Gil Rutledge

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Tea with a second-time bride

Susan glowed. Her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, had never found it to be generally true that a bride responded to marriage with a joy so palpable that it lit up a room. In Eleanor’s experience, marriage crushed the light out of more brides than not.

Susan was one of the rare exceptions, and about time, too. Her first marriage had been disappointing. Captain Cunnngham was not a terrible husband. He was an absent one. In physical fact, most of the time, and emotionally the rest. He had also been serially and frequently unfaithful.

Indeed, Susan had been so disappointed in her first marriage that Eleanor was surprised she had taken the risk of a second. Of course, her second marriage was to a man she had known since she was a child. Eleanor’s friend Henry had told her all about it.

“We all thought Rutledge was courting Susan during her first season, but then he disappeared and a few months later, she accepted young Cunningham. After that, she had nothing good to say about Rutledge. When we heard he had accompanied her north to help her rescue her kidnapped daughter… Well! I certainly didn’t expect them to fall in love and marry!”

Susan had been at least half in love with Rutledge all those years before, of course. Which was the reason she was so upset with him when he abandoned his courtship. And anyone who had seen the poor man yearning after her on the rare occasions they were in the same room knew that he had never ceased to be in love with her.

Eleanor was unsurprised to find that Rutledge’s nasty elder brother had come between the pair when Susan was young, unattached, and naive. He undoubtedly wanted her for himself, the horrid man.

“I need your help, Aunt Eleanor,” Susan said, once she and Eleanor were established with a cup of tea. “I want to reestablish Gil in Society. It is part done, of course, because my friends will accept him for my sake, but so many people still judge him by his brother and his father. He is nothing like them, I can assure you, but those two reprobates brought such dishonour to his name and title that he almost refused to marry me for fear he would never live it down!”

“People need to meet him and see for themselves that he is a good man,” Eleanor observed.

“Precisely.” Susan took a sip of her tea, watching Eleanor over the rim.

“Yes, Susan,” the duchess told her. “I will help you to change the minds of those who tar your husband with his family’s brush.”

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Backlist spotlight on The Realm of Silence

The Realm of Silence

(Book 3 in the Golden Redepennings series)

Rescue her daughter, destroy her dragons, defeat his demons, go back to his lonely life. How hard can it be?

“I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved…  the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.” George Eliot

When Susan Cunningham’s daughter disappears from school, her pleasant life as a fashionable, dashing, and respectable widow is shattered. Amy is reported to be chasing a French spy up the Great North Road, and when Susan sets out in pursuit she is forced to accept help from the last person she wants: her childhood friend and adult nemesis, Gil Rutledge.

Gil Rutledge has loved Susan since she was ten and he a boy of twelve. He is determined to oblige her by rescuing her daughter. And if close proximity allows them to rekindle their old friendship, even better. He has no right to ask for more.

Gil and Susan must overcome danger, mystery, ghosts from the past, and their own pride before their journey is complete.

Buy links

https://books2read.com/TheRealmofSilence: https://books2read.com/TheRealmofSilence

Excerpt

Four years had passed since he last crossed verbal swords with Susan Cunningham, and she looked no older. Did the infernal woman have the secret of an elixir of youth? She had been widowed long enough to be out of her blacks, and back into the blues she favoured: some concoction that was probably the height of fashion and that both hid and enhanced her not insubstantial charms.

As always, she was perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly behaved. And he undoubtedly looked every bit as if he had been travelling for weeks, apart from the brief stopover in Derby with his sister.

She was breathing quickly, fear for her child flushing her face. To one who knew her, and who watched her closely, she held her composure by a thread.

The crowd of onlookers leaned forward to catch his reply. “Is there somewhere we can discuss your business in private, Mrs Cunningham?”

That fetched a considering nod. “Miss Foster, may I present Colonel—no, Lord Rutledge? He and I grew up on neighbouring estates. Lord Rutledge, Miss Foster’s niece Patrice is, we presume, with my daughter.” She indicated the child shifting nervously from one foot to another nearby, with Miss Foster firmly gripping her shoulder. “Patrice’s sister Clementine. But shall we seek privacy for our discussion?”

Until this moment, Gil had wondered if he was setting up a false trail. After all, he was not certain he’d seen Amy in Stamford. Why would The Goddess be hunting for her in Cambridge if she was a day’s hard ride away? But the girl had been dressed like the child Clementine, and was of the right age and appearance. Besides, if he were wrong he’d make it up by devoting himself to helping with the search. The interview in Essex with his reluctant sister-in-law would need to wait until The Goddess’s child was safe.

