Napoleon – Nomad Authors Blog

Blurb:
Silent, ruthless, protected by an unknown ally in Whitehall, he smuggles gold across the Channel to Bonaparte. When flimsy evidence points to the Essex coast, three men are given secret orders to find these traitors. One of those men, Julian Ashford, has his life transformed into debts and disgrace and sent back to Halton Hall, and Katherine the woman he loved and lost. What Julian discovers within the walls of his ancestral home is much deeper and more sinister than he thought possible, but nothing could prepare him for the betrayal when he finally faces the mastermind behind this sordid operation.

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Excerpt:
He turned the horse to the left and settled into an easy canter. They rounded a bend which he didn’t remember and a quarter of a mile ahead was the narrow road dividing the estate from the tenanted farms. He now knew where he was, but everything looked different. He reminded himself again that local scenery was the last thing on a twelve years old boy’s mind. When they came to the stream the horse dropped its head to drink and the first drops of rain fell.

“Christ, that’s all we need, a bloody soaking.” He’d have to ride back to where they’d emerged onto the grassy slope. His grandfather had shown good sense leasing his land but he’d made it plain he didn’t have to look at his lowly tenant farmers. Not only had he forbidden them to use the estate road, he’d ordered a wall be built along that end of his land. After strong protests, he grudgingly agreed to build a narrow apology of a road to meet the village road so they could take their produce to market. He’d then ordered them to show their gratitude by building a drystone wall on their side, to make it ‘visually pleasing’.

Julian vaguely remembered a gate in the estate wall and hoped he was right. The rain was falling in earnest as he urged the horse along the narrow, rutted road and almost missed it behind the thick ivy. Dismounting, he pushed aside the green blanket and swore. The gate was rusted and jammed. Remounting they continued and he shook his head in confusion. Ahead was another gate in the wall and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember it. He dismounted again, this gate was secured with a thick chain and lock on the inside. As he turned away a sliver of shiny metal in the wet earth caught his eye. Reaching down he picked up a small crucifix.

“What the hell?” he muttered then his eyes went to the lock. Despite the rain he had to try. His fingers reached through the bars of the gate to insert the long end of the crucifix into the lock and, concentrating intently, he moved it gently. “Oh, come on!” He eased it around the inside workings again and it suddenly gave way.

“Well done, you haven’t lost your touch,” he congratulated himself, led the horse through and locked it behind him.

The rain fell steadily as they approached a semi- circle of poplars and he tightened the reins. Ahead of him was the rear of the Dower House. His childhood home. Urging the horse through the poplars, he stared dumbfounded at the sagging, derelict building. Weeds and grass had almost taken over what remained of the small stone wall surrounding the house and the large pathway between the flower beds and rockeries had disappeared under a tangle of ground creepers and debris. A thick blanket of ivy had worked its way over most of the house and covered the chimneys. The glass had long gone from the gaping windows. The remains of the front portico were sagging and roof shingles lay scattered on the ground.

Julian remembered the Dower House was creaky, draughty and damp but this was a disgrace. Why hadn’t Charles ordered it knocked down? He led the horse to the crumbling remains of the stables and they stood huddled against the wall until the rain increased and the dripping from above became a stream. Pushing the horse further in, he ran to the house and pushed against the front door. After a protesting squeal of rusty hinges, the door gave way and scraped against the warped floorboards. He stepped into a large puddle on the hallway floor, peeling walls and the smell of decay.

“Christ, what a mess.”

The room on his right, once his mother’s sitting room, was littered with dead leaves and debris blown in through the gaping windows. Pushing open the door on the opposite side of the hallway, he stopped dead. Although the room was dark he could see straw mattresses covering most of the floor. His eyes adjusted to the gloom showing him a table covered with tin plates and mugs and beside the fireplace freshly cut wood was stacked. Boards now covered what was once the window. Feeling vulnerable without a weapon, Julian backed out into the hallway, paused, then walked to the bottom of the staircase. Looking up to the floor above shrouded in darkness, he continued through the narrow hallway leading to the servants’ quarters and kitchen.

The hairs lifted from the nape of his neck. Wood was stacked on both sides of the huge fireplace and black cooking pots hung from the iron crossbar in the chimney. He turned and walked swiftly back through the house and out to the crumbling stables. It could very well be smugglers or poachers using the derelict building but his instincts were screaming that it wasn’t. The rain showed no signs of abating so he remounted and guided the horse along the now overgrown carriageway between the avenue of dripping trees leading to the park and the warmth of Halton Hall stables. He’d return to the Dower House again tonight.

Jan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.

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Lies of Gold

Blurb
Their love affair ended in anger and painful consequences. Katherine Ashford has guarded a secret through years of abuse. Fighting wars and hard living has numbed Julian Ashford. Then fate steps in. Gold is crossing the Channel to Napoleon Bonaparte and Julian is ordered back to where it all began, and Katherine. It’s her secret and the increasing danger that rekindles the love they once shared. When a murder exposes lies, death and devastating betrayal, they finally face the mastermind behind this sordid smuggling operation.

