#postillion

[wagendrei]

Für alle die zwischendurch etwas Erheiterung gebrauchen können, kann ich den Postill-O-Mat nur wärmstens empfehlen. Ich habe mich köstlich amüsiert.

Enthält solche Banger wie:

[wurds-fur-nurds]

Micropostilloniclonization (noun) /ˌmaɪkroʊˌpoʊˈstɪl.ə.niˌklɒn.əˈzeɪ.ʃən/

The meticulous process by which minuscule particles, often symbolic or representative, are systematically distributed or relayed, typically through indirect or archaic means, as if by the methodical action of a postillion guiding a carriage.

A theoretical phenomenon in which minuscule, repetitive actions or influences ("clons") accrue over time to subtly direct the course of events, akin to the guidance of a larger entity by a seemingly insignificant force.

The precise act of breaking down abstract or complex systems into micronized, traceable segments for the purpose of navigation or control, often within historical or logistical frameworks.

Example: The archivist referred to the diffusion of cultural motifs across centuries as a form of micropostilloniclonization, each fragment a tiny marker of larger shifts.

[drfausti]

Bed portraits, via

9 Fehler, die fast jeder beim Masturbieren macht

Postillion (German satire page), October 20th, 2024. https://www.der-postillon.com/2019/10/fehler-die-fast-jeder.html

[keineahnung-ichhalt]

You were fired yesterday be fr

[hotelbooking]

Postillion Hotel Bunnik Postillion Hotel Bunnik is located in the village of Bunnik, surrounded by the scenery of forests and farmlands. The hotel’s location, close to the A12 motorway to Arnhem and Utrechtse Heuvelrug, makes it an ideal spot for a weekend getaway or a quick family excursion. With 23 meeting rooms, each catering to specific needs in terms of the number of people and equipment required, the hotel is a popular option, particularly for business travelers. It’s also worth mentioning that pets are allowed at this hotel, and the staff are extremely helpful as they’re multilingual – some extra touches that set this hotel apart from the rest.

[jadegr8]

Spinnen Gregor??? In meinem Postillion?! Wahrscheinlicher als du denkst...

[parcai]

the bach postillion's aria piano scene means sm 2 me tho i won't lie. like exactly. Exactly.

[fatehbaz]

Americans [...] would sip the rich cocoa as a hot drink. Cocoa made its way to North America on the same ships that transported rum and sugar from the Caribbean and South America [...] and was heavily reliant on the labor of enslaved Africans throughout the diaspora. [...] [B]y the early 1700s, Boston, Newport, New York and Philadelphia were processing cocoa into chocolate to export and to sell domestically. Chocolate was popular in the coffeehouse culture and was processed for sale and consumption by enslaved laborers in the North. Farther south, in Virginia, cocoa was becoming [...] so popular that it is estimated that approximately one-third of Virginia’s elite was consuming cocoa in some form or another. For the wealthy, this treat was sipped multiple times a week; for others it was out of reach. [...]

The art of chocolate-making – roasting beans, grinding pods onto a stone over a small flame – was a labor-intensive task. An enslaved cook would have had to roast the cocoa beans on the open hearth, shell them by hand, grind the nibs on a heated chocolate stone, and then scrape the raw cocoa, add milk or water, cinnamon, nutmeg or vanilla, and serve it piping hot.

---

One of the first chocolatiers in the Colonies was an enslaved cook named Caesar.

Born in 1732, Caesar was the chef at Stratford Hall, the home of the Lees of Virginia, and in his kitchen sat one of only three chocolate stones in the Colony. The other two were located at the governor’s palace and at the Carter family estate, belonging to one of the wealthiest families in Virginia. Caesar was responsible for cooking multiple meals a day for the Lees and any free person who came to visit. [...]

---

The work was oppressive in the plantation kitchens at Christmas time. [...]

[T]hose working in the big house kitchen and as domestic laborers were expected to work around the clock to ensure a perfect holiday for the white family. The biggest task at hand was to cook and serve Christmas dinner, and chocolate was a favorite addition to the three-course formal dinner. [...] Oyster stew, meat pies, roasted pheasant, puddings, roasted suckling pig and Virginia ham are some of the many dishes that would be served in just one course. The night would finish with the sipping of chocolate: toasted, ground and spiced [...] and served in sipping-cups made specifically for drinking chocolate. [...]

