Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume Read online

  What the Critics are saying about Whip Smart and Lola Montez

  …a sharp, tight plot that rarely stops surprising, this little novel rises above its category of ‘historical romance’ by dint of masterful writing and a sympathetic, many layered cast.”

  ForeWord Reviews

  Brennan’s novel shows a woman’s transformation from the lost and regretful Eliza Rosana Gilbert to the courageous and reckless Lola Montez. This page-turner, full of mysterious attacks and assassinations, will keep you guessing until the very end.

  Nathalie Laflamme, The Concordian, Montreal

  Okay, I’m addicted to this series. Like its predecessor, The Poisoned Nom de Plume delivers the same kind of headlong narrative rush I remember from stories I loved as a kid, but with a distinctly adult sensibility and humor. And what a relief to find a modern novel that presents sex as something enjoyable, even affectionate!

  After causing scandals all over Europe, our heroine arrives in Paris to conquer the capital and ends up settling into domestic bliss instead—for a time. But for Lola, ‘settling down’ still involves intrigue, chases on horseback, assassination attempts, literary jealousies, a duel at sunrise and some unforgettable sex. Lola is an engaging and endearingly flawed young heroine, full of bluster and vulnerability; as a Spanish noblewoman she’s a fraud, but she’s worked so hard to make the identity her own that I found I was rooting for her all the way. Lola can shoot, duel with swords, and by the end of the book is also a card sharp and high stakes gambler—the literary salons of Paris seem too small to hold her. With supporting roles for figures like George Sand, Franz Liszt and Alexandre Dumas, this is a historical novel that reads like a serial adventure and romance. Normally when I read historical fiction part of me is restless, wondering how close it is to the truth. But I think I’d prefer this version over the straight facts any day.

  Janet Cameron, Author of Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World

  Online Magazine Reviews:

  In Kit Brennan’s debut novel, we meet the ever-so bodacious Lola Montez. This is the first installment of a new series that is sure to excite. With a mix of passion, mystery and danger, this story chronicles the year when the young Eliza Rosana Gilbert transforms into the fiery Lola Montez. Whip Smart is a classic adventure tale with a refreshing female protagonist and drama-filled plot. Whip Smart is sure to please the adventurous, feisty, reckless voice inside us all.

  Yanissa Perez de Leon, Carolina Style, Carolina

  It’s hard to dislike the witty and sexually aggressive Montez. She is funny and has an ideology about sex that is more reflective of the 21st century than the 19th. From the first page, the reader is whisked away on an adventure fraught with danger, suspense and some sex à côté. And Brennan delivers it with impeccable wit and intelligence. This is not your mother’s bodice-ripper. Whip Smart is a sexy, adventurous and intelligent tale that is best dubbed a bodice-ripper for the literary mind.

  Marisa Lancione, NOW (also in Rover Arts), Montreal

  Blogger Review Quotes:

  …intrigues, nail-biting border crossings, mysterious murders, risky plots, secret rendezvous, a torrid love affair and some really fabulous clothes. Lola herself is hilarious—passionate, devil-may-care, intensely self-interested and above all, a survivor. Unbound by the sexual mores of the day (it’s the 1840s), she knows her smoldering good looks will get her where she needs to go and she’s unconcerned about using her wiles on whomever she meets. For all of her passion and artistic inclinations, she’s refreshingly practical about how the world works and you just have to admire her chutzpah as she seduces everyone from generals to members of parliament to prime ministers, all while trying to unravel the mystery of the shadowy figure trying to murder her.

  Whip Smart had everything I like: corsets, a strong female protagonist who doesn’t do idiot things for love, a gripping plot and some sexy times, all set against a fascinating historical backdrop.

  Creampuff Revolution

  The spicy, sexy, wild year in the life of Lola Montez, dancer and lady of danger. I raced through this one! There’s a very earthy sense of sex and sexuality here—not explicit, but obvious, if that makes sense—and I found it hilariously fun. There’s a sense of heaving bosoms here, but not because Lola’s met her One True Love—no, Lola is on the run, working her wiles, and trying to come out on top. I’m super excited for the sequel—Whip Smart: Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume—because Brennan’s Lola is a trip. For a wintry armchair escape to sunnier, sexier lands, this was perfect.

