Must Love Breeches

by Angela Quarles

“I’ll telegraph the brood and see if they can join us in Surrey.” Besides Edwin, they had another son, William, and a daughter, Elizabeth. Lord—she hadn’t seen them in months. To have the grandchildren crawling over her, all welcoming and warm and wiggly...

  “Terrific idea. I am sorry to hear the Lovelaces cannot join us,” Phineas said, looking down at her. “I had hoped to take them on this trip and indulge my vanity.”

  “I daresay you will be able to shortly. Their dirigible from Edinburgh was delayed by the weather for only a day. They can come down by train, and you shall drive them around the countryside to your heart’s content. After all, Ada has been angling for one.”

  Isabelle smiled. Ada had been instrumental in Mr. Babbage’s success with the Analytical Engine, ushering in ten years ago what would soon be called the Analytical Age, right on schedule. In fact, the Montagus had privately donated to Babbage’s efforts. Isabelle had felt safe in doing so, knowing private donors had helped him overcome his obstacles, so why not be one? But, Lord, had she been worried early on that she might affect the timeline. Babbage’s success, and now the steam-powered cars were evidence, though, that history unfolded exactly as it should—she had not messed up the timeline.

  However, while she’d been careful not to affect the main timeline, she’d not been above using her knowledge of upcoming historical events to safeguard her family and their finances, as long as others weren’t harmed.

  The American Civil War had ended earlier this year after three years of brutal fighting, but the might of the British government aligning with the North brought it to a swift end.

  Her descendants must still endure the War to End All Wars that would devastate the City of London in 1914, when German dirigibles would drop bombs in air raids, but she and Phineas had taken long-term precautions for their family’s safety. Lincoln, FDR and JFK would serve their three peaceful, but pivotal, terms as president.

  Phineas opened her car door and she felt his gaze on her as she passed. She settled into the leather bucket seat, turned her face up to the sky, closed her eyes, and smiled.

  Strange to think she’d be born eighty years from now, in the year of our Lord 1944, when the British Empire and the Western World would be in peace.

  And in 1973 she would travel back and start her life here. With Phineas.

  Whether she’d shifted the timeline in subtle ways or not, she’d never know. But one fact she did know with a surety that resonated in her bones, her soul, her heart—this was precisely where she belonged. This was her true home.

  Thank you for reading MUST LOVE BREECHES!

  I hope you enjoyed Isabelle and Phin! Keep flipping forward to read my historical note about the events in the book and, for the curious, a note about the ending. And if you join my mailing list, I'll send you 11 pages of deleted scenes as a thank you! If you realllly loved it, and want to help pimp my books and get free content and be the first to hear of news, join my street team!

  Please Post a Review

  Readers like you make it possible for writers to do what they love, spin tales! Thank you for your support. If you enjoyed Must Love Breeches, I hope you'll take a moment to share your enthusiasm with other readers by posting a review. Discoverability for new authors like me is a challenge and every review helps connect a reader to a book they might enjoy. I appreciate any review, positive or negative, so if you have a moment to post one, even just a line or two about why you enjoyed the story, on ARe and/or on Goodreads, I’d be grateful! The more reviews a book receives, the more other readers are willing to take a chance on a new author. Regardless, I thank you for reading! If you do leave a review, send me an email at angela@angelaquarles.com so I can personally thank you, or tweet me @angelaquarles.

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  Must Love Chainmail, Book Two in the Must Love Series, coming in 2015

  Must Love Breeches is the first book in my Must Love romance series and book 2, Must Love Chainmail, will feature Katy Tolson going back to 1294 Wales! You can add it to your Goodreads shelf so you’ll know when it comes out.

  Steam Me Up, Rawley, coming Jan/Feb 2015

  Steam Me Up, Rawley is the first book in a new steampunk romance series, tentatively titled The Mint Julep & Monocle Chronicles. Set in the American Deep South, it's a spin-off from the Must Love series, since the events that happen in Must Love Breeches creates the alternate world Steam Me Up, Rawley takes place in. Flip to the end of this book for a sneak peek at Chapter One or add it to your Goodreads shelf!

  Also By Angela Quarles

  Beer and Groping in Las Vegas, an erotic geek romantic comedy

  Historical Note

  Wondering why I have my history all wrong in the Epilogue? Yep, I know cell phones weren't around in 1973--I was alive then ;) I felt like she had to have some kind of impact on the timeline, and so I created an alternate timeline where technological advances were accelerated faster than ours. By going back, she'd created the alternate universe she was born into. Trippy, right? For more information about different ways time travel can affect the timeline, see my post on the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Blog: “Did You Mess Up the Timeline? Incorporating Theories of Time Travel in Fiction”

  The original germ for this story was wondering who would be cool to meet if I went back in time. I’d originally conceived to go back to Jane Austen’s era, but that idea has been well-trodden. When I came across Ada Lovelace, I had my answer. Born Augusta Ada Byron, she is the only legitimate daughter of the famous poet and bad boy Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke. What a tumultuous and intriguing marriage that was! I had a hard time reining in Lady Byron in this story, as my interpretation of her personality is not favorable, and she was just oh-so annoying to me. I had many more scenes with her, as she lent herself easily to being an antagonist, but this story isn’t supposed to be a rant about her and they were cut and her role minimized. Ada had such a sad childhood, and while her adulthood contained many amazing accomplishments, she died unpardonably young at thirty-six from uterine cancer. I think a lot of her troubles stemmed from the tyranny of her mother, and in this novel, I took the liberty of giving her an alternate life through meeting Isabelle where she didn’t die of cancer and had a happier life. In the end, this is a work of fiction, a product of my imagination, and I wanted to give this alternate life to her.