---

Decades before the two well-known enslaved chefs, Monticello’s James Hemings and George Washington’s Chef Hercules, [...] Caesar was running one of the Colonies’ most prestigious kitchens inside of Stratford Hall, and making chocolate for the Lees and their guests. [...] [H]is son, Caesar Jr., lived nearby and was the postillion [...].

The stress of cooking the most important dinner of the year was combined with the fear of what was to come on Jan. 1. New Year’s Day was commonly known as heartbreak day, when enslaved folks would be sold to pay off debts or rented out to a different plantation. Jan. 1 represented an impending doom, and the separation of families and loved ones. [...] Caesar disappeared from the records by the end of the 18th century. By 1800, his son Caesar Jr. was still owned by the Lees, but as that year ended, Christmas came and went, and Caesar Jr. was put up for collateral by Henry Lee for payment of his debts.

---

The world Caesar lived in was one fueled by the Columbian Exchange, which was built from enslaved labor [...]: pineapples, Madeira wine, port, champagne, coffee, sugar and cocoa beans. These items traveled from plantation to dining room via the Atlantic trade, and were central to securing the reputation of Virginia’s plantation elite. The more exotic and delicious the food, the more domestic fame one would reap. Having cocoa delivered directly to your home, and having a chocolatier in the kitchen, were exceptional. It was through Caesar’s culinary arts that Stratford Hall became well-known throughout Colonial Virginia as a culinary destination.

---

All text above by: Kelley Fanto Deetz. “Oppression in the kitchen, delight in the dining room: The story of Caesar, an enslaved chef and chocolatier in Colonial Virginia.” The Conversation. 21 December 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[beautifulbacteria]

Postillion Boot

[zillanovikov]

post the first sentence you write in your wip today (and every day)

She pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the window and sighed deeply, but as the postillion was in unconscious agonies, and Jacques could not hear her from his position without the vehicle, no-one made any reply.

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

charlotte's art history tarot - eight of wands

Art: Bouquet with Red Ranunculus, White Tazetta, and Blue Flower with Postillion – Barbara Regina Dietzsch

pull this card

info on the suit of wands in general

the eight of wands is all about forward movement, and both the negative and positive effects such movement can create. first, on the more positive side, the eight is a card about change, action, and momentum. this may mean you're making rapid progress on your project or that you see a way forward with a straight path to the finish line. it may also mean movement more literally - perhaps you'll be able to travel, or maybe you just need to take a walk or change perspectives (metaphorically or literally) in order to gather your ideas and gain that momentum. on the other hand, this kind of speed can also turn into hastiness that may leave room for mistakes. one interpretation of this could be that you get so caught up in your work that you forge ahead without pausing properly to check for errors. it could also mean that there are interior or exterior forces rushing you to finish your work, and you feel that you're on too tight of a deadline to take the care you might want to. the eight of wands is an excellent reminder to ride those waves of movement and momentum, but to not get so caught up in the race forward that you forget to be careful with your work

[cleolinda]

Varney the Vampire: Chapter 15

Chapter 14: So anyway, when do we kill him

I need to start this off with a full Previously On, and you’ll see why in a minute:

Fair damsel Flora Bannerworth was attacked one night by a befanged, leaden-eyed vampyre. Her mother mostly faints about it; it’s her two brothers, Henry and George, who have been trying to protect her and figure out what the fuck is going on. Their allies are their housemate/kinda-uncle, Mr. Marchdale, who was once their mother’s sweetheart before she chose the brothers’ shitheel father (RIP) instead; Flora’s recently returned fiancé, the virtuous young artist Charles Holland; and a Mr. Dr. Chillingworth, who thinks vampyres are bullshit. Amid several incidents where various Bannerworths shoot the vampyre, Henry realizes that the ancestor in a spooky portrait in Flora’s bedroom is one and the same. But also, a mysterious new neighbor keeps offering to buy the family estate. In the last two chapters, Henry and Marchdale paid a visit to this Sir Francis Varney, only to realize that HE is the vampyre/ancestor. Henry said to his face, “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE THE VAMPYRE.” And the vampyre said, “Nah.”