He gave Moffat the signal to deal with their mounts and the packhorse, and followed Mrs Cunningham into the inn. Susan, he said silently, though underneath that silence earlier names sounded in his head. Joan. Athene. Boadicea. Just as her father had named his sons for battle-tried kings and emperors who led successful armies, he had given his daughter the names of female warriors: a saint, a Goddess, and a queen. The ten-year-old girl who followed the boys at their games demanded and won a more common name, but to his mind it had never suited her as well as those bestowed upon her before God, at her baptism.

He expected her to demand answers as soon as they were private, but she had never behaved like the other women he knew. She stood, seemingly at ease, one golden brow arched, and waited for him to speak. She took his breath away. She always had.

“How long have the two girls been missing?” Saturday, the ostler said, which would fit. But it seemed unlikely such a devoted mother would have so long delayed the search.

“Saturday,” Susan confirmed, “though the school found out only today, and told me when I arrived unexpectedly.” She seemed to think that required further explanation. “I was journeying back to London from Michael’s estate in the north, and diverted on a whim to visit Amy.

The girl could have been Amy, then. “What would she be doing in Stamford?”

“Stamford! I can imagine no reason why she and Patrice might go to Stamford, or how? I have been asking about carriages, but… Wait. You saw her in Stamford?”

“Yesterday morning. I did not see her clearly. She was dressed like Miss Clementine here. One of those bonnets. Black half boots. A skirt and coat thing. Both blue. Wool, I think.”

“A pelisse, yes. In bishop’s blue over a lighter coloured skirt. The Fellowes’ Academy requires all its students to dress the same. And her companion would also have been wearing the uniform.”

“She was with a boy. Or, at least, someone dressed as a boy. Thin face. Dark hair from what I could see under the cap. Tall for a girl, if it was a girl. Taller than Miss Cunningham by perhaps five inches. Their governess, or whoever it was, ordered them into the post chaise and they took off on the North Road.”

“Governess.” Susan’s brows drew together as she thought about that.

“It must have been someone else,” Miss Foster proclaimed.

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Tea with Gil

The invitation had been for the new Viscount Rutledge, but Her Grace of Haverford was unsurprised to find his mother had accompanied him. The duchess had never warmed to Lady Rutledge, but the woman must be tolerated for the sake of her son, who deserved her support. Lord Rutledge, or Gil as his friends called him, faced an uphill battle to reinstate the wealth and reputation of the title he had just inherited after the excesses of his disgraceful rakehell of a brother.

“Of course, Rutledge is nothing like his brother,” Lady Rutledge complained. “My dear Gideon knew what he owed the title. Why, he would never have missed the Season. As for involving himself in estate business like some kind of peasant! Gideon would have no more demeaned his whole family in such a manner than he would have appeared in public in last year’s fashions.”

Eleanor was well aware of how the former Lord Rutledge spent the Season when he and his mother came up to Town, leaving the man’s poor little wife at home in the country. Gideon Rutledge seldom appeared in a gathering for polite Society, and would have been evicted from most had he tried. He was, however, to be found throwing money like water wherever vice and debauchery reigned. Hence the challenge facing his successor.

The duchess entered the lists on the side of the new viscount. “I am always delighted to see a peer who values the welfare of his people and his estate above his own pleasures,” she said. “Lord Rutledge, your many years of successful leadership in the service of the King will undoubtedly stand you in good stead as you face these new challenges.”

“Rutledge’s only challenge,” Lady Rutledge insisted, “is finding a wealthy bride willing to accept such a barbarian.” She shrugged. “The title covers a multitude of sins.”

Eleanor only just avoided showing her astonishment. To call one’s son a barbarian before a mere acquaintance! Was the woman mad? “It certainly did,” she countered. “How glad you must be that your second son is so much more responsible and civilised than your first.”

It was Lady Rutledge’s turn to gape. “Gideon? Are you calling Gideon uncivilised? Why, he always dressed in the first stare of fashion, and he knew all the on dits. He was even invited to Carlton House and the Duke of Richport was an intimate friend.”  She sat back proudly, clearly confident that she had rousted the opposition with the final argument.

