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@rsoctavian
The Education of Mr. Hartnell -- a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega
Hello! Welcome to my Substack. This is my first novel and I hope you will share the adventure with me as I flesh out the love story between Stuart and Evelyn, a most unusual couple indeed! Subscribe for free.
Read all the full chapters on Patreon!
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Introverted indie author once again confronted with the terrifying reality that if you want new people to read your books, you have to talk to strangers about your books.
Wherein the Hunt is on...
“He’s gone.”
“We’re still checking. Unfortunately, nobody saw the snatch take place,” Worth said. “Mighty slippery of him.”
“I knew this would happen,” Stuart ground out, Alpha fury singing hot in his veins. “I just knew it!”
“Be calm,” urged Karl Friedrich. “Poole can’t have got far with Evelyn.”
“We have got eyes on every one of his bolt holes,” said Amberheart. “Any moment now, one of our men will be coming with the necessary intelligence. I would say, the most probable place he will be taking His Lordship is the St. Giles residence.”
“No,” said Stuart, his lips drawn tight. “I know exactly where he’s taking Eve.”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Gay Men in Regency England
Men who wanted to have casual sex with other men had many opportunities to do so in Regency London, either by picking up male prostitutes (who were reputedly often soldiers in the Guards, earning extra money) at recognised venues such as the city’s parks, or at ‘molly houses’, which catered specifically to their tastes. Such molly houses had been a discreet feature of the capital throughout the eighteenth century, and their patrons ranged across the social classes, while their activities included organising mock weddings. There were fewer opportunities outside London, although we know of a group of men from across the north west of England who met regularly at the village of Great Sankey, near Warrington in Cheshire, and who copied many of the forms of the Freemasons in an endeavour to ensure their secrecy. Probably there were many other, similar groups, while the larger towns and cities probably had established places of rendezvous, although the surviving evidence is thin and patchy.
It seems likely that it was much harder for a gay man to have a serious long-term relationship with another man than to have casual sex. Unrelated women could choose to live together without raising an eyebrow, but it was more difficult for two gentlemen to form a household together. It was a little easier if one was, or appeared to be, the domestic chaplain, secretary or servant of the other, but even in this case the household would usually have female servants to cook, clean and make the beds, and they would certainly notice what was going on and would probably disapprove. This was also relevant to officers, let alone ordinary soldiers and sailors in the army and navy, who seldom had much privacy; and social historians of the navy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century have found little evidence that sodomy was widespread or tolerated, let alone an established tradition.
Male homosexuality of any kind, and particularly sodomy, was viewed with repugnance by society as a whole and was illegal. Prosecutions, which had been rare at the beginning of the eighteenth century, increased markedly from the 1780s, while between 1806 and 1861 no fewer than 404 men were sentenced to death for sodomy of whom 56 were executed (all before 1836). In 1810 a molly house in Clerkenwell, the White Swan, was raided and a group of men were arrested. Two were hanged and six sentenced to stand in the pillory, where a large crowd pelted them with rotten eggs and vegetables, stones, dead cats and buckets filled with blood, offal, dung and other filth, treatment which left them with significant injuries. A few years later Percy Jocelyn, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher, was arrested after being caught in a compromising position in the back room of a tavern in St James with a soldier named Moverley. The case attracted a great deal of publicity, including a number of satirical prints and pamphlets which sold in large numbers. Jocelyn was released on bail and disappeared, but was then stripped of his see, and is reported to have lived for the remainder of his life (another twenty years) under a false name in Scotland, working as a butler. He was buried in Edinburgh, but it appears that his body was re-interred in the family vault in Ireland, suggesting either that his family did not totally disown him or at least reclaimed him in death.
Not everyone accepted the prevailing view without question. A Yorkshire farmer, Matthew Tomlinson, wondered in his diary in 1810 whether it was right to punish men for urges and desires that were innate, although he was uncertain of the answer; and the radical philosopher Jeremy Bentham believed that homosexuality should be decriminalised, although he never dared to publish these views in his lifetime. Some occupations, such as trades connected with women’s hair and clothes, attracted effeminate men whose presence did nothing to harm the business, even if some writers felt obliged to deplore them as ‘delicate, contemptible beings’ unworthy of ‘the masculine character’. And for everyone who went along to jeer and pelt the men in the pillory there were many more who stayed at home or went about their business, feeling either indifference or even pity for the ‘criminals’.