None of these characters and none of these settings are in this chapter. Instead, two entirely new characters are introduced (for 4800 words). You are either going to love this, or you are going to hate this.

Chapter XV.

THE OLD ADMIRAL AND HIS SERVANT. -- THE COMMUNICATION FROM THE LANDLORD OF THE NELSON'S ARMS.

We've already been told that the servants (both the ones who immediately quit after the vampyring, and the replacements who reluctantly agreed to start working at Bannerworth Hall) have run out and told everybody in the neighborhood everything; Henry's already had total randos ask him about The Horrors. We're told now that:

The servants, who had left the Hall on no other account, as they declare, but sheer fright at the awful visits of the vampyre, spread the news far and wide, so that in the adjoining villages and market-towns the vampyre of Bannerworth Hall became quite a staple article of conversation. [...] Everywhere then, in every house, public as well as private, something was being continually said of the vampyre. [...] But nowhere was gossiping carried on upon the subject with more systematic fervour than at an inn called the Nelson's Arms, which was in the high street of the nearest market town to the Hall. There, it seemed as if the lovers of the horrible made a point of holding their head quarters, and so thirsty did the numerous discussions make the guests, that the landlord was heard to declare that he, from his heart, really considered a vampyre as very nearly equal to a contested election.

Ahhh, contested elections. Sad lol. But now, we're told, on the very evening of the day that Henry accused Varney of being a vampyre, and Varney just shrugged, two new characters that we don't know shit about have arrived:

One of these people was a man who seemed fast verging upon seventy years of age, although, from his still ruddy and embrowned complexion and stentorian voice, it was quite evident he intended yet to keep time at arm's-length for many years to come. He was attired in ample and expensive clothing, but every article had a naval animus about it, if we may be allowed such an expression with regard to clothing. On his buttons was an anchor, and the general assortment and colour of the clothing as nearly assimilated as possible to the undress naval uniform of an officer of high rank some fifty or sixty years ago. His companion was a younger man, and about his appearance there was no secret at all. He was a genuine sailor, and he wore the shore costume of one. He was hearty-looking, and well dressed, and evidently well fed.

James Malcolm Rymer's favorite humor format is Characters Who Don't Talk Classy Lmao:

"Heave to!" [the younger man] then shouted to the postillion, who was about to drive the chaise into the yard. "Heave to, you lubberly son of a gun! we don't want to go into the dock." "Ah!" said the old man, "let's get out, Jack. This is the port; and, do you hear, and be cursed to you, let's have no swearing, d -- n you, nor bad language, you lazy swab."

Lol. Rofl, even.

The Younger Man is Jack Pringle, and he helpfully informs The Old Man, one Admiral Bell, that he has been his [the Admiral's] walley de sham on dry land for ten years. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (before and after 1700)  inform us that this term is derived from the French valet de chambre, a personal servant. (The search also turned up some British and Irish usage, and Jack does not otherwise sound Scottish, or even "Scottish.") Interestingly, when I googled this phrase, the image search tab pulled up nothing but Varney the Vampire illustrations. None of them had Jack or the Admiral.

I'm belaboring this point because about 85% of this chapter is just these two characters squabbling and it is draining my will to live.

"Be quiet, will you!" shouted the admiral, for such indeed he was. "Be quiet." [...] "Belay there," said Jack; and he gave the landlord what he considered a gentle admonition, but which consisted of such a dig in the ribs, that he made as many evolutions as the clown in a pantomime when he vociferated hot codlings.

"Hot Codlings" is a song from a Mother Goose pantomime. What evolutions are vociferating. Why are words doing this. Where are we.

Bruised and confused, the landlord of the Nelson's Arms is doing his best to be hospitable; finally, the Admiral reveals that he has been sent a letter asking him to stop at this very inn, here in Uxotter (which might be Uttoxeter), by one Josiah Crinkles:

"Who the deuce is he?"

