"This Hans Christian Andersen tale is one of the most moving, to me. The Steadfast Tin Soldier stays devoted to his ballerina even to fire and death. I thought it would be interesting to convert that steadfastness to an unexpected place--high Regency society. A wealthy earl falls in love with the ultimate misalliance, Chantal. She's a penniless French ballerina. His stern mother does everything within her considerable power to stop the match when she learns he intends to marry the girl. She's successful for many years, totally unaware that in banishing Chantal, she's banishing her own grandson. Telling neither of them she's with child, Chantal flees to the continent to become a world class, celebrated ballerina. When she meets the earl again years later, she pretends not to know him. To protect herself, yes, because she never quit loving him, but most of all, to protect the son he doesn't realize exists. As is customary with me, I love to create powerful secondary characters, and Chantal herself isn't aware she has a formidable ally--her own real father, one of the wealthiest men in England, whom never never knew."
