The Belle of Belgrave Square (Belles of London #2)(130)

In the Victorian era, there were many cases of people marrying under false names. The courts generally found these marriages to be valid—providing the marriage was by license and not through the calling of the banns. Mr. Finchley’s explanation of this distinction was inspired by an article in Charles Dickens’s weekly journal All the Year Round (January 21, 1860), which states:


The very object to be gained by publication of the banns being publicity, this purpose, should the publication be made in false names, is utterly defeated. On the other hand, a license not being a matter of public notoriety, is granted by the ordinary upon such evidence as he may be content to receive.



As a result, if a marriage license was obtained under a false name, the subsequent marriage could still survive legal scrutiny. A Digest of the Law Relating to the Relief of the Poor by Henry Walter Parker, Esq. (1849), reports several cases of this variety, including:


A marriage under a license, in which one of the parties was described by a false Christian and surname held to be valid. (Cope v. Burt, 1 Hag. 434: S.C. on appeal, 1 Phil. 224.)

A marriage by license not in the man’s real name, but in the name which he had assumed because he had deserted, he being known by that name only in the place where he lodged and was married, and where he had resided sixteen weeks, was held a valid marriage. (R. v. Burton-upon-Trent, 3 M & S. 538.)



Even in Victorian fiction, this sort of marriage was upheld. In The Law and the Lady, Valeria Brinton consults a solicitor on the very subject.


At my request Benjamin put my case to the lawyer as the case of a friend in whom I was interested. The answer was given without hesitation. I had married, honestly believing my husband’s name to be the name under which I had known him. The witnesses to my marriage—my uncle, my aunt, and Benjamin—had acted, as I had acted, in perfect good faith. Under those circumstances, there was no doubt about the law. I was legally married.



Does that mean James Marshland wouldn’t have been guilty of some other crime for impersonating the deceased Captain Blunt? As with most legal questions, the answer is that it depends. In Belle, I chose to focus on the basic legality of the marriage—and on the moral justification for the hero’s actions—rather than delve deeper into other issues of criminality.





The Fall of Sebastopol


The Siege of Sebastopol lasted nearly a full year, from October 1854 to September 1855. Jasper’s account of the conditions he and his fellow soldiers suffered in the lead-up to the fall of the city was taken, in part, from an officer’s letter printed in the Reading Mercury (January 27, 1855). The officer writes:


I have thawed my ink to write, with the hope of saving life . . . [Your soldiers] have been left to die from starvation. For the last six weeks the rations issued have not been of a kind nor of a quantity to support strength or health. The clothing has not been sufficient to maintain the necessary vigour of the circulation . . . The men are now so sickly from dysentery and diarrhea, from emaciation and debility from disease marking the advent of scurvy and dropsy, not to mention affections of the feet and fingers that we cannot send them away from camp fast enough.



Similarly, a few of the lines of the newspaper article Julia reads from the fictional London Courant were partially excerpted from an actual report in Bell’s Weekly Messenger (September 15, 1855). The report, titled “The Fall of Sebastopol,” both declares the allied victory and laments the loss of all the “noble lives” sacrificed in achieving it.





Acknowledgments





During a difficult year, writing has been, at times, both a blessing and a burden to me. While it’s provided a much-needed escape from the grim realities of life, it’s also required a degree of focus that I was hard-pressed to maintain. In order to finish this story, I relied so much on the people in my life who left me alone when I needed to work, distracted me when I needed a break, and encouraged me when I felt too disheartened to go on.

Chief among them were my parents, to whom I owe my endless gratitude. To my mom, for tea services, medication management, pet maintenance, and for always being in my corner, even when she insists on playing devil’s advocate. And to my dad, for bookkeeping, tech support, and for limitless patience and positivity, even when his own health was at its worst.

I’m also exceedingly grateful to my publishing family. To my amazing agent, Sarah Hershman. Thank you for listening to me and sticking with me. To my brilliant editor, Sarah Blumenstock. Thank you for believing in my stories and helping to make them the very best they can be. To Yazmine Hassan, Jessica Plummer, Farjana Yazmin, Marianne Aguiar, and everyone at Berkley and Penguin Random House who do such great work to get my books out into the world and into the hands of readers. Thank you for your diligence, creativity, and enthusiasm.

Additional thanks to Rel Mollet, who is as invaluable as a friend as she is an assistant. To Flora, Dana, Alissa, Rachel, and Renee, for reading early drafts of this story and offering such helpful feedback. And to my animal family—Stella, Jet, Tavi, and Bijou—for emotional support and writerly companionship.

Lastly, to Asteria, my new Andalusian filly. She came into my life in the months after my Andalusian gelding, Centelleo, passed away. A solemn little foal with a grave expression, she seemed to know she was destined to fill some pretty big horseshoes. Her name means “starry one,” and aptly so. She’s been a bright light in a dark time. I’m so thankful for her.