My books are rather like buses – you wait for ages without one, and then three come along almost at once. My steamy Regency – described by one five-star reviewer as “gloriously carnal” – is out today, available at Extasy Books, Amazon, and other online retailers.

One glance and his past life was history

Leander Talbot’s life changed forever when his wife died. He is now reluctantly venturing back into society, knowing that, as the Earl of Ockley, he must marry again to produce an heir. But he can’t bring himself to the sticking point. Instead, he spends his time evading the matchmaking mamas of the ton.

The dark and dangerous Duke of Arden is an infamous libertine. It is said that he seduces innocents, and there are even more sinister tales whispered of his predilections. Only the wild young blades who form his retinue know the truth, but he is shunned by all save those wishing to court notoriety.

A chance meeting brings Leander into Arden’s orbit. Ignoring the warnings about Arden’s intentions, Leander is drawn into a seductive world of sexual indulgence. There, he finds the freedom he craves from his overbearing family. By the time he suspects Arden might have ulterior motives, it may be too late to save his reputation—and his heart.

The Museum of London has summarised perfectly London’s pleasure gardens of the Georgian and Regency years – part art gallery, part fashion show and part brothel.

The gardens were designed purely for entertainment, featuring whimsical architecture, miniature waterways, and extensive shrubberies that provided opportunity for all sorts of visitors. The gardens swiftly developed a reputation for being debauched places, with one visitor wishing “there were more nightingales and fewer strumpets”.

Below: Vauxhall Gardens 1809

That didn’t stop the cream of society from visiting, though! Anyone who was anyone might be seen at one, promenading in their finery, dancing, listening to concerts (Handel was practically artist in residence at Vauxhall Gardens in the 1730s and 1740s), and eating and drinking in the booths where art by Hogarth and others was displayed,

As the disgruntled visitor’s complaint suggests, the entry fee designed to exclude the riff raff had little effect on the number of prostitutes who congregated at Vauxhall, and who, by all accounts, found it a lucrative hunting ground. The main walkways through the trees were lit by lamps, but there were also the dark walks. These were unlit and so provided cover for any number of private activities. Early in the eighteenth century, magistrates enforced the lighting of the coyly named Lovers’ Walk in an attempt to deter wanton behaviour. Their insistence sounds rather Canute-like to me – one might as well try to hold back the sea as to deter lovers from seeking places to be private together.

You might think it’s a perfect place for clandestine assignations, and that’s precisely what the rakish Duke of Arden concludes in my forthcoming book The Earl’s Awakening. It’s released on 8th September and can be pre-ordered from Extasy Books, Amazon, or your favourite online bookseller.

Vauxhall Gardens in 1751, showing the extent of the shrubberies and the opportunities for assignations.