  Unabridged Chick

  Brennan’s storytelling is hot blooded and compelling. I was hooked. With gorgeous historical detail oozing from the pages of Whip Smart, Kit Brennan takes readers on a thrilling back seat ride with Lola Montez on her escapades in 19th century Europe.

  Lola is one of the most unconventional, yet likeable heroines I have read in some time. … If this fictional imagining of this woman’s life is anywhere close to the reality, she really was a lady well ahead of her time.

  Whip Smart: Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards by Kit Brennan is a colorful page turner that had me enthralled. I look forward to reading the next installment in the adventures of the audacious Lola Montez, from this talented author.

  Booklover Book Reviews

  Ooh-la-la, the cover is so very Lola! The back of a bright red satin bustier atop a very form-fitting skirt. There’s a sense of adventure and sex waiting behind these ties!

  KD DID IT Takes on Books

  The novel is written with a lot of humor that plays up the daring and sensuous Lola. The book combines a bit of erotica with a smart mystery plot. It’s the first in what I think will be a great series.

  Book Dilettante

  I absolutely enjoyed this fast-paced, well-written book and its complete cast of amazingly portrayed characters. This tale of passion—not your typical romance novel!—intrigue and danger will suit everyone’s taste and you will simply not be able to put it down. I can’t wait for the sequel!

  Gaby’s Beauty Blog

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel

  are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  WHIP SMART: LOLA MONTEZ AND THE POISONED NOM DE PLUME

  Astor + Blue Editions

  Copyright © 2013 by Kit Brennan

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions

  thereof in any form under the International and Pan-American Copyright

  Conventions. Published in the United States by:

  Astor + Blue Editions,

  New York, NY 10003

  www.astorblue.com

  Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

  BRENNAN, KIT. WHIP SMART: LOLA MONTEZ

  AND THE POISONED NOM DE PLUME—1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-938231-72-8 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-938231-70-4 (epdf)

  ISBN: 978-1-938231-71-1 (epub)

  1. Women’s Historical Romance—Fiction. 2. Fiction 3. Inspired by Life of Eliza Gilbert; aka Lola Montez—Fiction 4. High Adventure, High Romance—Fiction 5. Sex and Flirtation—Fiction 6. Danger and Romantic History 7. 19th Century England, France I. Title

  This volume includes a promotional chapter of the author’s next book in the series: Whip Smart: Lola Montez Starts a Revolution! © Copyright 2013 by Kit Brennan. The sample chapter is an uncorrected proof. Readers are requested to check all quotations against final bound book and/or eBook.

  Jacket Cover Design: Danielle Fiorella

  Listen to the entire Whip Smart book series on Audible.com

  www.audible.com

>   For Andrew—toujours!

  And for Bill—William F. E. Morley—with great love.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Title Page

  The Return — 1844

  Lisztomania

  La Ville Lumière

  A Nom de Plume

  A Fateful Gamble

  To Be Continued…

  Magnetic Sleep

  The Trial

  Curtain Line

  About The Author

  Afterword

  Whip Smart: Lola Montez Starts a Revolution!

  FOREWORD

  On the evening of the 3rd of June, 1843, following her explosive début as a Spanish dancer upon the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, England, Lola Montez disappeared. Biographies give sketchy details of places she traveled and people she met during the following months, and then the trail picks up with far more documentation (as well as anecdotal evidence and hearsay) throughout the two years that she lived in Paris. The judicial drama in which she played a part, and which appears in this novel, was documented in the courts and the newspapers of the day. As everyone knows, however, we should not always rely upon what we read, nor the angle through which it is told—not even if it is purportedly fact.

  My version of these two turbulent years in Lola’s life—1844 to 1846—is firmly based on fact, while spicily seasoned with fabrications and embellishments. I like to think that the real Lola would have approved, since she always believed that a good story filled with larger than life characters and events was better than a boring one that stuck to the truth and nothing but the truth.