Gil Rutledge caught Eleanor’s eye. He gave a slight shake of the head, before asking, “The landscape over the fireplace, Your Grace, is that one of the ducal estates? I do not recognise the house, but the painting is truly lovely.”

Eleanor accepted the change of subject, and followed his lead in ruthlessly keeping conversation during the remainder of the call on innocuous topics. Lady Rutledge followed the footman out after the requisite half hour. Gil remained long enough to say, “Thank you, Your Grace. It does no good to talk sense to my mother, but I appreciate you making the effort.”

“Hurry up, Rutledge,” Lady Rutledge’s voice called, but the duchess put a hand on the viscount’s sleeve to detain him.

“Lord Rutledge, I have heard many good things about you. You have the respect of much of Society; certainly of those who count. My nephew stands your friend, I know, and my son and I are pleased to know you. Remember that, when your mother’s insults become burdensome.”

The young man’s sombre mood lifted a little and he smiled. “Thank you, Your Grace,” he said again.

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Gil Rutledge is the hero of The Realm of Silence. Check it out for more about the burdens he faces and how a love he believes he does not deserve finds him anyway.

 

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Tea with Gil

 

Her Grace of Haverford eyed the young man in her parlour with some amusement. Not, perhaps, as young as all that. The new Lord Rutledge must be approaching forty years, but he had the type of face that looks mature at twenty and ages changes little thereafter. In his eighties, he would still be a handsome man.

A lifetime of careful observation of those who surrounded any duchess allowed Her Grace to detect his discomfort, though he held himself like the cavalry officer he once was, and his face hinted at the reason for his nickname. Rock Ledge, they called him. The man who never showed emotion. The duchess saw the slight stiffness around his eyes and mouth, the nervous flick of his eyes towards the maid, rapidly schooled to refocus on his hostess, a thumb and forefinger pressed rigidly together. Rutledge clearly expected this experience to be unpleasant.

“Thank you, Milly. You may leave us,” the duchess said to the maid. The girl went obediently, closing the parlour door firmly about her.

Rutledge straightened still further, and his eyes widened.

To business, then, and to put the poor boy out of his misery. “Rutledge, I have called you here today to offer my support.”

He was wary, of course. “Your support, Your Grace?”

He had a reputation as a blunt man, refreshingly blunt, her friend Lord Henry had said. She would not beat around the bush, then. “Your brother was a wicked man, rightly shunned by Society. You are the opposite, I am told by those I trust. Society will not, however, change its mind about the Rutledges. Not without some direction.”

Rutledge blinked rapidly a couple of times, before saying, “Direction from Your Grace must always be successful.”

A most tactful way to express doubt. She allowed her amusement to show in a smile. “I have known one or two failures, my lad. But I do not anticipate difficulty in this case.”

“I am an unworthy cause, Your Grace. I have no wish to shine in Society.”

“You will bury yourself in the country, I have no doubt, and ignore us all. But that will not do for your wife and children.”

He looked down at his hands, which had formed fists before he could prevent them. She watched them slowly relax, waiting for his response, which came after a long moment. “You have been honest with me, Your Grace, and I will return the courtesy. I have no intention of perpetuating the Rutledge line.”

His intentions, if Henry was correct, were not the only ones to be considered. And Henry knew Rutledge nearly as well as he knew Susan, his own daughter.

No need to tell Rutledge that his days as a single man were numbered. “I see. Well then, we shall talk about something else.”

She passed him the cup of coffee she had prepared for him, and he took it with thanks, nearly spilling it at her next comment.

“I believe you have recently spent some time with my goddaughter, Susan Cunningham,” she said.

Gil Rutledge is the hero of The Realm of Silence, available from this site’s bookshop on 15 May, and from all other eretailers on 22 May.

Excerpt

Gil Rutledge sat in the small garden to the side of the Crown and Eagle, and frowned at the spread provided for his breakfast. Grilled trout with white butter sauce, soft-boiled eggs, grilled kidney, sausages, mashed potatoes, bacon, a beef pie, two different kinds of breads (one lightly toasted), bread rolls, a selection of preserves, and a dish of stewed peaches, all cooked to perfection and none of it appealing.

Two days with his sister, Madelina, had left old guilt sitting heavy in his stomach, choking his throat and souring his digestion. And the errand he faced had yet to face did not improve his appetite.

