The Rumpled Gentleman

A Romantic Rumplestiltskin Retelling Full of Magic, Mystery, and a Deal That Changes Everything

Elara Millstone never wanted a life of impossible bargains. But when her father, once a respected alchemist, claims he can change straw into gold, they find themselves trapped in a dangerous game with the powerful Duke of Sutton. If her father fails to deliver on his promise, imprisonment would be the least of their worries.

Desperate to save them, Elara makes a deal of her own with a mysterious masked gentleman who seems to hold the key to their survival. But magic and alchemy are not the only forces at play—secrets, deception, and an unexpected attraction makes things more precarious. As Elara works to outwit the ruthless duke, she begins to wonder: has she struck a bargain with a savior or merely exchanged one cage for another?

Set in a Victorian-inspired world where magic is real and power is the ruling currency, The Rumpled Gentleman is a romantic, historical fantasy retelling of Rumplestiltskin filled with intrigue, romance, and a heroine who refuses to be anyone’s pawn.

Perfect for fans of fairy tale retellings, historical fantasy, and stories where wit and courage are the strongest magic of all.

Hours after dawn, Elara climbed the staircase on tired feet. In her aching hands, she held a single Celandine bud, a flower promising joy to come. A flower that shouldn’t have made her smile as it had, given that she no longer believed in its ability to bring such things to the one who held it. A flower she would’ve given to one of her sisters had she not sent them away to live with the relatives willing to take them in when her father first showed signs of falling apart.

She missed her sisters, dearly. 

“Best not cry over it,” she muttered to herself outside the door of the place she lived. Not home. Not ever quite home, no matter how she tried to make the little rooms her own. 

Yet she hoped the flower would make her father happy when he saw the lovely star-shaped bloom of bright yellow.

The creaking hinges echoed faintly in the main room of the rented lodgings Elara shared with her father. She closed the door behind her with a soft click, her eyes taking in the familiar gloom of what she’d left behind. The room, serving both as a living area and her bedchamber, was illuminated by the dim morning light seeping through the cracked glass of the window.

She stepped across the wooden floorboards quietly. The cot, her bed, lay made as neatly as she could manage in one corner. The warm but scratchy blankets served as a stark reminder of their reduced circumstances. On the other side of the room, the small iron stove radiated a meager warmth, the embers barely glowing.

“At least I needn’t light it again,” she whispered to the quiet chilled room.

Elara set about preparing a cup of watered-down coffee, the scent a small comfort in the otherwise bleak surroundings. Her thoughts were on her father and the state in which she’d left him. He’d been relatively calm the evening before and hadn’t woken when she’d left before dawn for her position as a florist’s assistant.

Amos Millstone, once a respected alchemist, was nothing like his former self. The tonic she had obtained was their only hope of bringing some semblance of normalcy to his troubled mind. The small, splintery table where they ate their meals had his notes scattered across the side where he usually sat. She drifted over, her hands itching to make order out of the chaos.

She didn’t touch them right away, though. She studied them first, barely able to make out her father’s hasty scrawl in the dimly lit room. It looked like formulas, again. Notes on chemicals and metals.

The scent of coffee pulled her from the papers without regrets. If she never saw another alchemical formula again, she’d be happy the rest of her days. 

Cup in hand, she approached the door to the bedroom, pausing for a moment. Hoping she wouldn’t walk in to the usual scene of her father lost in his delusions.

She pushed the door open. “Good morning, Papa. I have some coffee for you—”

The room was empty, the bed unmade.

Panic rose in her throat. “Papa?”

The silence pressed upon her, unlike the usual sounds emanating from this room, his murmurs and restless movements.

Her eyes darted around the small chamber. The realization that he was not there, that he had somehow slipped away without her, sent a surge of fear through her. 

Where could he have gone? And in what state of mind?

Setting the coffee aside, she hurried back into the main room, her eyes sweeping from one wall to another for any clue of his whereabouts. But the room offered no answers, only the stark reality of their life—the cot, the stove, the open, battered trunk holding the few belongings that spoke of their fall from a former place of pride.

Wait. Open? She’d not left it open. 

Elara went to the trunk, taking in the pieces of the past. She realized at once what was missing. Her father’s old top hat and his alchemy notebook. The one he swore held the answers to turning worthless materials from their natural state into gold.

She rushed back to his room. There had to be something else. Something more. 

She tossed the bedclothes onto the floor, then looked beneath the mattress, and finally saw a bit of newspaper spread out.

She snatched it up and read through the smudged dirt and ink on the old ivory-colored paper.

Advertisements for hair tonic, country estates, and bills for theatricals were all she found. Until she came across one dreaded word: Gold.

“Oh, no.” 

The Duke of Sutton has returned to London for the Parliamentary Season, claiming greater understanding of the Magic and Alchemic Reasoning needed for the transformation of Baser Metals into Gold. 

