Midnight's Wild Passion is...WILD!!!!

by Anna Campbell

Good evening, Regency gossip mavens! It's your eagle-eyed editor here from Regency Routs, Rumpus and Rumpy-Pumpy.

Are you ready for your big dose of SCANDAL???!!!!

Yep, we're all getting to play papparazzi for the day. Nikons at twenty paces! Hoist your Olympus!

Because today is the launch party for the honorable Miss Campbell's latest release MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION and there's going to be blood on the Polaroids before we're done, dear readers!

But first a word from our sponsors at MIDNIGHT CENTRAL...

MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION is a classic Regency romance spiced with passion and danger and...SCANDAL (well, you kinda knew that, you're papparazzi, right?).

Here's some secret video from one of our undercover London reporters:



And here's the background to the breaking story that's taken the gossip sheets by storm:

London's most notorious seducer, Nicholas Challoner lives solely for revenge…

The dashing, licentious Marquess of Ranelaw can never forgive Godfrey Demarest for ruining his sister - now the time has come to repay the villain in the same coin. But one formidably intriguing impediment stands in the way of Nicholas's vengeance: Miss Antonia Smith, companion to his foe's unsuspecting daughter.

Having herself been deceived and disgraced by a rogue-banished by her privileged family as a result and forced to live a lie-Antonia vows to protect her charge from the same cruel fate. She recognizes Ranelaw for the shameless blackguard he is, and will devote every ounce of her intelligence and resolve to thwarting him.

Yet Antonia has always had a fatal weakness for rakes…

Here's a link to an excerpt: http://www.annacampbell.info/wildpassion.html

We even have specific footage for our Aussie scandalmongerers, uh, READERS of Downunder Disgraceful Doings!

You'll notice that Nicholas and Antonia have been caught in a VERY compromising position in this candid photo.

Just goes to show you shouldn't do anything naughty in the summer house at Pelham Place. All those bushes give dedicated papparazzi lots of places to hide out - and let's face it, neither Nicholas nor Antonia was paying much attention to what was going on OUTSIDE the lovely little Greek temple at the time!

Our intrepid reporter told us events reached such a pitch that his camera fell from his sweaty hands and crashed upon the muddy ground, so this is our only photgraphic record of illicit cavortings.

To speak frankly, dear readers - and do we ever do anything else here at Regency Routs, Rumpus and Rumpy-Pumpy? - we're not at all surprised that the Marquess of Ranelaw is currently giving us plenty of material to titilate you. After all, he has always had a terrible reputation as a rake and a libertine.

He looks like a fallen angel and acts like the De-il himself! Many a time, we've had to fan our heaving bosoms and reach for the smelling salts preparing the sealed sections of RRRARP where we've related his numerous and notorious escapades with wanton women both within and without society.

But this Season, the on dit is that Nicholas Challoner is out to catch himself a bride. And he seems to have settled on innocent debutante Cassandra Demarest.

The marquess's attentions to the lovely young woman have been notable. At the Bradham musicale, he sat next to her for the entire evening - apart from a mysterious disappearance onto the terrace. During the house party at Pelham Place which had such a lamentable end, he was rarely away from Miss Demarest's side.

But we at Regency Routs, Rumpus and Rumpy-Pumpy have inside information, dear readers! It's not Cassandra he's pursuing but her dowdy chaperone Miss Antonia Smith who until now has been a model of rectitude.

Previously, Miss Smith was on our radar purely as a dragon of a companion with no dress sense. But rumor now has it that Miss Smith conceals hidden depths.

We wonder what else this lady is concealing!

We have it on good authority that Miss Smith can ride and shoot better than most men - something Ranelaw needs to take into consideration if he's plotting the lady's ruin. Just take a look at this candid shot of Miss Smith toting heat instead of a reticule.

If I were the marquess, I would be VERRRRRRRRRRRY careful! Of his dealings with both Miss Smith and Miss Demarest.

And then, fetch your editor a burnt feather, there was that scandalous evening at the Merriweathers where not only Miss Smith and the marquess danced a waltz together, but the poet and traveler John Benton, once accounting the handsomest man in England, returned to set female hearts a-flutter.

The fellow has been in Italy for years and there is some secret scandal about his absence that we promise to get to the bottom of before we're done. We will leave no stone - or poet - unturned in our search for the truth! Our reporters will scale any cherry trees (oops, gave away a clue to a future edition there!), hide in any retiring room at a ball, eavesdrop on any conversation to keep our readers informed!

There is MUCH more we could say - once our lawyers have cleared us to speak... Ahem, once we have completed our researches.

There are whispers of missing heiresses, elopements, parental disapproval, seductions, abductions, duels. Oh, my, we can hardly contain our censure at the wicked goings on this Season. And we dread to assault our gentle readers' ears with what we know.

Well, all right...

If you insist...

What's that? The lawyers say no?

It seems if you want the full dramatic story, you have to read MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION?

NOOOOOO! Regency Routs, Rumpus and Rumpy-Pumpy resents the implication that we don't have the whole story - even though we don't. One thing we do know, there is much scandal and mayhem before there's a wedding!

OK, you papparazzi in training, let's celebrate the launch of this scandalous memoir with some wild reportings! Tell me the latest scandal in that notorious den of iniquity, the Romance Bandits Lair.

What did Sven do with Madame Christine at the last party? Where did Cindy and the cabana boys disappear to on Thursday? Is the deadline cave only for deadlines?

If you know no scandal of the lair - which this editor finds extremely hard to believe! - tell us some scandal from this momentous Season where the Marquess of Ranelaw seems to have lost his taste for wild women and started to pursue dowdy companions.

Heavens to Betsy, what is the world coming to?

Plenty of champagne and orgeat and warm lemonade to keep you refreshed. We have the second best orchestra in London to keep your toes tapping - that social-climbing Mrs. Jones-Llewellyn-Jones had already booked the best orchestra, bl-st her hide.

And the party favors include THREE signed copies of the document in question. Yes, MIDNIGHT'S WILD PASSION (oh, my, the summer house!) will go to three intrepid reporters today.

GOOD LUCK, PAPPARAZZI! May you do Regency Routs, Rumpus and Rumpy-Pumpy proud!