He cut the corner from a slice of toast and loaded it with bits of bacon and a spoonful of egg. He was too old a campaigner to allow loss of appetite to stop him from refuelling. He washed the mouthful down with a sip from his coffee. It was the one part of the breakfast Moffat had not trusted to the inn kitchen. His soldier-servant insisted on preparing it himself, since he knew how Gil like it.

No. Not his soldier-servant. Not anymore. His valet, butler, factotum. Manservant. Yes, his manservant.

Gil raised the cup to the shade of his despised older brother. “This is the worst trick you’ve played on me yet,” he muttered. The viscount’s death had landed the estranged exile with a title he never wanted, a bankrupt estate, a frail frightened sister-in-law and her two little daughtersleft to his guardianship but fled from his home—and an endless snarl of legal and financial problems. And then there were Gil’s mother and his younger sister. His mission in leaving Gloucestershire had been to avoid war with the first and make peace with the second.

With a sigh, he took another sip, and loaded his fork again. The sooner he managed to swallow some of this meal, the sooner he could be on the road.

Beyond the fence that bordered the garden, carriages collected their passengers from the front of the inn. Stamford was on the Great North Road, and a transport hub to half of England, with roads branching off in every direction. As Gil stoically soldiered his way through breakfast, he watched idly, amusing himself by imagining the errands and destinations of the travellers.

Until one glimpsed face made him sit forward with a start. Surely that was Amelia Cunningham, The Goddess’s eldest daughter? No. This girl was older, almost an adult, though still dressed as a schoolgirl.

He frowned, trying to work out how old little Amy must be by now. He had last seen her during his most recent posting to England, before he was sent overseas to Gibraltar then on to the Peninsular wars. At the beginning of 1808. He remembered, because that was when he parted with the best horse a man had ever owned. More than four years ago. The Goddess who held his heart had been a widow these past two years and Amy must be—what? Good Lord. She would be sixteen by now.

He craned his neck, trying to see under the spreading hat that shielded the girl’s face, but she climbed into a yellow post chaise with a companion—a tall stripling boy of about the same age. And the woman who followed them was definitely not The Goddess; not unless she had lost all her curves, shrunk a good six inches, dyed her golden hair black, and traded her fashionable attire for a governess’s dull and shapeless garb.

No. That was not Susan Cunningham. Amy would have a governess, presumably, but the boy was way too old to be Amy’s brother Michael. No. The girl could not have been Amy.

The door closed, the post boy mounted, the chaise headed north, and Gil went back to his breakfast.

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Kisses on WIP Wednesday

I write romances, right? So there’s kissing. At least in most of my books there’s kissing, and if there isn’t, they think of it.

This week, I’ve been doing the line edits on The Realm of Silence, so before I move on entirely to the next three stories I’m preparing to write, I want to share a kiss from that novel. Please share yours in the comments. I’d love to read them.

…when he moved her chair back to help her rise, and she stepped to one side almost into his arms, he could not resist wrapping them around her.

He had intended a brief peck on her hair. She lifted her mouth as if she had been waiting for just such a move, and he was lost. She was all that existed. The elusive scent of her saturated his nostrils, her yielding curves filled his arms, and her lips and mouth consumed all of his thoughts as he tenderly explored them.

How long the kiss lasted he had no idea, but when she stiffened and pulled away, he let her go immediately, sense rushing back into his brain and berating it for the most arrant stupidity. She didn’t comment—wouldn’t even meet his eyes—but led the way out of the garden, almost running in her hurry.

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The first meeting on WIP Wednesday

I’m doing the final changes and a line edit on The Realm of Silence before sending it to the copy editor, and I’ve just been working on the first meeting — or, at least, the first meeting in this book. Gil and Susan have known one another since they were children.

So this week, I wanted to share the first meeting in this book, and invite you to share the first meeting of your main characters. Here mine is from Gil’s point-of-view. He has just arrived at an inn in Cambridge to find Susan asking the stable master and an interested crowd whether they have seen her daughter.

Four years since he had last crossed verbal swords with Susan Cunningham, and she looked no older. Did the infernal woman have the secret of an elixir of youth? She had been widowed long enough to be out of her blacks, and back into the blues she favoured: some concoction that was probably the height of fashion and that both hid and enhanced her not insubstantial charms.

As always, she was perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly behaved. And he undoubtedly looked every bit as if he had been travelling for four days; two weeks apart from the brief stopover in Derby with Mina.

He opened his mouth to reply, and changed his mind when the watching crowd leaned forward to catch his words. “Is there somewhere we can discuss your business in private, Mrs Cunningham?”