  I picked 1834 because it was the first year that Ada Byron was ‘out’ (having her Season in public). It was after her second Season that she married her husband William King, becoming Baroness King. In 1838, her husband became the Earl of Lovelace, and so that’s why she’s commonly called Ada Lovelace.

  I also wanted to give Ada a childhood friend in Montagu, since she really had none. Whenever her mother found anyone getting too close to her, playmate or nurse, they were excised from Ada’s life. Ada and Charles Babbage had an interesting and unique working relationship, and if you want to learn more about her, and their work together, please see the Further Reading list. I will note that Ada actually did try to build a flying steam-powered horse!

  Mary Somerville is also pulled from history; she was one of Ada’s tutors and at the time of this novel, had become a good friend
and mentor. Ada often visited the Somerville home in Chelsea and attended Babbage’s soirees with the Somerville family.

  I tried to capture what one of Babbage’s soirees might have been like from the few extant first-hand accounts. Wouldn’t it have been amazing to attend one of his parties? And the idea of what the world would have been like if he’d actually completed either the Difference Engine or the Analytical Engine has inspired many an alternate history story, including many in the steampunk genre. I pretend here that he did, because a) it’s cool to think about, and b) I felt like Isabelle would have affected the timeline by remaining. Babbage actually didn’t get enough money from private donors, and so her contribution tipped the scale. The changes she made in the past affected the timeline she was later born into, so she never knew that her decision to stay had changed the world from what we all know today by ushering in the Computer Age one hundred years early.

  The inspiration for the production of King Lear that Isabelle and Phineas attended was pulled directly from pp. 305-306 of the reminiscences of the actor mentioned in the novel, William Charles Macready. In Macready’s Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters, available on Google Books, he talks about his nervousness during the opening and the audiences’ reaction toward the end. I’ve only moved the date of the performance from May 23rd to May 19th to fit the needs of the plot. He indeed was responsible for steering the British public away from Tate’s happy-ending version.

  I also tried to follow as closely as documents allowed to the layout of the old British Museum, including the construction of the present building, at the time of the novel. The room really was labeled “Artificial Curiosities from Less Civilized Parts,” and the objects she sees are pulled directly from the inventory of that room, including the Magna Carta!

  The people the apothecary mentions when Isabelle asks about antiseptics were actual historical figures, as were their remedies.

  I tried as far as was practical to be historically accurate, but I'm sure I fell short of the mark. Any inaccuracies are wholly my fault.

  For Further Reading

  Ada, Countess of Lovelace: Byron’s Legitimate Daughter, Doris Langley Moore, Harper & Row, Publishers

  Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age, Betty Alexandra Toole, Ed.D., Strawberry Press

  The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron’s Daughter, Benjamin Woolley, McGraw-Hill

  Charles Babbage and his Calculating Engines: Selected Writings by Charles Babbage and Others, Philip Morrison and Emily Morrison

  Charles Babbage: Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, Charles Babbage, Martin Cambell-Kelly, ed., Rutgers University Press

  Irascible Genius: The Life of Charles Babbage, Maboth Moseley, Henry Regnery company

  The Philosophical Breakfast Club: Four Remarkable Friends Who Transformed Science and Changed the World, Laura J. Snyder, Broadway Books

  — about Charles Babbage, John Herschel, William Whewell, and Richard Jones

  About the Author

  Photo by Keyhole Photography

  Angela is a geek girl romance writer. What makes her romances geeky? Whether it’s fan girling over Ada Lovelace by having her as a secondary character in Must Love Breeches, or outright geek references with geek types in her romantic comedy with paranormal elements, Beer and Groping in Las Vegas, or going all Southern steampunk in Steam Me Up, Rawley, she likes to have fun with her romances and hopes her readers do too.

  Angela works at an independent bookstore and lives in an historic house in the beautiful and quirky town of Mobile, AL. When she’s not writing, she enjoys the usual stuff like gardening, reading, hanging out, eating, drinking, chasing squirrels out of the walls and creating the occasional knitted scarf. She’s had a varied career, including website programming and directing a small local history museum, and has discovered that writing allows her to explore all her interests.

  She’s an admitted geek and is proud to be among the few but mighty Browncoats who watched Firefly the first night it aired. She was introduced to the wonderful world of science fiction by her father, by way of watching reruns of the original Star Trek in her tweens and later giving her a copy of Walter M. Miller Jr’s A Canticle for Leibowitz as a teenager. She hasn’t looked back since.