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Excerpt
Julian felt a sliver of shock when he opened the door to his bedchamber. He couldn’t remember how he got here. Swearing softly, he walked to the window overlooking the front courtyard and rested his head against the glass. He’d fathered a child, a daughter. For nine years, his daughter had lived in this house as Charles’s daughter. His vision blurred. Ten years of hard living had buried those deep painful scars and all it took was one look at Katherine and that small girl’s face to peel it all away. Like peeling an onion, his eyes were stinging like hell.

He remembered the night he met Katherine as if it were yesterday. Charles was in France and he was in London attending a debutante’s ball. Bored out of his head with the simpering young females and strutting males he was looking for an excuse to depart when his cousin’s tall, elegant wife, Katherine was introduced to him. The orchestra began playing and he asked her to join him on the floor. It was a waltz; he took her in his arms, her eyes met his and he knew he’d met the only woman he’d ever love. They’d set off murmurs behind fans for dancing twice and they didn’t leave each other for a week. They’d made intense, passionate, love, they’d laid in each other’s arms and talked for hours, they were as one. She’d confided Charles was a hard, brutish man but she would not leave him because she’d lose all rights to her four years old son. He’d begged her, made promises he knew he couldn’t keep. She’d shaken her head in despair. As soon as Charles returned to London they would go home to Halton Hall.

He’d prayed Charles’s ship would sink to the bottom of the Channel. She’d cried in his arms; he’d cried in her arms. The day before Charles was due to arrive in London they became tense with each other and finally, distraught, he’d accused her of selling herself for the title and privilege. She’d thrown a heavy teapot at his head. When it struck, he’d seen stars for several seconds before shouting more insults. She’d furiously told him he couldn’t afford to keep her on his army pay. He’d walked out.

Julian barely remembered the following months of heavy drinking and angry self-pity until the army knocked his arrogance and selfishness out of him and saved his sanity. He knew damn well his army pay wouldn’t have kept her and he knew damn well she’d have lost all rights to her son. Knowing Charles, he would have demanded she be brought back to him and the law and the church would have supported him. Her life would have been worse than hell. Now this, Christ, never in a million years did he expect this. He wanted to walk away but he couldn’t because the whole damn top secret investigation would crumble or blow up in his face.

He sat down by the fire and put his head in his hands. He didn’t know it then, but that night fourteen months ago, changed his life. Benjamin Bloomfield, aide de camp to His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, had ordered Brigadier Sir Ian MacDonald, Sir Henry Whitton and himself to meet at a nondescript location on the outskirts of London. On their arrival, they’d been momentarily lost for words to find a sober and serious Prince Regent waiting for them. Senior government officials had drawn the Regent’s attention to the alarming amounts of gold leaving England. Well-placed sources in France had reported English gold was being smuggled across the Channel to help finance Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. Intensive investigations along the east coast had failed to find any solid evidence but the Regent was not satisfied. He and Bloomfield were convinced someone in the upper echelons of power and influence was behind it or protecting the smugglers. That night the five men present decided that from now on the Prince Regent would shrug it off as rumors and lose interest.

That night MacDonald, Whitton and Julian agreed to begin their search for the source. The Prince Regent named the secret investigation Spider’s Web. The three men thought the name childish but they dutifully indulged His Royal Highness. Not one word of the meeting was recorded and at the conclusion the Prince Regent instructed the three men to meet on the first day of each month and report their progress to Bloomfield the day after. Their investigations were secret and painstaking and gradually they began to close in on this part of the coast. They had observed from a distance, they had moved a little closer and then, as with every other investigation, the scent disappeared. However, they were convinced, and MacDonald decreed Julian was the only suitable person to come and go around the Ballingford estates and the coast without raising suspicions.

Stretching his feet towards the fire, he remembered his furious refusal to return to this place he despised intensely and how he nearly resigned his commission when summoned to a private audience with the Prince Regent. High Treason was involved and as an officer of the Crown he was expected to do his duty. He’d reluctantly bowed to HRH’s orders and it was agreed that to be convincing he’d have to be in dire straits to return. His debts, scandals and fistfights were carefully and authentically orchestrated culminating in him being bawled out by Ian MacDonald who’d conveniently forgotten the raw young corporal and scandal loving clerk in his office. Then their one reliable informer, who’d only agreed to meet him under strict conditions of anonymity, was found with his throat cut. He and Baker had arrived at Halton Hall with no idea of where to start or where to look for the needle in the haystack of boats and fishermen and identify whoever was behind this well organized group of traitors. When he did find evidence, his orders were to send a coded message to MacDonald and Whitton and the net would close in.

No matter what was thrown at him now, he could not walk away. They were so close and if the web was broken it could not be repaired. Nor could he let down Ian MacDonald, his uncle and mentor, to whom he owed so much.

Jan
Jan Selbourne was born and educated in Melbourne, Australia and her love of literature and history began as soon as she learned to read and hold a pen. After graduating from a Melbourne Business College her career began in the dusty world of ledgers and accounting, working in Victoria, Queensland and the United Kingdom. On the point of retiring, she changed course to work as secretary of a large NSW historical society. Now retired Jan is enjoying her love of travelling and literature. She has two children, a stray live in cat and lives near Maitland, New South Wales.

Contact Jan:
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