She squeezed her eyes closed. Should she rush to the Houses of Parliament? Would he have gone there? She looked at the paper again, the text blurring until she blinked back her exhaustion. The announcement of the duke’s return mentioned his address. 

Friends of His Grace may call upon his Family at Number 10 Mayfair.

Elara’s thoughts turned frantic. She needed to find him, to bring him back to the safety of their home, such as it was. She grabbed her cloak, throwing it around her shoulders, and departed into the unfriendly fog of a London morning.

They lived at the edge of St. Giles, not in the Rookery proper but close enough that she had learned, for her safety, to blend into the shadows and avoid being seen coming and going from her home. 

Her breath formed little puffs of mist as she quickened her pace, her mind racing with worry. The streets of St. Giles, though quieter at this early hour, still held an air of menace.

The distance to the duke’s residence was not insubstantial, especially on foot, but she couldn’t afford any other mode of transportation. Her only option was to walk, to push through the fatigue and fear that threatened to overwhelm her. 

Reaching Mayfair, the elegant townhouses and well-dressed inhabitants were a world away from her own life. She tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, keeping to the edge of the pavement, her gaze fixed ahead.

Number 10 loomed before her, its grand facade intimidating. She hesitated, uncertainty gripping her. Could her father really be here, drawn by some deluded hope sparked by the duke’s announcement? 

Steeling herself, Elara approached the house. The imposing entrance, suited for the nobility and their esteemed guests, was not for her. She skirted around the side, her steps leading her to the lower door—the servants’ entrance.

Taking a deep breath, Elara rang the bell. The jingle seemed to echo into the stairwell and out into the avenue above. She waited, her mind racing with thoughts of her father wandering aimlessly through the streets, or worse, speaking of alchemical dreams to the powerful man within the house’s walls.

The door opened, and a maid peered out. She had whiskers and ears that peeped out of her cap, pointed and furred like a cat. She was Fey.

“Yes? Have you a delivery?” She eyed Elara’s modest attire.

“I’m looking for my father, Amos Millstone,” Elara said quickly, her voice steady despite her anxiety. “He’s not well, and I have reason to believe he came this way. Searching out an audience with someone in this household.”

The maid’s expression softened, and her whiskers twitched in sympathy. “My grandad wanders off now and again. Puts my mother in a right state. You’d better come in. The whole house is in fits with the masquerade tonight. But per’aps someone will know if he’s here.”

Elara stepped inside, the warmth of the kitchens enveloping her immediately. It would’ve been a welcome change from the cold were it not for the circumstances that had brought her there.

She needed to find her father before his condition exposed him to ridicule—or worse. 

“We’d best find someone who works upstairs to ask,” the maid said with a wince. “Chef’s not likely to pause for breath anytime soon.”

The kitchen staff were in a frenzy, buzzing about like hornets after having had their nest knocked out of a tree. Shouted orders came from a man dressed in a flour-dusted apron. A footman rushed into the kitchen as Elara’s guide maneuvered them toward the door. 

“You’re wanted to make up a new guest chamber, so there’s no time to have tea with your friend. The Missus and Garrick have us all working with their whips at our backs as is.”

“Another guestroom?” The maid’s cry was forlorn. “It’s too short notice—”

“You going to tell His Grace that?” the man snarled back. “None of us will sleep tonight or the next. Get rid of the girl.” He jerked his chin toward Elara. “Get to the guest wing.”

The maid looked at Elara with wide eyes. “I’m sorry, Miss…?”

“Millstone.” She took a step backward. “It’s all right. I understand. He mustn’t have come this way.” Her father’s state always grew worse when he was overwhelmed by noise and people. One moment belowstairs in a house like this would have been a horror to him.

The footman gave her a look of shock. “Millstone? Did you say your name was Millstone?” 

“Yes.” The reaction was too sudden, and her heart had already dropped deep into the pit of her stomach before the man’s expression turned to one of pity.

“Are you here with Mr. Amos Millstone?”

Anxiety shot through her like a thousand tiny thorns. “He’s my father. He left our house today without me. Has he been here?”

His brows lowered.

“I need to find him. Please. Did you send him away already?” Elara asked, her hands clutching at her skirts. 

“He is in guest quarters,” the footman said, tone no longer annoyed but more formal. “Allow me to show you to his room.”

Dread twisted and turned in her stomach. Annoying a duke could result in terrible things, she well knew. Especially this duke. 

She followed the footman through the narrow corridors that ran like veins beneath the grandeur of the house, with servants jostling them until they gained the upper floors. In the labyrinth of the duke’s residence, the weight of their fall from grace pressed upon her more acutely than ever. But the need to protect her father overshadowed all else.

The flower that had tumbled into her hand from the back of a delivery wagon hadn’t been an omen of good things to come after all. Its joyful yellow petals made a mockery of her life. The Celandine was yet another lie, promising beauty and happiness but leaving her with nothing but wilted hopes.

“Oh, Papa. What have you done?” And how would she get them both out of this predicament?