that it was rightly their turn. I had thought the time-space continuum might keep them out— but they do get around.”

And isn’t that the understatement of the century. The Ashford Affair rackets back and forth between 1999 New York, an Edwardian estate, World War I and Jazz Age London and 1920s Kenya. I’ve been exhausted just trying to keep up with their comings and goings.

I’m interrupted in my explanation by a long-necked beast picking its way delicately across the Ballroom floor and attempting to eat the grass from the bottom of Albert’s perch. Albert gives an indignant squawk and flies away.

“Miss Willig,” says Lady B, in dreadful tones, “what is that?”

I give up. “That’s a giraffe. You see, a large chunk of The Ashford Affair is set in Africa, and so…. Well, never mind. Here.” I thrust an iPad, cunningly disguised as a library volume, into her hand. “My publishers have created a snazzy new app— er, I mean, pamphlet— so that you can read the first chapter of the book just as it will be set out in the finished volume. That should give you an idea.”

“Hmm,” says Lady B, discretely sticking her lorgnette more firmly onto her nose. She begins to read:

Kenya, 1926

Addie’s gloves were streaked with sweat and red dust.

It wasn’t just her gloves. Looking down, she winced at the sight of her once pearl-colored suit, now turned gray and rust with smoke and dust. Even in the little light that managed to filter through the thick mosquito netting on the windows, the fabric was clearly beyond repair. The traveling outfit that had looked so smart in London had proved to a poor choice for the trip from Mombassa.

She felt such a fool. What had she been thinking? It had cost more than her earnings for the month, that dress, an unpardonable extravagance in these days when her wardrobe ran more to the sensible than the chic. It had taken a full afternoon of scouring Oxford Street, going into one shop, then the next, this dress too common, that too expensive, nothing just right, until she finally found it, just a little more than she could afford, looking almost, if one looked at it in just the right way, as though it might be couture, rather than a poor first cousin to it.

She had peacocked in her tiny little flat, posing in front of the mirror with the strange ripple down the middle, twisting this way and that to try to get the full effect, her imagination presenting her with a hundred tempting images. Bea coming to the train to meet her, an older more matronly Bea, her silver-gilt hair burned straw by the equatorial sun, her figure softened by childbearing. She would see Addie, stepping off the train in her smart new frock with her smart new haircut and exclaim in surprise. She would turn Addie this way and that, marveling at her, her new city sophistication, her sleek hair, her newly plucked brows.

“You’ve grown up,” Bea would say. And Addie would smile, just a wry little hint of a smile, the sort of smile you saw over cocktails at the Ritz, and say, “It does happen.”

And, then, from somewhere behind her, Frederick would say, “Addie?” and she would turn, and see surprise and admiration chasing one another across his face as he realized, for the first time, just what he had left behind in London….

Fortunately, Lady B appears to be absorbed, so I dodge the inquisitive giraffe and scurry towards the doors of the Ballroom. As I make my escape, something falls from my pocket and thumps to the floor.

Nope, it’s not Cinderella’s slipper. It’s my last, carefully hoarded Advance Reader’s Copy of The Ashford Affair, which I’ll be giving away to one person who comments on the Ballroom Blog today.

Since we authoresses seem to be hopping around a bit these days, it only seems appropriate to ask:

Which time period would you most like to visit?

Don’t tell Lady B, but I’ve been cheating on the Ballroom with other time periods.

I zoomed way ahead of our timeline to spend some time in World War I England and 1920s Kenya for The Ashford Affair (coming out April 9th!) before coming back to 1805 for a bit for my latest Pink book.

Right now, I’m hanging out smack in the middle of those, in 1849 London, dipping into both high culture and low, looking into how people entertained themselves in London in the mid-19th century. You can tell a lot about a society by its leisure activities.

The book I’m currently writing (working title: The Victorian Book) revolves around the early days of the Preraphaelite movement so my first stop, on the high culture junket, was the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1849, where the Preraphaelites launched their revolutionary new style. John Everett Millais exhibited his Lorenzo and Isabella (above) and William Holman Hunt showed his epic painting Rienzi, about the Roman folk hero.

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti was not represented there. He had infuriated his Preraph buddies by breaking ranks and showing his Girlhood of Mary Virgin, shown below, at the Free Exhibition in Hyde Park instead.)

What really fascinated me, though, was just how madly popular this exhibition was. The Queen got first crack, on the Thursday, followed by the Private View on the Friday, attended by anyone who was anyone in London Society– one of “the” events of the Season. Once the private showings were done, the exhibition officially opened the first Monday in May.

To give you an idea of the popularity of this show, you’d have to compare it to opening day of Skyfall or a new Harry Potter movie: in 1849, over a six week span, over 100,000 people attended the exhibition, paying their admission fee, and, if they had the tin, another shilling for the exhibition catalog, which listed all the paintings, their hanging spots, and, in many cases, explanations and snippets of poetry.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of the 1849 exhibition catalog, the exact same one my heroine would have held in her (gloved) hands. Here’s what it looked like:

Just to give you an idea of how crowded the Exhbition would be, here’s a picture of the 1883 Private View, below. Just picture the ladies in there wearing the far wider skirts of 1849, and you’ll have an idea of how jammed– and warm!– it would have been in there in 1849!