  She has a B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies with a minor in German from Emory University, and a Masters in Heritage Preservation from Georgia State University. She was an exchange student to Finland in high school and studied abroad in Vienna one summer in college.

  Find Angela Quarles Online:

  www.angelaquarles.com

  @angelaquarles

  Facebook.com/authorangelaquarles

  Mailing list: www.angelaquarles.com/join-my-mailing-list

  Acknowledgements

  I have so many people to thank it’s not even a little funny. This is my second full-length novel (the first is currently partying with the dust bunnies under my bed), and so I spread my arms and net wide for help.

  One of the earliest sources of advice, inspiration, and encouragement was CritiqueCircle.com which I haunted like a beast in 2011, posting early chapters and getting feedback, posting revisions, and making writer friends. I’d like to thank the following critters who critiqued in whole or in part, including: Rachelle Ayala, Cate Beauman, Bibliophyl, Susan Elsworth, Rich Knight, Terry Long, Christina McKnight, Chantel Rhondeau, Susan A. Royal, Sharba, Shelb, Kathryn Sparrow, and Lucie Ulrich.

  I also had help from other writers and readers who read various versions and convinced me I wasn’t nuts in trying my hand at writing fiction. These include Celia Breslin, Beth Dunn, Merry Farmer, Tess Gingrich, Meggan Haller, Elizabeth Church Karp, Karen Kirby, Ursula LeCoeur, Alex McLeod, Kate Meader, Linda Morris, Holly Parker Murphy, Sarah Benz Phillips, J.M. Rogers, E.W. Trigg, Julie Trigg, Kate Warren, and Cheryn Yaeger. Every one of you gave me invaluable feedback that made this book better than it would have been on its own. I’d also like to thank Alex for helping me with the over-arching timey-wimey stuff across the series. Special thanks goes to my bbb (best Beta buddy) Jami Gold, as she’s read different versions more times than I can count (poor thing!), was always there for me to chat with online or over the phone about different aspects of this book, believed in me and my writing, and cheered me on all the way. And to my fellow FF&P members who critiqued chapters in The Mud Puddle. And to Tessa Dare for her support and encouragement, and Margie Lawson for teaching me how to write stronger prose!

  Also when I first moved to Mobile and started writing fiction, I was lucky to be part of a wonderful group of friends who encouraged me in my writing—we met once a month and wrote flash fiction, and then moved on to critiquing chapters. Thank you Eleanor, Meggan, Laura, John, Elena, and Pier!

  I’d also like to thank the family, friends, and strangers who backed my Kickstarter project to fund the editing costs, including: J.R., NRA, Buffy Armstrong, Renee D Field, Founder of StoryFinds.com, Paula Gaber, Christine Gasser, Page Gleason, Jami Gold, Melanie Goux, Elizabeth & Aaron Karp, Susan Kille, Rob Kuhlman, Melissa (Mel) Lafferty, Ursula LeCoeur, Alex McLeod, Kate Meader, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, Janet Nodar, Catherine A. Smith, Shaun Tossell, April & John Trigg, E.W. Trigg, Julie Trigg, and H.G. Welch. Thank you so much! Your belief in me was humbling indeed, and your names represent such a diverse cross section of my life.

  I also want to thank the few but awesome members of my street team, Marlene, Alex, Lucy, Christine, Jami, Buffy, and Vivian! Thank you for helping me spread the word!

  I’d also like to thank my facebook and twitter friends who are always willing to answer questions I pose, whether it’s about writing, or character ideas, or an opinion sought.

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT RELEASE FROM ANGELA QUARLES.

  STEAM ME UP, RAWLEY

  A STEAMPUNK ROMANCE SET IN THE DEEP SOUTH & A SPIN-OFF FROM THE MUST LOVE SERIES

  COMING JAN/FEB 2015

  THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT IS UNEDITED AND SUBJE
CT TO CHANGE BEFORE PUBLICATION.

  STEAM ME UP RAWLEY

  Jack the Ripper might be in town. But is marriage more terrifying?

  In an alternate Deep South in 1890, society reporter Adele de la Pointe wants to make her own way in the world, despite her family’s pressure to become a society wife. Hoping to ruin herself as a matrimonial prospect, she seizes the opportunity to cover the recent Jack the Ripper-style murders for the newspaper, but her father's dashing new intern suggests a more terrifying headline—marriage.

  Dr. Phillip Rawley’s most daring exploit has been arriving at his new home in America in a hot air balloon. A tolerable sacrifice, if it means he can secure the hand of his new employer’s daughter in a marriage of convenience. But Adele works, she's spirited, and she has an armored pet monkey running her errands. Not only does she not match his notions of a proper lady, she stirs up feelings he’d rather keep in tight control.

  With Adele hunting down a headline and Dr. Rawley trying to protect and pursue her, a serial killer is spreading panic throughout Mobile, Alabama. Can Adele and Rawley find the murderer, face their fears, and discover true love?

  April 8, 1890, Mobile, Alabama