  Whip Smart:

  Lola Montez and the Poisoned Nom de Plume

  by Kit Brennan

  Also by Kit Brennan

  Whip Smart: Lola Montez Conquers the Spaniards

  Astor + Blue Editions © 2012

  FORTHCOMING:

  WHIP SMART: Lola Montez Starts a Revolution!—Fall 2014

  WHIP SMART: Lola Montez Seduces America—Fall 2015

  _____________________

  The Return — 1844

  Teeth chattering, arms clasping my body for warmth, I gazed out the window at snow and more snow. I seemed to have spent my whole life sitting motionless in freezing cold post-coaches, rumbling along! At least we were now headed south. Fool that I am.

  What a ludicrous idea it had been, trying to get to St. Petersburg in the depths of winter. I’d convinced myself that Imperial Russia would welcome my spirited style and flamboyant nature, that perhaps I could talk my way into a dancing engagement at the largest, most prestigious theatre in the city—a venue that would attract royalty, exalted military types, and the crème de la crème of Russia’s dancers and artists. In that historic capital of ferocious heroes, that extreme and untamed pinnacle of civilization, they would see what Lola Montez can do, and then!—who knew how high my fortunes would take me.

  Instead, the further north we’d travelled, the more frozen and daunted my spirit had become, matching the increasingly cold temperatures and the dispositions of the citizens through whose boroughs we’d trundled. Morose peasants were out there, toiling—shovelling snow, or chipping at their wretched potato fields, hoping to extract one more gram of nourishment from the bleak ground. Even once we’d exchanged our wheeled conveyance for a large, enclosed sleigh on runners, we still travelled so slowly! By the time we’d reached Riga, I’d become completely demoralized by the whole endeavour, and decided then and there to turn around and go back south. I cursed myself for the money wasted—money that had not been easy to come by. Much of what I’d earned dancing in Berlin and Warsaw was now gone, and no new theatrical engagements lay ahead. But no use throwing good money after bad, I’d berated myself in an angry huff. So here I was, sitting again, like impatience on a monument, repeating the journey in reverse.

  We were in northern Poland, nearing the German border and, ultimately, Hamburg, because—well, why not? Hamburg seemed as good a place as any other to try my chances. Finding a warmer winter was the imperative now.

  The drivers claimed this was one of the coldest in memory, and I could believe it. Wild animals were coming into the towns in search of food; there was nothing to be had in their usual foraging places. As we’d been leaving Klaipėda a few days earlier, the handsomest driver had told me he’d entered the stables at dawn to find he’d arrived in the nick of time. Two wolves, very thin, were standing there boldly in the middle of the barn. They’d bared their teeth when they saw him, then thought better of it, squeezed themselves back under the barn door, and ran off—but the horses in their stalls were crazed with fear. We’d gotten away late that day, and at noon, when we stopped for a rest and I’d jumped out to stretch, I went up to speak to the nervous animals. The fear had not left them. They knew they were standing targets, bound by harness and reins, or corralled in small, square spaces. Unable to flee.

  Inside the sleigh as it hissed along over the snow, my own legs were twitching and jerking with frustrated energy. Oh God, where was the next resting stop? I’ve always been accustomed to strenuous exercise, and this enforced confinement, day after day, had become unbearable! Seated to my left—and leaning (once again) upon my shoulder—was a hirsute gentleman with ferociously-waxed grey facial adornments. He was very heavy and breathed through his open mouth, wafting nauseating sausage fumes into the confined space. Again, I shoved him away; he swayed over to lean upon the chunky woman to his left (gracias a Dios). Rolling my shoulders in circles, I tried to ease the knots his weight had caused. Old bugger boots, I decided. If he leans on me one more time, I’m going to jab him! I meant it, too. Then—oh, nom de Dieu!