Nonetheless there was little if any open disagreement with the public condemnation and abhorrence of sodomy, which was buttressed by biblical prohibitions. This made it a powerful accusation in the hurly-burly of political debate on the hustings. For example, in 1801, Sir Thomas Turton, Member of Parliament for Southwark, was attacked in a squib with the claim that he did not love women. The charge resurfaced as late as 1820 when, The Times reported, he defended himself by entering into an account of his youthful adventures with the opposite sex ‘a little more explicitly than we can decently report’. Given that Turton was not only married with seven children but had also gained notoriety by his affair with Mrs Dunnage, the wife of a City merchant, which is reported to have cost him £5,000 in ‘criminal conversation’ (crim. con.) damages, it is clear that such attacks were not restricted to bachelors or other obvious targets.
These attitudes created a tempting opportunity for blackmail, whether or not the victim was actually homosexual. In one case, in the 1790s, a soldier alleged that Sir John Riddle had tried to pick him up, while Riddle countered by accusing the soldier of attempting to blackmail him. As the evidence was ambiguous the law sided with the man in the more powerful position, and the soldier was tried, convicted and sentenced to death as a warning to others. But cases where the blackmail succeeded leave fewer traces. The most famous, but also ambiguous, example is that of Castlereagh, by then Lord Londonderry, who, in 1822, told the King that he was being blackmailed for committing the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher, having been lured into a house of ill repute by a man dressed as a woman. However, Londonderry was suffering from mental illness at the time and committed suicide soon after, and we do not know whether this was precipitated by something that actually happened or if the whole story was a delusion.
Some gay men felt obliged to live abroad in order to escape the expectations of British society. Lord Deskford, the son of Earl Findlater, was an early suitor of Lady Anne Lindsay. Tall, stiff, resembling ‘a young Van Dyke lord with a Roman nose’, he was considered a good match, but before the courtship progressed to a conclusion he left Scotland for the Continent, officially to recover from an illness in a warmer climate, but in fact to escape a scandal caused by his homosexual activities. Henry Grey Bennet, the fourth son of Lord Tankerville, resigned his seat in parliament and retired to the Continent, where he remained for the rest of his life, following accusations that he had ‘mistaken a boy for a girl at Brussels’. For men from a humbler background it was often sufficient to move to London or another part of the country, just as a young woman who had ‘lost her reputation’ might do. On the other hand, Lord George Germain (previously Lord George Sackville) rose to high office in Lord North’s Cabinet, despite the widespread belief that he was a sodomite and that he had behaved in a cowardly fashion at the Battle of Minden in 1759. However, it is possible that attitudes had hardened in the aftermath of the loss of America, and that he might not have been so successful a generation later.
— Rory Muir, Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen (2024)
Wherein Evelyn's abduction takes place
“It is wrong,” Stuart gritted out. “I can’t shake off the feeling that it is all wrong.”
“Of course, it feels that way,” said Evelyn. “That’s the Alpha in you rearing its head.”
He continued when Stuart said nothing, “Let me do this. This starts and ends with me. Then, we can move on with our lives. At any rate, you do know that I love you, don’t you?”
Stuart gaped at him. “Say that again,” he said after a moment.
Evelyn smiled. “What? “Tis not as if it is a secret.”
Stuart reached up to cup Evelyn’s face with his hands. “Please,” he said.
“I love you,” repeated Evelyn as he tilted his head to kiss Stuart. “You daft git.”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Stuart and Evelyn take the final test
Stuart ground out, “I can never consent to this insanity. You are asking too much of me.”
“I know that.”
“Then why put us through this?” Stuart growled. “No Alpha would ever allow his Omega to be taken from him.”
“Because you are different,” answered Evelyn.
Or you are supposed to be different.
He did not know where the thought came from, but it flashed through his mind, clear as day. Nor could he ascertain where the sharp despair came from; that wrenching feeling of suffocation as doubt flooded him, followed by fear.
Fear that perhaps they were a mistake after all, that he would be trapped in a union where his freedom would be stripped from him as surely as Poole would do.
These feelings were so unlike his own that for a moment Stuart was shocked out of his anger.
“What is this?” he murmured, opening his eyes to gaze at Evelyn searchingly. “It is as if…”
Evelyn gazed back at him, his eyes wide with the same surprise that Stuart felt.
“…as if I can feel what you are feeling,” finished Evelyn for him.
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Evelyn realizes something vital about Stuart
At first, Stuart did not know what it was that woke him.
