Many years ago, there was an elderly gentleman who lived along with his invalid 20 year old daughter Marie, in the Vercors region of France, near the Swiss Alps. Comte d'Epinay was impoverished, due to the death of so many relatives by Madame Guillotine, and the taxation upon those of the aristocracy who managed to keep their heads. For a while, Comte d'Epi...
To everyone else, the day dawned as it always had, fresh, summery, intuitively in alignment with its obligations to the season. The field workers singing busied themselves with the day's tasks, joining with the birds in appreciation of the new dawning day. The early morning sunlight lay in a hot yellow streak across Melanie's floor, her cat rolling playfully...
Chapter 1: All Great and Precious Things are Lonely ————— Yorkshire, England, 1825 "But I don't understand. Why can we not go?" "Mary, please. That's enough." Anna tries to sound firm as a governess should be, but it seems after all these years, this little hellion knows how to get away with acting however she likes. "But we want to go, too," pouts the...
THE FAIR PRINCESS AND THE HOODED MYSTIC By Dawn R Author's Note: In my twenties, I read and enjoyed The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquelaure. As I started to write this fairy tale, I realized that with my tongue firmly in my cheek I was mining from the same vein of gold. Enjoy! Once upon a time in a land far, far away the...
CHAPTER 4 In which Amy and Lucy visit Oakleigh Hall and further secrets concerning Miss Burnley are revelaed Lucy and I had no more opportunities to spy upon our guardian and our governess before the day came when we were to depart for Okeleigh Hall. Lady Okeleigh's well appointed traveling coach pulled up outside the house. Lady Okeleigh, Lucy, Miss Burnl...
"Where have you been?" Lady Firanda demanded imperiously of Zerafina. "And where is my maid? She was going to find you and, here it is, much, much later." Zerafina smiled at the Lady Firanda, an outward show of friendship that went only as far as her very full lips. Even if Firanda wasn't the stuck up spawn of an inbred nobility, Zerafina would have very li...
Lily My hand shakes as I bring it up to ring the bell. Once I take it off the button I shake it out to help release some of the nervous energy flowing through my limbs. A loud thumping sounds from inside. Next comes a deep voice making monster 'roars' followed by some childish shrieks of excitement. I can't stop the smile that breaks loose even through the...
Violet shuffled in a daze through the dining room, her half eaten supper left to the weary maid who'd stood at her elbow a quarter hour, softly clearing her throat as snow fell silently on the windowpanes. The baron and baroness, along with their son Lord Ainsley Shelton and his younger sisters, had retired thirty minutes ago. As was customary, the family of...
Watching my Negro workers harvest the corn under the warm Louisiana sun made my heart smile. As I sat on the verandah, rocking back and forth on my cane rocking chair, I felt tears run down my withered old face. For they reminded me of an old slave I once had the pleasure of knowing, one called Sylvia. I inherited the farm many years ago from a wealthy uncl...
The premise for what follows is a family album and history. However, this is a family of dominant women. Alas, I have no ownership of the pictures I originally included in this work -- so you will have to use your imagination, aided by descriptions in brackets of the missing pictures. Perhaps there is a family like this out there, in this or some other reali...