I don't know, you're the one who just drove up! The landlord cannot seem to get anything useful out of his mouth for several lines, because James Malcolm Rymer gets paid more that way. Note: "d -- -- d" will show up several times; it's just "damned," censored, and it's the expletive these two mostly fall back on:

"I'll make you smile out of the other side of that d -- -- d great hatchway of a mouth of yours in a minute. Who is Crinkles?" [The landlord:] "Oh, Mr. Crinkles, sir, everybody knows. A most respectable attorney, sir, indeed, a highly respectable man, sir." [Several lines of banter] "To come a hundred and seventy miles to see a d -- -- d swab of a rascally lawyer!"

But then, Jack Pringle says something interesting:

"Well, but where's Master Charles? Lawyers, in course, sir, is all blessed rogues; but howsomedever, he may have for once in his life this here one of 'em have told us of the right channel, and if so be as he has, don't be the Yankee to leave him among the pirates. I'm ashamed of you."

Who in this story do we know named Charles? We'll get to that several hundred words from now. Meanwhile, a bit more of the rapport between Jack Pringle and the Admiral:

"You infernal scoundrel; how dare you preach to me in such a way, you lubberly rascal?" "Cos you desarves it." "Mutiny -- mutiny -- by Jove! Jack, I'll have you put in irons -- you're a scoundrel, and no seaman." "No seaman! -- no seaman!"

The fact that this line does not end with the dialogue tag "he ejaculated" is one of literature's great tragedies.

This goes on for so long that it starts to take on a nonsensical—dadaist? that can't be right? what is happening. I don't know—quality:

"Confound you, who is doing it?" "The devil." "Who is?" "Don't, then."

Over a couple hundred words, Jack and the Admiral demand grog and a private room at the inn, and for the landlord to send for one Mr. Josiah Crinkles ("and tell him Jack Pringle is here too"). After jawing a while about how they'll serve this rascally lawyer out howsomedever, Jack says something interesting again:

"And, then, again, he may know something about Master Charles, sir, you know. Lord love him, don't you remember when he came aboard to see you once at Portsmouth?"

And right when you think we might hear who Master Charles is, they start arguing again, this time about the time they were yard arm to yard arm with those two Yankee frigates (wait they were what now? when now? the War of 1812, maybe? they can't both be old enough for the American Revolution?) and "you didn't call me a marine then," which is insulting and distinct from "seaman" in some way,

"when the scuppers were running with blood. Was I a seaman then?" "You were, Jack -- you were; and you saved my life." "I didn't." "You did."

CHRIST ALMIGHTY THEY KEEP ARGUING ABOUT THIS (bickering is how they show they care) until finally the landlord, with a flourish, ushers in one Mr. Josiah Crinkles.

A little, neatly dressed man made his appearance, and advanced rather timidly into the room. Perhaps he had heard from the landlord that the parties who had sent for him were of rather a violent sort. "So you are Crinkles, are you?" cried the admiral. "Sit down, though you are a lawyer."

There is no respect for lawyers in the Admiral's house! Ship! Room! We are now about halfway through the chapter. God give me strength. The Admiral bids Josiah Crinkles read the full supercut of the letter from Josiah Crinkles, aloud. I will reproduce it in full whether you like it or not:

"To Admiral Bell. "Admiral, -- Being, from various circumstances, aware that you take a warm and a praiseworthy interest in your nephew Charles Holland,

CHARLES HOLLAND BABY

I venture to write to you concerning a matter in which your immediate and active co-operation with others may rescue him from a condition which will prove, if allowed to continue, very much to his detriment, and ultimate unhappiness. "You are, then, hereby informed, that he, Charles Holland, has, much earlier than he ought to have done, returned to England, and that the object of his return is to contract a marriage into a family in every way objectionable, and with a girl who is highly objectionable. "You, admiral, are his nearest and almost his only relative in the world; you are the guardian of his property, and, therefore, it becomes a duty on your part to interfere to save him from the ruinous consequences of a marriage, which is sure to bring ruin and distress upon himself and all who take an interest in his welfare. "The family he wishes to marry into is named Bannerworth, and the young lady's name is Flora Bannerworth. When, however, I inform you that a vampyre is in that family, and that if he married into it, he marries a vampyre, and will have vampyres for children,

Remember what I said about family stains and tainted bloodlines?

