To celebrate the release of Listen to the Moon (about a very proper valet and a snarky maid-of-all-work who marry to get a plum job), here is the traditional free short story about the characters of my last book, True Pretenses.
It’s probably no surprise to anyone that I’ve been reading a lot about Aaron Burr. He was in England in 1808-9, and I kept coming up with different crossover scenarios where my characters met him. A few weeks ago, I spent some time fantasizing about Ash and Rafe running a con on him, and when Courtney Milan and Jenni requested I actually write it, I couldn’t resist.
The story follows directly from this passage in Burr’s journal, when he “[l]ost or spent 28 shillings and a pair of gloves” in Birmingham on Christmas Eve 1808, on his way to Edinburgh. As it happens, Ash mentions in True Pretenses that he was in Yorkshire on Christmas Eve 1808—in Dewsbury, to be exact, where they ring a bell once for each year since Christ’s birth.
Dewsbury is just off the Great North Road, north of Birmingham and south of Edinburgh…