  “I’m so sorry, I do apologize,” I murmured, yanking my foot back. It had jerked out, in a spasm, and caught the big woman opposite a good one on the shin. She glared, rubbing the spot with short fingers, murmuring a German curse or two. Then she harrumphed loudly and closed her eyes. I rolled mine, saying a short, soundless prayer of thankfulness that I didn’t look like the fattened Frau: that I had a vivacious body and a clever mind, that I was young and beautiful with high, pert breasts and a slender waist, thank you very much, and that I enjoyed myself immensely in bed, with a dashing young blade and the pleasures he could give me and that I could give back—may those days return with all haste and pronto, por favor. I sniffed and looked around. It was no good. The well-padded burghers travelling with me felt no discomfort or restlessness, nor did they have any interest in conversation to help pass the time. No one to talk to, every sausage-fed one of them sound asleep. And every mother’s son of them over fifty years of age, too, looking as if they’d had neither a twinkle in their eyes nor a twitch between their legs for decades! What was the point of that? Dammit!

  I was alone with my thoughts, silenced and immobile and clothed in layers upon layers of bulky winter wear—three of my least favourite things. Plus! The date on the calendar, glanced at that morning as we’d left the latest cockamamie hotel, said February the 14th. St. Valentine’s is the date I long ago chose to celebrate my birthday, because it is a day for lovers. Now here it was, St. Valentine’s Day, with no valentine in sight! My brain banged about in sudden alarm: that also means—I’m twenty-four? Merde! How could that be, so soon? I’m not ready to be twenty-four, I’ve accomplished nothing of import. Before long I’ll be old, and then what? Rumbling through nowhere, celebrated by no one. Ridiculous imposter! Thrashing about, desperate, unloved, unwanted…

  Worst of all, I was on the verge of believing these final detracting barbs, which came at me in my estranged mother’s hectoring, Irish tones. The words went on and on in my head, silencing any possible joie de vivre: you’ve been batting around Europe for the past eight months, a rudderless vessel about to capsize. Why are you running? You, who pride yourself on your bravado and daring. Hah! You’ve lost your nerve, that’s why.

  Diablo! At this, my thoughts began buzzing ferociously, like bees trapped in a jar. And is it any wonder, I huffed. The dreadful events lived t
hrough in Spain have left their mark. I barely escaped with my life. And yet, I have been brave, I’ve carried on. I tried to begin again—me!—Eliza Gilbert, Irish girl, transformed through her own efforts into Doña Maria Dolores de Porris y Montez, Spanish danseuse. A début in London, at Her Majesty’s Theatre! It was my pledge, to handsome, beloved Diego… At this, a hitch of the heart brought the sudden and dreadful realization: St. Valentine’s Day… Just one year ago today. We’d spent my birthday in the stable, making love all night long, my horse blowing gusts of hay-sweet breath upon us…

  Don’t. ¡Imbécil! Mujer estúpida, don’t torture yourself. I pinched myself sharply on the thigh, blinking hard. But, oh God, is it true? Have I lost my nerve? Shivering, I stared out at the ice-pelleted snow, now hurling itself against the sleigh’s window in staccato volleys.

  In London, following the début, further calamity had struck, and I’d needed to get as far away as I possibly could. I accepted an invitation—an escape route, and the first one to hand—to travel to the continent with bumbling Saxon booby, Prince Heinrich the Seventy-Second: a brief visit to his wee fiefdom of Ebershoof-Clovenbum or whatever the hell it was. From there, I’d never stopped moving, all over Europe… Eight months of it now. And where was I going? Just following my nose. But why did I keep getting into so much trouble? In the various cities I’d passed through chaotically, I’d danced a few times, but never seemed to hit the mark. I’d tried different theatres, but kept being “released” from my engagements. Barbarians, I’d told myself—but maybe they sensed…?

  Ignoring the icy rat-a-tat-tats against the window, I sat up very straight and took a deep breath. Time to pep up now, dammit, I thought, so never mind all that. Paris is my target. La Ville Lumière calls like a beacon, for its beauty and its liberal attitudes. I need to perfect my repertoire first, and perhaps my techniques: I just require a tad more dancing finesse. Then, back it came, like an unwelcome belch: but how will you acquire it, stupid, if the conceited apes in charge of things keep firing you and throwing you out?