"I trust I have said enough to warn you upon the subject, and to induce you to lose no time in repairing to the spot. "If you stop at the Nelson's Arms in Uxotter, you will hear of me. I can be sent for, when I will tell you more. "Yours, very obediently and humbly, "JOSIAH CRINKLES." P.S. I enclose you Dr. Johnson's definition of a vampyre, which is as follows: "VAMPYRE (a German blood-sucker) -- by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers."

I was legitimately about five minutes from hitting post with this written as "I despair of figuring out who Dr. Johnson is," when suddenly I managed to dredge SAMUEL JOHNSON WITH THE DICTIONARY!! out of my covid-riddled brain. ~Dr. Johnson didn't define "vampyre" (any spelling), so whatever Rymer's on about here, he made it up himself with a wink to the reader.

I also wasn't going to deal with the fact that vampyres are suddenly German rather than Norwegian, or Swedish, or Levantine, or Arabian. But then I realized that this might be related to that time Empress Maria Theresa sent a guy out to deal with A Vampire Problem. (The fact that I'm the kind of person who would go, "Oh, right, the Austrian vampire problem" is why I'm recapping this godforsaken serial in the first place.) And you might refer to vampires as "German" because all the areas involved, including the Austrian Empire, were in the German Confederation at the time Rymer was writing in the 1840s. Referred to as "the 18th-Century Vampire Controversy,"

The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. [...] The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.

I gotta refer you here back to Chapter 14 last week, in which we discussed a Romanian incident of this nature that happened in 2003. Meanwhile, back in the 18th century, some real-true vampire history is unfolding: this panic was the subject of Dom Augustine Calmet's classic Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al. ("Numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and numerous supportive demonologists interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.") The hysteria spread to Austria, where Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician to sort this shit out; there is a movie somewhere to be made about Gerard van Swieten, Vampire Hunter. Except for the fact that he came to the conclusion that vampires were bullshit in his report, Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts; as a result, Maria Theresa decreed that her subjects must stop digging up corpses and doing unfortunate vampire-hunter things to them. (Or is that just what they wanted us to think??) "Dr. Johnson's" definition of vampyres as German could have been referring to any/all of the Controversy, and it has more real-life historical basis than Vampyres of Norway. So I'll allow it. *gavel*

by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers.

Wait, what?

Is this referring to young Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, being German? Is this like the mystifying snark about "German princes" earlier? Have I finally cracked this? British citizens were chortling over their penny papers at such political humor, I guess?

Meanwhile, the Admiral is bellowing; the lawyer is stammering. What we come to understand, after all my digressions about German vampyres, is:

Josiah Crinkles didn't write this letter.

And he has no idea who did. He's only heard of Admiral Bell "as one of those gallant officers who have spent a long life in nobly fighting their country's battles, and who are entitled to the admiration and the applause of every Englishman." Well, when you put it that way: Jack and the Admiral decide that Josiah Crinkles, Esq., is a fine and honorable gentleman, even if he is a lawyer! I sure hope you didn't have anywhere you meant to go today!

"No. I'm d -- -- d if you go like that," said Jack, as he sprang to the door, and put his back against it. "You shall take a glass with me in honour of the wooden walls of Old England, d -- -e ["damn me"?], if you was twenty lawyers."

Uh, slow down with the false imprisonment there. What Josiah does know is a little bit about the Bannerworth family, by which I mean everything, and we're gonna hear all about it, again, because James Malcolm Rymer got bills.

There is still another 1700 words left in this chapter, by the way.

"Shiver my timbers!" said Jack Pringle, [...] -- "Shiver my timbers, if I knows what a wamphigher is, unless he's some distant relation to Davy Jones!"

Jack Pringle's interpretations of the word "vampyre" is maybe my favorite thing about the entire serial.