Although I’m looking at a later period, Lady B would also have been acquainted with the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. It began in the 1760s, and, as the Royal Academy literature puts it: “At that time an art show was still a novelty in England and this densely packed, higgledy-piggledy parade was among the great spectacles of Georgian and Regency London.” Over 60,000 attended the first exhibition in 1769 and the numbers went up from there, with record crowds in the early 1820s. The odds are high that Lady B and her lorgnette would have paid a call to the Exhibition at its then home, Somerset House.

The exhibition did some moving around. My early Victorian heroine would have seen the show in its later location in a wing of the National Gallery; the show settled in its current home at Burlington House in 1867.

But I also promised you some low culture, didn’t I?

Just a few streets away from the Royal Academy exhibition, you could find a form of entertainment called a “penny gaff”– a cheap, theatrical performance in the back room of a pub, aimed at servants and errand boys. According to contemporary accounts, there was generally little more than a platform and a piano, with a pit for the cheap seats and a rough gallery of benches above, where, interestingly, the men and the women were segregated by sex, women on one side and men on the other– a surprising delicacy for an entertainment that was reputed to be vulgar in the extreme, with bawdy jokes, dance routines, and short, theatrical sketches focusing on topics like “Highwaymen We Have Known and Loved” (okay, I made up that title, but, yes, famous highwaymen were a popular topic) and particularly sensational murders.

The heyday of the penny gaff was from the 1830s to 70s, but you find some interesting echoes of earlier time periods. While the murderers might be more current, the highwaymen tended to be eighteenth century figures, like the notorious Jack Sheppard. Then there’s my personal favorite: in an account of a gaff from 1851, the viewer reports that the highlight of the program was a sketch featuring the routing of Napoleon!

As you can imagine, the critics took a dim view of these entertainments, calling them sodden gin dens and an incitement to crime and loose morals with their glamorization of villainy.

One of the things I found most fascinating about these penny gaffs? The primary viewership reputedly consisted of (lower class) women under the age of twenty. And this at an era where, among the middle class, the whole idea of women as sheltered little flowers was really getting going….

It provides an intriguing contrast, doesn’t it?

Of the two events, which would you rather attend: the Royal Academy Exhibition or the penny gaff?

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the day, the authoresses were plotting their evening soiree. The knee breeches were hung by the chimney with care, in hope that some rogues soon would be there.

Mostly, we were bustling about, arguing Lady B into some newfangled Christmas ideas. Lady B resisted the Christmas tree, staunchly declaring that in her youth, a few holly boughs and a Yule log were more than good enough. A whole tree? Decadence! She caved on the question of the tree once she heard that Queen Charlotte had one. (True fact: George III’s consort introduced the Christmas tree into England in 1800, although they didn’t really become generally popular until the reign of her granddaughter, Queen Victoria). Although the deciding fact was probably that the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale, her arch rival, didn’t have one.

“Ha! I’ll trump that old bat!” we heard Lady B mutter delightedly to herself, as she slung some extra baubles on the tree.

But, right now, we’re in the midst of debating our next big move: introducing Lady B to the concept of caroling. We know we’re going to have to plot our program carefully. She’s definitely going to want something Albert can squawk along to, and nothing too musically complicated. (Lady B has delusions of being able to carry a tune.)

How about the Little Drummer Boy? suggests Katie. Albert can squawk the rum pa pum pums.

Gaelen, who has come back to join us for the holidays, makes a face. You know how Lady B feels about children….

Ah, yes. Something about liking them better lightly sautéed. Whether this has something to do with Monty’s childhood—the words “limb of Satan” may have been used— we’re not quite sure.

Tessa sighs. I guess that means Some Children See Him is out, too.

Let’s go old school, says Gaelen. The Holly and Ivy, Good King Wenceslas, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen… you can’t go wrong with those.

Sarah grins. Or we could go new school. How about Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun?

I’m going for the traditional vote, Miranda hastily says. Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Or Silent Night! Kate chimes in. She thinks for a moment and then makes a face. Although Lady B isn’t very good with silence.

We’re all stymied, until we hear a knocking on the door. A voice with a thick Scottish accent calls, How about the Twelve Days of Christmas?

Cautiously, Tessa opens the door to the Ballroom, and in comes—- a sock wearing tartan? No, it’s two socks wearing tartan.

We are the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theater, one explains.

And so am I, says the other.

And so is he, agrees the first. If a sock can be said to beam, he beams at the assembled authoresses. We’ve come to sing you The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Well…. I’m not quite sure what Lady B will make of their rendition of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but knowing Lady B, I’m guessing that she’ll agree that a pear tree is rubbish packaging for a present.

What’s your favorite Christmas carol?