Everything was dark and still. The bedside candle had burned itself out sometime during the night, and it did not look like it was near dawn. He had awakened from a sound sleep to hear…something.
There it was again. A wet, sniffling sound, like that of a child.
Slowly, he lifted his head and tried to move, only to realize that Evelyn was laying on top of him, his head pillowed on his chest.
“What…?” he muttered, reflexively reaching out toward the bedside table for his glasses. “Eve?”
“Don’t,” said Evelyn, his voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. “Don’t put a light on.”
It was only when his hand brushed past Evelyn’s cheek and met with wetness that he was sure. “Good God,” he said. “You’re crying.”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Evelyn comes to terms with his family's past
“…Runs in the family…like father like son,” muttered Evelyn. “So bloody what? I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. Let them say it to my face if they dare.”
“They’d certainly be foolish to try,” agreed Stuart. “But this lends a fresh perspective on your father’s death.”
“What?”
Stuart blinked. “You mean, you’ve not really thought about it?”
“Thought what?” Evelyn asked, irked and obviously puzzled.
“You’ve always blamed yourself for his heart attack, but what if he’d blamed himself after you presented? Perhaps he could not bear the thought that you’d taken after him, that it was all his fault?”
Stuart watched as Evelyn stared at him, looking thunderstruck. “So, it’s never occurred to you,” he said pityingly. “You’ve blamed yourself for so long, but none of this is your fault, Eve.”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
all of my writing is actually just thinly-veiled fantasy about being seen at your worst and still being loved
Wherein Stuart and Evelyn play hide and seek in his journal
He glanced down at the words he’d written.
I love you, Eve.
There. He’d done it. He’d written it down not in pencil but in ink, indelible and permanent.
He did not know what was keeping him from saying it out loud. He wished that perhaps Evelyn might say it first. To have him confess it would be satisfying indeed. More than that, it would be a victory of years and years they’d spent, clashing wills.
Stuart sighed. At this point and despite all evidence pointing to their thriving love, only pain of death might induce Eve, and for that matter himself, to divulge something that could decisively tip the scales to either side. He would just have to wait for the right time to come when he would be able to say it out loud, shout it to the heavens, if need be.
Until then, perhaps it would not do to give their game away. This little revelation would just have to wait.
Stuart stowed his journal away in the inner breast pocket of his outdoors coat that was on his chair and promptly forgot all about it when they woke up in the morning.
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Stuart and Evelyn are caught in flagrante delicto
“Eve,” Stuart began, eyes wide as Evelyn stormed into the room.
“There isn’t much time, you great, bloody git,” said Evelyn as he made for Stuart. “He’s coming!”
“What? Who?” Stuart barely got the words out before Evelyn began to kiss him feverishly.
“Aberley the husband, of course! Not the wife. You need to drop your breeches now!”
“Wha— No!” said Stuart, taking hold of his breeches even as Evelyn tried to pull them down.
“You need to be fucking me right now,” said Evelyn, his voice urgent. “You were set up, you idiot, just as I warned you!”
Stuart stared at him for a moment, shocked, before he grabbed him to turn him around and bend him down over the sofa.
“I warned you there was no use talking to that poisonous viper of a woman,” muttered Evelyn as he pulled his own breeches down and rubbed himself frantically against Stuart. “But would you listen?”
Stuart hissed and, despite the circumstances, or perhaps because of it, he felt himself respond almost immediately to Evelyn’s ministrations.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Evelyn, feeling Stuart’s burgeoning erection. “We’ll have to look like we’re fucking. Any minute now, he’s—”
Without another word, Stuart grabbed Evelyn by the hips, shoving against him hard just as the door burst open without warning. The violence of it made them turn as one towards the man who stood there.
Stuart could only gape at the elderly Duke, but Evelyn had the presence of mind to shout, “Do you bloody mind? We’re busy here!”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Stuart and Evelyn come together to launch their plan
“You will pardon me, I am sure,” said Stuart, eyeing Evelyn and Worth with a severe eye, “but I have not changed my opinion on the matter. It is, quite simply, the most dreadfully idiotic plan that I have ever heard.”
“’Tis precisely so, which is why it will work,” Evelyn said breezily. “So straightforwardly stupid, it’s brilliant. That rascal has not got two brain cells to his name and will surely seize upon it.”
“To set yourself up as bait to lure him in is not something anyone can countenance!” Stuart countered. “Least of all your own Alpha!”