Jack and the Admiral bickering for another 300 words is maybe my least favorite thing about the entire serial. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT THE VAMPYRE? "It appears that one night Miss Flora Bannerworth, a young lady of great beauty, and respected and admired by all who—Jack and the Admiral are still bickering. Nobly, Josiah Crinkles continues to recap chapters 1 and 2 for us (in fairness, this may have actually been helpful to penny dreadful readers in 1845). But what of the Admiral's nephew? Josiah knows nothing, much less what was written in the letter. You'd think it was Varney being nefarious, except that I don't know how he would know anything about Charles, either. One wonders who might.

[A couple hundred words of bickering]

The Admiral asks Josiah what he would do about a nephew who "has got a liking for this girl, who has had her neck bitten by a vampyre, you see."

[Josiah:] "Taking, my dear sir, what in my humble judgment appears a reasonable view of this subject, I should say it would be a dreadful thing for your nephew to marry into a family any member of which was liable to the visitations of a vampyre." "It wouldn't be pleasant." "The young lady might have children." "Oh, lots," cried Jack. "Hold your noise, Jack." "Ay, ay, sir." "And she might herself actually, when after death she became a vampyre, come and feed on her own children."

I did not remember any of this when I wrote the Consequences of Your Decision to Propagate the Family Stain section, and I'm starting to feel very smart for putting it in.

"Whew!" whistled Jack; "she might bite us all, and we should be a whole ship's crew o' wamphigaers. There would be a confounded go!"

For some reason, this bit is just absolutely fucking iconic to me. Indeed, Jack. In case of wamphigaers, the go would be confounded.

The Admiral steels himself to see "to the very bottom of this affair, were it deeper than fathom ever sounded. Charles Holland was my poor sister's son; he's the only relative I have in the wide world, and his happiness is dearer to my heart than my own." Having changed his mind about d-- -- d lawyers, Jack Pringle wishes Josiah Crinkles well, and he and the Admiral resolve to go find Charles at once—"our nevy," that is to say, "nephew," so—our nephew? Well, Jack and the Admiral definitely have an "argumentative life partners" vibe, be they employer and walley or not. So they'll go see Charles,

"see the young lady too, and lay hold o' the wamphigher if we can, as well, and go at the whole affair broadside to broadside, till we make a prize of all the particulars, arter which we can turn it over in our minds agin, and see what's to be done." "Jack, you are right. Come along."

As I've said, I did read halfway through the entire serial some ten years ago. These two are (give or take) 67% exhausting and 33% hilarious when deployed at just the right narrative moment. I'll run the numbers again once we're a few more chapters in.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

[official-bernd-das-brot]

Bin dem Postillion auf Insta entflogt weil die verdammt nochmal jetzt AI Bilder benutzen.

Haben die Stock Fotos nicht mehr gereicht? Ich dachte echt die wären besser als das.

[galateagalvanized]

Thunder, Penny and Sparrow

For Prompt #5, from @elwenyere—thank you, dear! For others, this story is part of the ‘verse I started in this fill, which isn’t necessary to read but might be informative ;) 

If it hadn’t been raining, Cody would never have bothered with his family’s carriage.

Thunder rolls like the crashing of waves on the other side of the windows, and rain beats a frantic tattoo on the warped glass. Cody draws the curtains closed and leans back in his chair, unwilling to watch the dancing orange lights in the distance grow any larger.

Perhaps, he thinks with a fatalism that he never would’ve tolerated on his ship, the weather will chase away all the family’s potential guests. Perhaps he will arrive at his cousin’s manor sopping wet and alone, and Rex will invite him in for revitalizing glass of tihaar, and they can sit by the fire and trade stories from long summers spent dunking each other in the duck pond, until Cody heads back to his parents’ estate, exactly as much of a bachelor as he is now.

The first rattle mostly blends into the thunder, and it makes Cody sigh over the state of the roads in Concord Dawn. The second rattle makes him sit up, concerned that an axle might be loose.

On the third rattle, the door opens.

Cody startles backwards, draws his pistol, cocks it, and finds himself unable to pull the trigger on whoever could be insane enough to enter a four-horse carriage hurtling down muddy, broken roads.

“Ah,” the thief from yesterday says. The barrel of his own pistol never wavers from Cody’s heart. “Hello there. Are you following me?”

