Thank you for calling the Regencyland Hotline. Please listen carefully as our options have changed.
If you are a debutante about to embark upon your first London season, please press 1 for a hot seduction in the conservatory at your first ball, 2 for an embarrassing episode at Almacks, 3 for the invasion of your bedchamber by a stranger whose identity you cannot discover, 4 for a secret baby.
If you are a gentleman spy, please press 1 for your next assignment, 2 to report on your last, 3 for an application to the Spies’ Club of your choice, or 4 for a secret baby. You will be required to enter your ID and password. If you have forgotten your password, you will be asked to enter your ID and the answer to your secret question. If you have forgotten your ID, you will be asked to enter your ID and the answer to yet another secret question. If you have forgotten both your ID and your password you’re screwed and you might as well give yourself up to the Frenchies immediately, because frankly all that sex has ruined your memory and we’re not particularly bothered about you giving away any state secrets.
If you are an experienced woman of a certain age, please press 1 for the availability of any Dukes looking for a mistress (please be patient; there are more than enough Dukes for everyone), 2 for any naive young men of the ton seeking sexual initiation, 3 for any of your younger siblings whom you selflessly and tirelessly support, 4 for a secret baby.
If you are a Duke, please press 1 for the availability of a suitable mistress, 2 for spy opportunities (you will be asked to create an ID and password. Even though you are horribly inbred and not the sharpest knife in the ducal drawer you must try and remember them and do not use something easily remembered like the name of your dog) 3 for any recent challenges to your title, 4 for a secret baby.
If you are a commoner and male, please press 1 for a current list of dukedoms inherited under mysterious circumstances that may be open for dispute, 2 for current opportunities as minor characters with the possibility of advancement to your own book later in the series, 3 for opportunities for emotional damage and/or interesting scars if you have already filed your minor character application, 4 for opportunities to beget secret babies.
If you are a … OK, it’s your turn.
Janet, who has spent most of the morning on the phone but is pleased to announce that A MOST LAMENTABLE COMEDY has gone into a second printing and that you can see the very pretty cover of her next book IMPROPER RELATIONS (with incorrect tag line) here.
Pfffft!
Janet you are a dangerous woman.
*laughing too hard to come up with anything*
If you are a bluestocking and on the shelf please press 1 for the latest in Ape Leader literature press 2 to apply for a position as a governess to a young motherless child with a very hot very hunky very rich very titled father, press three for a forced marriage due to being caught alone with a man in the library during a ball and confound it you were just looking for some Shakespeare to read, press 4 for a secret baby, shotgun wedding and lifetime of bliss — the duel between your brother and lover is optional.
…a governess press 1 if you are looking for a widowed duke to rescue you from his monsterous children. Press 2 if you are searching for a spy who needs a sidekick. Press 3 if you want a gentleman of wealth willing to be your sidekick. And press 4 if you want a secret baby.
What a demented sense of humor! In a good way. And you could add, “What’s wrong with this picture?” It really didn’t figure it out until I finished reading the post and looked at it again. 🙂
Jane! That was great!
I love this!
Ok, my turn: If you are a virgin widow, press 1 if your husband was too old or infirm to touch you, press 2 if he was interested in someone else, press 3 if that someone was a man, press 4 if you ran away before the wedding night and press 5 if you need someone to relieve you of your virginity before being a duke’s mistress so you don’t hurt the memory of your dead spouse.
Janet, you are absolutely priceless!
And Jane Austen, Judy, and Sabrina, you are right up there with her.
Love it! As always, Jane, you rock!
Excellent, Jane, Judy and Sabrina, thanks for joining in! I’m in a Borders where unfortunately they have free wi-fi and here I was thinking I’d get some writing done…
Oh, these are fabulous.
If you are the reluctant guardian to a feisty seventeen year old virgin, press 1 for a cold shower, press 2 to break the terms of your late friend’s will, press 3 to enlist your deaf great-aunt Sophronia’s aid in chaperoning her, press 4 to summon your butler to bring you a bracing decanter of brandy when you discover you have inadvertantly slept with your previously virginal ward after a masked ball, press 5 for the delivery of a not-so-secret baby which will force you to live happily ever after but irritate your former mistress no end.
Well done, Sabrina, and Maggie, yours made me laugh out loud!
Ah, Janet, procrastination is a wonderful/terrible thing, depending on how you look at it. 😉
This is a very witty list. I love it!
Margay
an irrepressible, gently bred hoyden who lives in the country and loathes London, the Ton, fancy dress and following society’s rules, and your widowed father/widowed mother/guardian aunt(s) insist(s) you make your debut this Season (you were actually supposed to do it last Season but managed to avoid it), press 1) for a dashing rogue of a marquis/earl/viscount who’ll find the idea of helping a hellion run away from London a laughable lark until he realizes you’re actually a respectable virgin and then falls in love with you, press 2) for a brooding duke or marquis who finds your sunny noncomformity and penchant for madcap escapades maddening, yet can’t helping laughing and then falls in love with you, press 3) to be found alone in a darkened upstairs room during a party with a noted rakehell who’s vowed never to marry but who feels compelled to save you from Ruin and then falls in love with you, and press 4) to claim your late friend’s secret baby as your own, even though it means your Ruin, until the father of the child – a noted rakehell/brooding duke or marquis/dashing rogue of a marquis/earl/viscount discovers the truth and then falls in love with you.
Darn it!! there goes my next plot. [not really]
These were really priceless. Thank you for the laughs.
If you are a vicar’s daughter, press 1 to save a rake from his life of sin, press 2 to be seduced by a rake and initiated into said life of sin, press 3 to serve tirelessly saving orphans and the sick, press 4 to be thrown penniless into the world when you are orphaned, and press 5 for that secret baby.
Your post and these responses have been a delight!
hahahaha!
Janet I’m going to have to link to your hotline in lieu of coming up to anything remotely funny or interesting on this, Day 2 of nanowrimo (why yes, i’m here in a moment of procrastination, why do you ask?)
(apprentice-writer.blogspot.com)