There are lots of blogs out there about what’s in a name. Usually, I obsess over the naming of my characters, but in The Rogue And The Rival, I just picked two and was done with it. Oddly enough, I picked two perfectly meaningful names, as my dear friend Molly explains. Can you tell she has a masters degree in linguistics?

Several months ago, as Maya was musing to me about her process in writing The Rogue and The Rival, I had to comment on her artistry with names. I love the symbolism of names, and I think she does a wonderful job of playing with their meaning through both plot and character.

Let us consider our protagonists: Phillip, whose name comes from the ancient Greek work philos meaning love, and can be seen today in the incarnations of philosophy (love of knowledge) and philanthropy (love of humans), and our heroine, Angela, quite clearly a reference to the English angel but also has roots in the Latin engel.

Interestingly, Maya has contrasted these traditional gender roles. Our common concept of the angel is one of protector, guardian, even warrior–characteristics often attributed to men (especially in the Regency era), but as the book opens, it is Angela who is watching over Phillip.

On the other hand we have Phillip, representing love, a concept strongly tied to the emotional realm, and one that has been presided over by women ever since Plato put them into that box centuries ago. Once again, Maya has juxtaposed this symbolism with the name of her character, because we have Lord Phillip at the beginning of the novel just as unlovable and emotionally unavailable as ever.

Thematically, both our heroes have fallen from grace, each in accordance with the symbolism of their respective names: Angela in terms of social rules, and Philip by means of his reckless passion. These characters are balanced such that each has an abundance of what the other lacks. Angela excels where Philip falters morally, and we see that reckless abandon–philandering if you will–results in disaster. Damaged as a result of his own choices, Philip has to face the consequences of his outlandish behavior. Although loathe to admit it, Angela’s protection, and here adherence to her moral obligation, saves his life.

Meanwhile, Angela has fallen prey to society’s rules, given her ruined status, but also to the rigidity of her own decisions. She has reconciled herself to a life of strict worship, allying herself with God, as angels often do. As we learn more about her character, however, we see that the last thing she needs is more authority and more rules. It is not surprising then, when her own inner conflict results from her inexplicable attraction to Phillip’s devilish nature.

Maya’s characters tell a story of balance between the unlikely components of emotion and authority, passion and discipline, recklessness and devotion. Cleverly disguised with and style, these themes are weaved into the story with the first introduction of Angela and Phillip: that love need the protection of angels, and angels need loving hearts to fly.

When writing my first villain in The Heir And The Spare, I gave Lord Phillip every possible vice and flaw I could think of. I wanted it to be very, very clear that he was bad. So he drinks, gambles, is a bad kisser and has allegedly ruined numerous women.

It was great fun fixing him up and making him a hero in  The Rogue And The Rival.  While it was easy to fix the drinking or bad kissing (don’t worry, that definitely gets remedied), explaining away the four women he ruined….now that was trickier. But if he was going to be a hero, it had to be done. And it could be done.

But there was one bit from my first book that made me think oh fuck. I took great delight in writing this scene in which Lady Palmerston tells Emilia all of Phillip’s greatest sins. In detail. Basically, it’s full of information that came back to haunt me as I was writing Rogue. I remember writing this, humming along, making up outrageous stuff and never thinking that I would one day have to explain it or deal with the consequences.

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“You promised to tell me what he had done to deserve his reputation, aunt.”

“I did no such thing,” she replied, taking a sip of tea.

“I know. But perhaps you could just tell me anyway.”

“Very well. I never did see the point of withholding information,” her aunt said, taking a long sip of tea before setting the cup down in the saucer. “You see, there are rakes and then there are absolute scoundrels. Lord Huntley is the latter. A rake keeps company with actresses and opera singers and is a tremendous flirt. An absolute scoundrel is worse. I have it on good authority that Phillip has ruined four girls. He should have only ruined one, and then married her. But the first one was the seventh daughter of a baron, and therefore fairly inconsequential. Rumor has it that he paid a sum of money to hush up the affair. Found her beneath him as a wife, but quite nice beneath him as a fling. She is now rusticating in the country.” Lady Palmerston paused for breath and a sip of tea. While she obviously enjoyed sharing such a salacious tale, the warning was unmistakable.

“Then there was the time he was caught with the daughter of a Viscount, Althorp, I believe. Ruined in the garden during her coming out ball! He refused to marry her, and departed for the continent. No one knows what has become of that poor girl. Rumor has it that while he was in Italy, he became betrothed to the daughter of the ambassador, and stood her up at the altar.”

Emilia felt a sinking, awful sensation in her stomach. She had not only kissed this man, who showed so little respect for women, but she had liked it.

“But those are just rumors, right? It may not all be true,” Emilia said hopefully.

“You are too smart to be such a fool. I haven’t even gotten to his most scandalous affair. All I shall say about that is common wisdom that the Duke of Grafton’s heir is not actually his son, but Lord Huntley’s.”

“But there must be some decency in him,” Emilia protested. After all, if he were such a debaucher of young women, wouldn’t he have taken more than a kiss from her when he had the chance?

“It seems you are the only one interested in finding it. If I cannot dissuade you, at least be very careful, dear.”

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Spoiler alert! Lady Palmerston was accurate in her reporting. She did not, however, know all the details of Phillip’s past, and I will say that he is not as guilty as he seems at first blush. But the truth does come out and all of these women reappear in The Rogue And The Rival.