Cody blinks, then laughs.

“Isn’t that my line?” he asks with surprising fondness.

Behind the thief, white-blue lightning forks across the sky, illuminating the back of his cloak in oil-slick pools of light. Rain splatters into the carriage’s enclosure, pooling along the leather.

In the ensuing thunder, Cody makes a decision, slides back along the seat, and makes room.

“Well?” he says as he tucks his pistol away. “You coming in or not?”

The man hesitates one second, then another, then slides in next to Cody. He shuts the door with a click, and the rain and thunder beat a softer tune.

At the front of the carriage, a small door slides open.

“Everything well, young master?” the postillion asks. “Thought I heard the door open.”

Cody keeps his eyes locked on his guest’s as he says, “Just wanted some fresh air.”

“…right you are, sir,” the man says, and the shutter closes once more.

“Okay, what am I missing?” the thief says. “I have to admit, I may not be the most experienced highwayman, but I do think it’s not supposed to go like this.”

But even in saying so, he lets the hood of his cloak fall to his shoulders, and he runs a hand through damp, dark brown hair. It mostly sticks where he sets it except in a few strands that drape themselves, resisting, along the line of his forehead.

“You need to rob someone,” Cody says, trying not to stare at the water droplets winding their way down the man’s neck. This is not the time nor the place. “I need to be robbed. I thought we could come to some accord.”

“You need to be—my dear, many people need to be robbed, but very few of them would ever admit to it,” the man marvels. “Pray tell me, why do you need to be robbed?”

“I can’t think of a better excuse to not go to a party than to be stripped of my clothes and my coin purse on the way over. Can you?” Cody says, reaching for the buttons on his suit jacket.

His skin heats up even in the howling cold as the man’s eyes follow Cody’s fingers with rapt attention, his pupils dark even in the next flash of a lightning strike.

“It must be some party,” he says softly. “Whose is it?”

Cody laughs. “Technically? Mine.”

When he’s finished, Cody folds his jacket over his arm and raises an eyebrow, taunting, daring—

Hoping.

And there’s a heady mixture of heat and challenge in the man’s gaze when he raises his eyes and his pistol and he says, “Then, darling: your money, or your life?”

[mermaidsirennikita]

I read The Footman and The Postillion and I wanted to know your opinion on The Bastard, if you've read it.

I just finished it! Honestly, really really enjoyed it. I could have some quibbles about the villain reveal (I mean, I knew who it was, which isn't a bad thing--it's more how everything came together) but the romance was excellent. John's backstory served as great (if horrific) framework to how he became who he is, and you got a real sense of tenderness between him and Cordelia. I'm not always into the "soft girl/dangerous man" angle, but it sooooo worked here.

Also, the mirror scene. Was a great mirror scene. I fully endorse that mirror scene, and think we should expect that level of excellence from all mirror scenes.

John was so sweet with her, though. Like, the fact that he left her alone for like five days after their wedding night because he didn't want to hurt her... precious behavior.

Generally, I would recommend all three books in the series, but I'd rank The Footman as my favorite, then The Bastard, then The Postilion. But 100%, if you're waiting to start The Bastard--start it.

[hotelbooking]

Postillion Hotel Amsterdam Postillion Hotel Amsterdam is a smart hotel located in Amsterdam. It features a fitness centre, a restaurant and business facilities. 2.3 km away from Amsterdam RAI, 2.5 km from Amsterdam Arena and 3.3 km from Heineken Experience. Some rooms are fully voice controlled, others are smart controlled by a tablet. The tablet also has AirPlay connection. It includes a private bathroom featuring a mirror with integrated TV, a shower and free toiletries. The units include a desk and some units also feature a seating area. International dishes and barbecue dishes can be enjoyed at the property. Guests can also enjoy a meal for lunch and dinner, at the in-house restaurant. The convention centre includes 14 flexible meeting rooms. Postillion Hotel Amsterdam offers a terrace. Cycling is among the activities that guests can enjoy near the accommodation and bike hire is available at the property. Languages spoken at the 24-hour front desk include English and Dutch. Metro station...