“You will calm yourself,” Worth tried to assure him. “Evelyn will come to no harm when we hold all the cards. In fact, let us set this trap rather than walk into his. This way, everything is in our hands. We’ve managed to pin down his haunts and his whereabouts and must act soon; we have not got much time.”
“This can go wrong in so many ways,” Stuart complained.
Evelyn came up to him, reaching out with both hands to cradle Stuart’s face. “What can go wrong,” he said, smiling up at him, “when you will be there right behind me?”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Stuart and Evelyn reach an understanding
Evelyn looked as though he might pull himself further away and Stuart stopped him with a hand to his cheek. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t run away from me again.”
“I’m not!” cried Evelyn, his eyes wide, startled.
“Yes, you are,” said Stuart. “And I understand better now. You’ve nothing to be afraid of. Not from me.”
“What the fuck does that even mean—”
“I mean it when I say I will heed your choices. You won’t have to bear children if you don’t want to.”
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
Wherein Stuart bears witness to The Punishment
“’Tis about to start,” said the man with a wink from behind his mask. “I’ll see you there in a bit, then.”
Stuart nodded and watched as the man weaved his unsteady way out of the crowded rooms and into a narrow, carpeted corridor. He followed a few minutes later to find, at the end of that long, quiet passageway a magnificent marble staircase, guarded by a muscular flunkey.
“Have you an invitation, sir?” asked the masked servant gravely.
Stuart nodded. “Winged seraphs,” he replied, parroting Annabella.
The flunkey stepped aside and Stuart ascended the stairs towards the second floor and a set of rooms in which the programme that night entitled The Punishment was to take place.
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
I love fanfiction because sometimes The Character needs to be held gently and sometimes they need to be beaten to death with a club. and you 🫵 can make both of those happen. for free
An Old Maid on a Journey. November 20, 1804. Credit line: Gift of Georgiana W. Sargent, in memory of John Osborne Sargent, 1924 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/391861
Sharing this almost entirely for the breeches maker shop sign with the cock in the breeches. I need to collect all these references together at some point because it’s a common fad, and a joke in the 1737 Joe Miller’s Jests; or Wits Vade-Mecum makes it clear that at least sometimes, and in fact I suspect every time, the dirty pun is intentional:
25. Lady C——g and her two Daughters having taken Lodgings at a Leather-Breeches Maker’s in Piccadilly, the Sign of the Cock and Leather-Breeches, was always put to the Blush when she was obliged to give any Body Direction to her Lodgings, the Sign being so odd a one; upon which my Lady, a very good Sort of Woman, sending for her Landlord, a jolly young Fellow, told him, she liked him and his Lodgings very well, but she must be obliged to quit them on Account of his Sign, for she was ashamed to tell any body what it was, O! dear Madam, said the young Fellow, I would do any Thing rather than lose so good Lodgers, I can easily alter my Sign; so I think, answered my Lady, and I’ll tell you how you may satisfy both me and my Daughters: Only take down your Breeches and let your Cock stand.
It’s worth noting that when using the term “breeches maker” in this period it’s a leather breeches maker; you’d just go to a tailor for textile breeches. The joke actually spells it out fully, but often the period term is simply “breeches maker”. I did some leather breeches making in the shop I worked in as an 18th century leatherworker, but it wasn’t the focus of the shop at the time; since I left the shop it’s transferred to being a specialized breeches maker specifically. Part of why I want to collect these references is to share with my friends in the shop.
Wherein Stuart storms out after rowing with Evelyn and attends a highly scandalous show
Annabella considered his predicament for a moment before saying, “I am due to attend a private party in a gentlemen’s club at Pall Mall. Very private, only meant for Alphas. Perhaps you may have heard of it?”
“Indeed?” Stuart said, his demeanor changing as he regarded her words with interest.
“However, I am not certain that it will be up your alley, given you are to be married in less than a fortnight,” she said delicately. “And given a gentleman with an unsullied reputation such as yourself—”
“What sort of gathering will it be?” Stuart interrupted her in a mixture of impatience and rising excitement.
“It is going to be centered upon entertainments which, shall we say, are highly improper. Hence the hushed, word-of-mouth invites. But everyone who is anyone is going to be there.”
“Will it be instructive?” he asked.
“Well, definitely yes,” she said, staring at him with wide eyes.
The Education of Mr Hartnell is a queer Regency Omegaverse romance between an unlikely Alpha and Omega. We're more than halfway through! Updated regularly. Support the Muse and get access to all the full chapters on Patreon!
Ko-Fi | Patreon
