You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO is from A.D., who is looking for their first romance. Content warning for the description below:
I read this series ca. 1997. I was all of 13 years old; please don’t judge me or my parents for they did not know. Another girl passed it along in class and thus began my foray into romance novels.
I had no idea of eras in historical romance at the time…all but it must have been after 16th century, as women could be part of theater troupes.
The story starts in a manor/country home (I think). In the prologue, a husband arrives home to find his wife waiting for him in their bedroom and a literal ‘reunion’ ensues. They have guards outside and all but apparently this is not an issue, they being beloved landlords. The author describes how the husband is always mesmerised by his wife and how luck he feels that she chose him (sounds standard but there it is). This was a giant leap from Roald Dahl and Nancy Drew, for me…
The story then starts, and the story centers around a girl. I don’t think she was wealthy. She may have been a servant in a country house. She was in love with the heir of that house, called Phillipe. He was blond and good looking, looked regal on a horse…and liked the timid way she said ‘Philippe’. I think he accosted (could also have been rape) her one time, in the stables (I recall a description of hay…so, I thought she had been a milkmaid). Anyway, she ran away (I think) and found herself as part of a traveling theater.
The leader of that troupe was a man with dark hair and hawkish looks…or at least his nose was, and he was at first cold with her (but aren’t they all, usually?!). In one scene, they stage a play, he whips her (or gets whipped by someone) for real. She’s surprised by this, and may have developed welts from the beading. Nevertheless, at after a hard day’s work, or long journey’s end, they stop by a river (or lake) and he massages the pain out of her body gently. She is also surprised by this (At this point, I was barely listening in class, I used to read the book from under the bench during lessons).
At some point, Philippe makes an appearance and was driven off. I don’t remember the circumstances. And at some point, the girl and the theater leader fall thoroughly in love. What with seeing him sleeping , which made him look younger and not worn…who can resist? I don’t even remember how they got their wealth…his fortune or the girl’s may have been tied up with the Philippe debacle…I was 13, only paid attention to the folded pages!
…but now I’m ready to read it all. Please send me suggestions if you can. You have helped me solve one HABO before and trust that you can do it again. Thank you for being awesome.
Can we go two for two on A.D.’s HaBO requests?
Dreams So Fleeting
by Sylvia Halliday
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lot going on, but I bet someone can figure this out…
This, I do believe, is “Dreams So Fleeting”. The print version (1985) is by “Louisa Rawlings”, the ebook (released two or three years ago) is by “Sylvia Halliday”. Don’t know which (if either) is the author’s real name, but whoever she is, she wrote several VERY good historical romances set in France from the time of Loius XIII through the Napoleonic Wars. Highly recommended!
I haven’t heard of this, but I want it!
For those looking for hawkish heroes and theatre troupes in ancien régime France, allow me to plug Scaramouche: A Romance of the French Revolution, by Rafael Sabatini. The opening lines are “He was born with a gift for laughter, and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony.” We are later informed that our intelligent, too-clever-by-half protagonist was “only just saved from ugliness by a pair of large, luminous, ever-questing dark eyes.” I adored him, obviously.
@Susan Reader: I thought, “This sounds interesting.” Then come to find out I bought it 3 years ago. Still unread. Sigh.
@Susan: Read it! Read it!
@Lucy Scaramouche is currently 99cents for the Kindle edition!
@Dreamingintrees/Lucy: Scaramouche is in the public domain. You can get it for free at Project Gutenburg. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1947
Actually Scaramouche is free for the Kindle edition right now. Just grabbed it.
Lisa Kleypass has some book about actors. Because you’re mine?
Love Scaramouche! It is in the public domain, too!
I dunno, I loved Scaramouche when I was a teenager, but I tried it again recently and found it close to unreadable. Maybe I need to soldier through the stodgy political debates at the beginning.
Oooh, but his pirate one (can’t remember now, was it Captain Blood or The Sea Hawk) also gave me some teenage tingles.
(Sorry, no idea about the HaBO, although sounds like something I would have loved.)
The HaBo almost sounds a little bit like ‘Velvet Song’ by Jude Devereaux. It’s been a really long time since I read it though.
I’m going to agree with Susan Reader. I just had a look on the Amazon Look Inside feature at Dreams So Fleeting. It does begin with a prologue, first the happy parents and their 3 children, followed by the parents in their bedroom (no guards, though, just servants). Then it cuts to the little girl now a young woman with an abusive stepmother. She is working at an inn as an underfed servant, and a handsome young man with blond curls spilling from under his hat rides up. She immediately wonders if he will be the one to rescue her.
@Sandra, thanks! I didn’t even think about it being in the public domain
I am also going to agree with “Dreams so Fleeting”. Here is the book description which pretty much agrees with most of the points given
Quote
Born the illegitimate daughter of a great French nobleman, Ninon knew only a harsh life of cruelty and hardship. It isn’t until the dashing Count of Froissart, Philippe, whisks her off to a different world that she begins to hope for a better future.
But she soon learns her new life is hollow, promising unhappiness, not joy. A slave to his powerful title and an unbreakable marriage vow, Philippe’s love remains just beyond Ninon’s reach. In despair, she runs away and joins a traveling acting company. Can she dare give her heart to Valentin, the handsome and cunning rogue and actor who rules the troupe?
Unquote
Its only $2.99 on Kindle!!
Hello! AD here.
I bow down to you all. I cannot believe you parsed the remnants of my 13-year-old memories to find something meaningful. It is indeed ‘Dreams so Fleeting’.
Susan Reader, Susan, batgirl and Karenza, that is it! That’s right, it was servants not guards. From your descriptions, it all came back. Its now bought and being read…
Everyone else, thanks for the recommendations!
Best,
AD