That fetched a considering nod. “Miss Foster, may I present Colonel—no, Lord Rutledge? He and I grew up on neighbouring estates. Lord Rutledge, Miss Foster’s niece Patrice is, we presume, with my daughter.” She indicated the child standing nearby, with Miss Foster firmly gripping her shoulder. “Patrice’s sister Clementine. But shall we seek privacy for our discussion?”

Until this moment, Gil had wondered if he was setting up a false trail. After all, he was not certain he’d seen Amy in Stamford. Why would the goddess be hunting for her in Cambridge if she was a day’s hard ride away? But the girl had been dressed like the child Clementine, and was of the right age and appearance. Besides, if he were wrong he’d make it up by devoting himself to helping with the search. He was in no hurry to arrive at the interview in Essex with his reluctant sister-in-law.

He gave Moffat the nod to deal with their mounts and the packhorse, and followed Mrs Cunningham into the inn. Susan, his mind said, though underneath were earlier names. Joan. Athene. Boadicea. Her father had named his sons for kings and emperors who led successful armies. His daughter, too, was named for warriors: a saint, a goddess, and a queen. The ten-year-old girl who followed the boys at their games demanded and won a more common name, but to his mind it had never suited her the way her baptismal names did.

He expected her to demand answers as soon as they were private, but she had never behaved like the other women he knew. She stood, seemingly at ease, one golden brow arched, and waited for him to speak. She took his breath away. She always had.

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Tea with Susan

“Yes, that should work well.” Her Grace, the Duchess of Haverford set the last of the pages she had been reading onto the pile before her, and smiled at her goddaughter. “I like the way you have involved the parents in the running of the school, Susan. I shall have to adopt that idea for my own establishments.”

Susan Cunningham returned the smile as she explained, “Our Scots villagers are theoretically in favour of education, at least for their sons. But they will not support anything that interferes with work on the farm. So it makes sense to organise the school sessions around the demands of the harvest.”

“Yes, and if the leading farmers are the ones who set the timetable, the others will follow their example. Good. Well done, and of course I am happy to be named as a patroness of the school, although you have done all the work, my dear.”

Susan sipped her tea before answering. “A duchess on our letterhead will be much more impressive than a mere Missus, even if I am the widow of a prominent local landlord.”

The duchess laughed. “Yes, by all means use my title to collect donations from your local gentry. But Susan, I wanted to ask about your daughter. How is Amyafter all her adventures?”

“Unscathed,” Susan replied, dryly, then corrected herself. “To be fair, the experience has left her more thoughtful and less impetuous. But she is safe, thanks mostly to Gi- to Lord Rutledge. I do not know what might have happened without him.”

“Your father mentioned that he escorted you on your trip north, but he said little else, except that Amy was found safe and well.”

Susan shuddered. “She is safe and well because she was found, and only just in time.”

The duchess reached for a cucumber sandwich. “And how is Lord Rutledge? I have always thought the pair of you liked one another rather more than you made out.”

Susan sighed. “It is complicated,” she said.

Susan and Gil Rutledge, childhood friends who have been estranged for twenty years, are forced to work together when Susan’s daughter runs away from school. Their story is told in book 3 of The Golden Redepennings, The Realm of Silence (coming in May). Here’s an excerpt.

Dear Lord. All these years she’d held a small bubble of resentment that he’d left London and then England without a note or a message. She should have thrown caution to the wind and written to him before she agreed to marry James.

She snorted at the thought. A fine letter that would have been. “Dear Lieutenant Rutledge, a fine young naval officer has asked me to marry him, and before I give him my answer, I just wish to enquire whether you have any interest in having me instead.”

Regrets and might-have-beens were stupid. She had been happy with James, at least in the beginning, until he proved to lack the gift of fidelity. Even after he made it clear that he would not give up his other women, he did not flaunt them in her face. He was courteous and friendly, respected her abilities and supported her decisions, gave her control of his estate and his income, expected little from her except his nominated allowance and the occasional public appearance. She had been content in her life, if not her marriage, and she had the three most wonderful children in the world.

Accepting Gil’s hand back up into the cabriolet-phaeton, she composed herself for the next stretch of the journey. Knowing he admired her still, at least enough to kiss her, set all of her body singing. She needed to be realistic, and smother the foolish dreams creeping from her memories. She was thirty-seven, and he was a baron. He would need to find a young wife who could give him an heir, and she would need to smile and be glad for him.

