Happily the occupation lasted only a couple of weeks, but the task of piecing together the actual events has challenged historians ever since. First, very little source material remains. The French destroyed many of their records of the invasion, given that it was of such short duration and reflected so poorly on their nation’s military reputation. Given the level of collaboration with the enemy among all strata of English society, families sought to cover up any dubious activity, burning firsthand accounts and other records, and pretending that those two weeks in November held nothing out of the ordinary. In addition, the French seized England’s many local news presses and the Royal Mail system, cutting off communications nationwide.
But the main reason for the cover-up was that the resistance to the invasion was led by the most unlikely heroes and heroines in England, the Damned.
Over the next few years, the Prince of Wales turned his back on his former friends, banning them from the court in 1810. The Damned, scattered over the country, quarreled on how they should conduct themselves—whether they should attempt to live openly or hide. Open conflict broke out, and households disbanded. Some, like Duval’s household, sought revenge against humankind, not endearing them to humans they encountered. Others, like William’s, planned to live quietly until they were once again accepted by polite society. The middle and lower classes, who might have been sympathetic to the plight of the Damned, also received the brunt of a long and ruinous war, massive inflation, and a series of poor harvests; finding themselves in the cross fire of civil war among the Damned was the last straw. Legislation was passed during the Regency period restricting the activity of the Damned and depriving them of property and political power.
Once again, the Damned retreated from public view. We can only speculate what became of them, although many, like Luke Venning, crossed the Atlantic, attracted by the challenges of the Americas. As the Georgian period morphed into the Victorian, it became unthinkable that the Damned had, in effect, once ruled society and saved England, and thus the rewriting of history began in earnest.
Janet Mullany © 2011
A Glossary of the Damned
en sanglant: to be aroused; to have one’s canines extend. Involuntary and uncontrolled en sanglant is considered vulgar and ill-bred.
to dine: to feed upon mortals, who consider it a high honor and greatly pleasurable.
Bearleader: a combination chaperone/mentor who teaches the young fledgling correct etiquette and manners. The Bearleader is generally, but not always, the Creator of the fledgling vampire; the one who turned (created) him or her.
les Sales: literally, the dirty or unclean ones—cast out and feral members of the Damned. It’s a French word, so the a is pronounced like the a in father.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Su and Keith Blakey for a wonderful visit to Steventon and Chawton in 2010; my agent, Lucienne Diver, and editor, May Chen, for their patience and help in making this a better book; Alison Hill, beta reader (is Jane nicer now?); Steve, for making coffee and performing other services; the staff at Jane Austen’s House Museum and Chawton House; and everyone for listening when I complained about the book that refused to write itself.
About the Author
Raised in England on a diet of Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen, JANET MULLANY has worked as an archaeologist, a classical music radio announcer, a performing arts administrator, a bookseller, and a proofreader/editor for a small press. Her first book, Dedication (2005), the only Signet Regency with two bondage scenes, was followed by the award-winning The Rules of Gentility (HarperCollins, 2007). She has written three more Regency chicklits for Little Black Dress (Headline, UK) as well as contemporary erotic romance for Harlequin Spice. She lives near Washington, D.C., where she is hard at work thinking up new and terrible things to do to Jane Austen.
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Also by Janet Mullany
Jane and the Damned
The Rules of Gentility
Credits
Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
Cover illustration © by Silja Götz
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
JANE AUSTEN: BLOOD PERSUASION. Copyright © 2011 by Janet Mullany. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-195831-1
EPub Edition © October 2011 ISBN: 9780062101440
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Afterword
A Glossary of the Damned
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Janet Mullany
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher