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The Lost Love of a Soldier
Jane Lark
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
Contents
The Illicit Love of a Courtesan
I love writing authentic, passionate and emotional love stories. I began my first novel, a historical, when I was sixteen, but life derailed me a bit when I started suffering with Ankylosing Spondylitis, so I didn’t complete a novel until after I was thirty when I put it on my to do before I’m forty list. Now I love getting caught up in the lives and traumas of my characters, and I’m so thrilled to be giving my characters life in others’ imaginations, especially when readers tell me they’ve read the characters just as I’ve tried to portray them.
You can follow me on Twitter @JaneLark.
This is an unusual story for me. I chose to write the prequel to The Illicit Love of a Courtesan - The Lost Love of a Soldier - because the readers who love the series asked for a prequel. But when I decided to write this, I realised I had to follow elements of a real story.
I’d made the decision when I wrote The Illicit Love of a Courtesan to use the title of a real regiment who fought in the battle of Waterloo. I chose the 52nd (Oxfordshire) Regiment of Foot. So when I began this story my first task was to research the 52nd, to find out how they came to be there, and what part they played in the battle.
The 52nd returned from The Peninsular War to Britain, in the summer of 1814, two hundred years ago to the year of this novel, and therefore this became the window of opportunity for my fictional characters, Paul and Ellen, to meet.
I dedicate this story to all those who serve in the military, and the families who support them.
“Lady Eleanor…” A gentle almost-knock struck the door as Ellen’s maid whispered through it, as if she feared someone hearing her, even though she knocked on the servants’ entrance to Ellen’s bedchamber.
Ellen’s father, the Duke of Pembroke, would not be near the servants’ stairway.
“Pippa?”
The handle turned. The door opened.
“My Lady, a letter.” Pippa held it out as she came in. “It is from the Captain.”
“From Paul?” Ellen swept across the room, her heart clenching as she moved. Paul was the reason the whole house had slipped into tiptoeing and whispering. He’d caused her father’s recent rage, and now everyone was terrified of causing offence and becoming the next focus for her father’s anger.
If it was rude to snatch it from Pippa’s hand, then love had made Ellen rude.
Her fingers shook as she broke open the blank seal and unfolded the paper.
My