A less personal subject than family was needed for the next part of the trip.

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The Realm of Silence – coming in May

I am biting the bullet and committing to publishing The Realm of Silence in May. The book blurb is now up on my book page, and in the next couple of days I’ll set up a preorder through Smashwords for iBooks, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Too early for Amazon, but that will come later in the month.

So go take a look (by clicking on the link), and see what you think. Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt and the cover.

Gil was as quick to understand her now as when they ran wild over the lands around Longford. Susan made short work of discovering what Clementine didn’t want her aunt to know, and re-joined Gil by the stables.

“This governess. Was she slightly built, of below average height, and dark haired?” she asked, then, at Gil’s nod, “We need to find out whether a boy hired a post chaise, or possibly a young woman with a French accent. I have no idea whether there is a connection, but apparently the French music teacher is also missing, and she fits that description.”

She had thought he would take over the questioning, but he seemed content to allow her to coax answers out of the stable master, confining himself to looming at her left shoulder.

Looming was unnecessary, however. The stable master remembered the French lady on Saturday morning. “Just the lady on her own, ma’am. She wanted a post chaise for Newcastle, but I told her we didn’t go no further than York. She could get another there, I told her.”

“What of other travellers that same morning? Was there a boy, perhaps around fifteen or sixteen? He may have had a young lady with him of a similar age? Perhaps also travelling to York or Newcastle?”

The stable master was shaking his head when another ostler spoke up. “I saw the boy. With a girl, he was, but I didn’t see her proper. The boy came in and rented the post chaise while the girl waited out the front. It was while you was with that dook’s party, Ben. For York, but they only took ’un as far as Stamford. Joe—he’s the post boy, ma’am—he came back last night.”

The stable master nodded once, a swift jerk of the chin. “Right.”

“We will speak with the post boy,” Gil decreed. But the post boy was out on a job to a nearby town. He would return within the hour, and the stable master would keep him against Susan’s return.

“I will be back in one hour,” she said. “Thank you for your help.” She repeated the thanks to Gil before setting off at a brisk pace for the school. The fear jittered inside, but she quelled it. She had a lead, which was more than she’d had half an hour ago. If the French lady was the music mistress. If the boy was Patrice in disguise. If the two young people the ostler saw were her runaways. The whole trail of ‘ifs’ depended on Gil’s observation. If the girl in Stamford was Amy, the rest fell into place.

This time, she would demand to see Amy’s room and to talk to some of the other girls. She also had questions to ask the head mistress about the French music teacher.

The presence at her elbow impinged on her conscious mind. Gil, still looming, his long stride easily keeping pace with her rapid steps.

She stopped. “Did you want something, Lord Rutledge?”

Grave brown eyes met her glare, dark brows meeting above the straight aristocratic nose in a return glare. “I am helping.” Not an offer or even a request. An obdurate statement. Arrogant male.

Susan fought to keep her irritation from showing. “You have been helpful. Thank you. I can handle it from here.”

Gil lifted one shoulder and dropped it again. “Undoubtedly. Nonetheless…” A second shrug, as expressive as the first. She didn’t have time to argue; not that arguing ever changed Gilbert Rutledge’s mind once it was made up.

He had clearly decided his participation was a foregone conclusion. “What did the Foster chit tell you?”

She would be a fool to refuse him information that might make his help useful. “The Grahame chit,” she corrected. “Clementine Grahame said that her sister and Amy were always whispering together, and would not tell their secrets, so when Amy arrived at their house before breakfast and she and Patrice went up to Patrice’s bedroom, Clementine put her ear to the door to try to hear them or, failing that, spy on what they did next.”

He did not ask the obvious question; just waited for her to continue.

“They talked too low for her to understand. But Patrice left her room dressed as a boy and she and Amy caught Clementine in the hall. They threatened her with retribution if she told anyone what she had seen, and instructed her to tell the aunt they had left for the exhibition together. The rest of Clementine’s story is true, or so she assures me. She followed them here, and actually waited until they left in the post chaise. She then went off to school and pretended the whole thing had not happened.”

Exasperation coloured the last sentence. Susan understood the child’s fear of her unyielding aunt, and her jealousy of the friendship between the two older girls. But if Clementine had spoken earlier, Amy would be safe now.

