Eleanor, Duchess of Haverford, has often appeared in my books and blogs. She has her own spot on my website every Monday, meeting fictional characters for tea. She is has also been a supporting or bit character in the following stories.
- Paradise Lost, a memoir of the Duchess of Haverford, has its connecting scenes set in 1812, but the memories it contains begin in 1777, with the doomed love between Eleanor Creydon, later the Duchess of Haverford, and James Winderfield, the third son of the Duke of Winshire. James was exiled in 1777, and returns to England in 1812.
- In Paradise Regained, set in 1794, we meet James, his wife Mahzad, and most of their children. Eleanor gets a mention.
- In 1806, the Duchess of Haverford is mentioned as having sent Prudence Virtue to investigate when her godson, the hero of The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle, fails in his monthly letters.
- Also in 1807, the Duchess of Haverford appears as the sponsor and sometime employer of Prue Virtue, heroine of Revealed in Mist, and as the patroness of David Wakefield, base-born son of her husband.
- In June 1807, the hero of Farewell to Kindness, the Earl of Chirbury (whom his intimates call Rede) calls on his Aunt Eleanor, his mother’s sister, the Duchess of Haverford. He seeks her help in establishing the heroine in Polite Society. She is his aunt, his mother’s sister.
- In August 1807, in A Baron for Becky, the Duchess of Haverford visits Rede, and finds him staying there with the Rose of Frampton (Becky), whom he has rescued from gangsters.
- Later that year, in a vignette written for the Teatime Tattler blog, she persuades Aldridge not to spend all his time with Becky, who is now his mistress, lest he break her heart.
- In December 1807, Ella and Alex, hero and heroine of A Raging Madness, attend a ball hosted at Haverford House in London. Alex already knows the Duchess of Haverford, who is his cousin’s aunt and a friend of his father’s.
- In 1810, in A Baron for Becky, the Duchess of Haverford helps to orchestrate the marriage between Becky and Hugh, Baron Overton.
- In 1811, Hugh sends an urgent call for help when Becky sinks into depression after the birth of her child. The Duchess answers the call.
- In 1812, in A Suitable Husband, the Duchess sends for Cecilia Grenford in response to a letter begging for help for Cecilia’s father, who is a distant cousin of the duke. The Duchess engages Cecilia as her secretary, and sets her to work organising a house party. The Duchess appears repeatedly throughout that book, and in the other eight stories by Bluestocking Belles that also appeared in the collection Holly and Hopeful Hearts.
- One of these novellas, The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, was rewritten as the novel To Wed a Proper Lady. The hero is the son of James Winderfield, now the Duke of Winshire.
- In 1813, in A Baron for Becky, the Duchess of Haverford uses all her political and social skills to muster support for the Overtons.
- Also in 1813, the Duchess of Haverford meets with the Duke of Winshire to warn him about gossip that affects his daughter Ruth, heroine of To Mend the Broken-Hearted.
- In 1814, the Duchess of Haverford plays her part in the courtships of Sarah and Nate (To Claim the Long-Lost Lover) and Charlotte and Aldridge (To Tame the Wild Rake). The second of these finishes in 1815.
Eleanor will finally have her own happy ever after in Paradise at Last, to be published later this year.
She also appears, as the Duchess of Winshire, in Never Kiss a Toad, a long unwieldy first draft of a book set in the 1840s and starring her granddaughter Sally as the heroine. Never Kiss a Toad is available on Wattpad. It needs a serious edit with a chainsaw.