Hawkridge Hall was modeled on Ham House, another National Trust property. Known as the most well-preserved Stuart home in England, Ham House was built in 1610 and enlarged in the 1670s. The building has survived virtually unchanged since then, and it still retains most of the furniture from that period. The house and gardens are open daily from April through October. Ham House was owned by the Lauderdales, one of the most powerful families in Restoration England, and a visit gives a wonderful picture of seventeenth-century aristocratic life.
Rand’s house in Oxford was inspired by the house Edmond Halley (1656-1742) lived in while he held the post of Oxford’s Savilian Professor of Geometry. If you visit Oxford, look for the house in New College Lane near the Bridge of Sighs. The building isn’t open to tourists, but you can see the outside, including the rooftop observatory Halley added (although he never saw Halley’s Comet from it, since it made no appearance during the years he lived in the house).
I hope you enjoyed Lily! If you’d like to revisit Lily and Rand, check out my next novel, Rose. Please read on for an excerpt as well as more bonus material!
Always,
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LAUREN’S NEXT BOOK IS…
Rose
Book Three of
Chase Family Series: The Flowers
The last of three sisters to marry, Lady Rose Ashcroft is determined to land a wealthy, titled husband—a marquess perhaps, or even a duke. Having had her heart broken in the past, she’s decided the key to enticing a man lies in hiding her intelligence and academic interests while flaunting her more feminine qualities. Matchmaking mother in tow and strategy firmly in place, Rose heads off to Charles II’s court to find love…
And runs smack dab into Christopher “Kit” Martyn, the one man who could ruin all her plans. Kit is a dashing, successful commoner with his sights set on landing the post of official Royal Architect—and he’s the only man Rose feels she can honestly talk to about anything. Kit knows the true Rose, and he wants her, but she thinks of him as a family friend. Can he convince her that a title is unimportant compared to the passion he knows they’re destined to share?
Read an excerpt…
Trentingham Manor, the South of England
September 1677
STANDING IN her family’s small, crowded chapel, Rose Ashcroft shifted on her high Louis-heeled shoes, wishing she were in a cathedral so there would be somewhere to sit.
Wishing she were anywhere but here watching her sister get married.
“Randal John Charles, Earl of Newcliffe, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will.” The confident words boomed through the magnificent oak-paneled chamber, binding Rand to Rose’s sister Lily.
But Rose wasn’t listening to the ceremony. Instead she heard twenty-one, twenty-one, twenty-one running through her head. Twenty-one and a lonely spinster…while both her sisters had found love.
Happy tears brightened their mother’s brown eyes. She leaned close, bumping against Rose’s left side. “They’re perfect together, aren’t they?” she whispered.
Rose could only nod dumbly, staring at her sister’s petite form laced into a gorgeous pale blue satin wedding dress embroidered with gleaming silver thread. Lily’s hair, the same rich sable as Rose’s, cascaded to her shoulders in glossy ringlets. Beside her, Rand beamed a smile, looking tall and utterly handsome in dark blue velvet, his gray gaze steady and adoring.
The two were so clearly in love, Rose knew they belonged together—and truly, she was happy for her sister.
If only Lily weren’t her younger sister.
The priest cleared his throat and looked back down at his Book of Common Prayer. “Lady Lily Ashcroft, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband…”
Standing on Rose’s right, her older sister Violet shifted one of her twin babies on her hip and gazed up at her husband of four years, Ford. Sun streamed through the stained-glass windows, glinting off her spectacles. “Oh, isn’t this romantic?” she sighed.
Holding their other infant, Ford squeezed Violet around the shoulders. Seated cross-legged at their feet, their two-year-old son Nicky traced a finger over the patterns in the colorful glazed tile floor, obliviously happy.
Rose gritted her teeth.
Her friend Judith Carrington poked her from behind. “I cannot believe Lily’s wedding is happening before mine,” she whispered in a tone laced with dismay. “I was betrothed first!”
Rose couldn’t believe Lily and Judith would both be married before she even received a proposal.
“…so long as ye both shall live?” the priest concluded expectantly.
In the hush that followed, even knowing it wasn’t kind of her, Rose half wished Lily would fail to reply.
But Lily didn’t, of course. “I will,” she pledged, her voice as sweet as she was, ringing clear and true.
A few more words, a family heirloom ring slid onto her finger, and Lily was clearly and