“Come then, if you must. I am going to the school. You can question the headmistress about the French woman while I talk to Amy’s friends and check her room.” And if Susan weren’t so worried about her daughter, she might be amused at the thought of the coming confrontation between the haughtily disapproving educationalist and the grim uncompromising soldier.

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“What’s in a kiss?” on WIP Wednesday

What’s in a kiss? sings Gilbert O’Sullivan, and this week I’m looking for excerpts that answer that questions. The kiss itself, if you please, but also what it means to the hero or the heroine. One moment of bliss? A delicatessen supplying every need? Something less or something more?

My extract is from The Realm of Silence. Gil has absolutely no idea what Susan thinks of him.

Susan was washing her turnover down with a swallow of ale, shifting impatiently as her hands inched towards the knife and fork she had placed on her plate between mouthfuls, as proper table etiquette required. Her inclination to rush the meal and be on her way was clearly at war with her training in manners.

“Relax, Susan. A few minutes will make the world of difference to your digestion, and very little to our arrival time.”

What a valiant creature his goddess was. She managed a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know you are right, you annoying man. I will try not to worry and to be patient.

“You are thinking I have no notion what you are suffering, and you are right that I have never been a father, and have never had to wait and worry about a child of my flesh.” Gil almost left it at that, but then he took a deep breath and spoke the rest of his thought. “But I have been an officer with men I loved and who loved and trusted me, and I have had to send them into danger knowing that some of them will be killed and others wounded. That perhaps gives me a small inkling of your feelings, goddess.”

He winced as the last word slipped out. She hated when people called her that, but it was how he felt. He had worshipped her from the moment he met her as a boy; carried a candle before her image in his heart since that day; held her as a beacon of the best of English womanhood through a thousand engagements on four continents and any number of islands. She was his goddess.

She was oblivious to his preoccupation, considering what he had said. “I had not thought about it like that. Yes. I imagine you were a father, or at least an elder brother, to your men. My brothers are the same. It is like, Gil. So you know how hard it is.”

Susan called him Gil, he noticed, when she was moved, just as he slipped into calling her goddess. He did not call her attention to his mistake, but when he moved her chair back to help her rise, and she stepped to one side almost into his arms, he could not resist wrapping them around her.

He had intended a brief peck on her hair. She lifted her mouth as if she had been waiting for just such a move, and he was lost. She was all that existed. The elusive scent of her filled his nostrils, her yielding curves filled his arms, and her lips and mouth consumed all of his thoughts as he tenderly explored them.

How long the kiss lasted he had no idea, but when she stiffened and pulled away, he let her go immediately, sense rushing back into his brain and berating it for the most arrant stupidity. She didn’t comment — wouldn’t even meet his eyes — but led the way out of the garden, almost running in her hurry.

They had to wait in the stableyard while the groom assisted a man in a hurry; a rider who spurred his way out of the yard without leaving a gratuity, much to the groom’s disgust.

“Didn’t give me nothing day afore yesterday, neither,” he grumbled to Gil as Gil helped him with the horses for the phaeton. “Silly fool. What’s he want to go dashing up and down to Scotland for?”

Gil looked after the disappearing hooves of the horse. “He’s come down from Scotland? Did he say how the roads were?”

The groom shrugged. “Bit of a slip at Grantshouse, but he said he was ready for it, seeing as how he passed it on the way up yesteren. So what does he want to turn around and come back for, I says. He had business in Scotland, says he, and now he has business in Newcastle. Silly fool.”

Gil backed the horse in his charge into the traces. It seemed a steady sort, and moved without complaint or resistance.

The groom was doing the same with the other horse, but he suddenly stopped. “Hey, I just thought me. You was asking ’bout the man what was following the French lady? That was him there, what just rode out of this yard. Got as far as Dunbar then turned around and come back. Must be mad. What’s at Dunbar?”

Amy and Pat, perhaps. That news would take Susan’s mind off his impudent kiss. If that was their mysterious pursuer, then they might be closer than they thought. Gil pondered the implications while his hands went ahead with the familiar tasks of buckling and fastening. The man was heading back to Newcastle in haste. Had he finished the task that sent him north? And if so, what did that mean for Amy and Pat?

Years in combat had taught him not to fret overlong about what he couldn’t know and couldn’t change. He thanked the groom and gave him a tip a dozen times the size of the despised measly offering for the pursuer.

“If that fellow comes through again, delay him, will you?”

