“I hope so, too. A brave, beautiful girl, with dark hair and blue eyes, like her mother.”

Maggie smiled up at him. “Perhaps she will be.”

And she was.

Author’s Note

I began writing Gentleman Jim many years ago, around the same time I wrote my other Regency romance, The Work of Art. The manuscript was originally titled Gentleman Jack, but by the time I got around to revising it, the HBO miniseries of the same name had been released, so I renamed my story Gentleman Jim. Not my favorite name, I confess, but still in the same spirit as the original.

The story was inspired by my love for two classic novels: Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, published in 1844, and Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, published in 1749. There are various references to these two books throughout my story, in the names of characters, such as Jenny and Mrs. Square, and in lines of dialogue, such as when St. Clare says that he must “wait and hope” for Maggie to come back to London. I’ve included a part of that original quote as an epigraph. The full quote from Edmond Dantès’s closing letter to Maximilian Morrel reads as follows:

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.

Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’—Your friend,

Edmond Dantès, Count of Monte Cristo.

As always, if you’d like more information on nineteenth century fashion, etiquette, or any of the other subjects featured in my novels, please visit the blog portion of my author website at MimiMatthews.com.

An Excerpt from Return to Satterthwaite Court

Turn the Page for a Sneak Peek of the next book in

Mimi Matthews’ Somerset Stories series, featuring Maggie and St. Clare’s headstrong daughter, Kate!

Coming Spring 2022.

CHAPTER ONE

London, England

December 1843

Lieutenant Charles Heywood came to a halt in front of the holly- and ivy-festooned window of the draper’s shop. He was just about to enter—intent on purchasing Christmas presents for his mother and younger sister—when a small, filthy gray mongrel dog darted past him.