Soon, they were rolling north again, and Gil told Amy what he’d learned, and what he had concluded.

“Will we find them at Dunbar?” she asked

“We will be there by late afternoon. We will find out then.”

She was silent again, probably worrying about her daughter, though Gil was finding it near impossible to think about anything but that devastatingly beautiful kiss. It was dawning on him that the goddess had kissed him back. What was he to take from that? He could reasonably conclude that she wanted to be kissed. Wanted to be kissed by him? She was a chaste and respectable lady; one, furthermore, who had managed her own affairs and those of her household and her husband for more than twenty years. She kissed him back, and he couldn’t believe that she gave her kisses lightly.

It was probably the situation. She was worried about her daughter and needed comfort. He dare not read more into it than that.

by

Secrets on WIP Wednesday

You can’t possibly tell all that you know, and certainly your protagonists can’t. The story would be over almost before it started.

So what secrets are they hiding from one another or from the wider world? Their feelings? Something shameful in their past? A secret they’re keeping for someone else? Big or trivial, secrets help us to keep up the tension. What’s yours? Share an excerpt in the comments.

This week, I’m sharing from The Realm of Silence, which I still haven’t made a book page for. I can at least show you the cover, and link to The Golden Redepenning page. (Note to self: write a book blurb and set up a book page.)

They made their next change in Durham, since the stage that followed included a long steep pull out of the valley. At first, the fresh horses required all of Gil’s attention, but they soon settled to their work and Susan broke the long silence.

“We have talked for two days about my family, Rutledge. What of yours? How are your sisters?”

The horses startled, and tried to sidle sideways, and Gil realised he’d tightened his grip. He relaxed his hands, calling, “Steady, there. Steady,” and they settled back into the swift walk suitable for the gentler terrain on this plateau.

Susan waited until he had the horses back under control before she said, “If your family is off limits, Gil, I will respect that. But I am a safe pair of ears if you need someone to listen. I knew your brother, remember. Your sister-in-law, too, though not well. And Lena and Clem were friends of mine once.”

He had almost forgotten. He was accustomed to thinking of the Redepenning boys as school friends, but it began before that, when he and his mother and sisters had moved to West Gloucestershire, just under the Cotswold Edge, after his grandfather took an apoplexy and died at the news of the death of Gil’s father. Rupert, the new Lord Rutledge, had ordered his mother and much younger siblings to his new estate, but had not bothered to bestir himself from London and its myriad entertainments.

And the three Rutledge children had fallen instantly in love with the family on the neighbouring estate of Longford Court, where Lord and Lady Henry were raising their own five children and one of their nephews.

Gil had gone gaily off to school with the boys, and returned only for holidays until he bought his colours.

But Susan’s words filled his head with images of three little girls at the Longford Whitsunday Fair and the Harvest Festival and numerous festivities during the twelve days of Christmas: Clementine and Susan, just a year apart in age and arm in arm, watching over Madelena, who was four years younger. 

He bit hard on his upper lip and blinked rapidly to chase away liquid that clouded his eyes. “I had forgotten. They were happy then, weren’t they? My sisters? Before?” Before he embraced school life, throwing himself into the friendships he forged there, and forgot his responsibility to protect his family.

“We all were. I loved having neighbours of my own age just a short ride away.” Susan gave a soft snort of amusement. “Even if my mother did hold them up as models of decorum every time I slipped out of the house to run away with you boys.”

Gil hadn’t known her mother disapproved. He had thought Susan perfect, just as she was. “I used to wish they were more like you. But they never would step outside of my father’s rules. My father had firm views about how ladies behaved”

“I never met your father. Did he not die before you moved to Thornbury Hall?”

“Yes. Killed in a drunken race that he lost to my brother Rupert. But his memory still controlled my mother and sisters.”

He’d said more than he intended, but he trusted Susan; perhaps even more than he trusted her brothers and cousin. Not that he could tell her the whole. He would go to the grave keeping his sisters’ secret. He could, perhaps, share a little, though. She was a wise woman, was Susan. No one could absolve Gil, but talking to her might ease the burden a little. “If you knew Rupert, you know what he was like.”

“He was a dissolute, vicious monster,” Susan said, decidedly.

“He was the image of our father,” Gil admitted.

“I did not know your father, but your mother and sisters were terrified of Rupert, and I know what he did to Clem, and why she ran away with William Byrne.”

This time, the horses stopped, responding to a signal he was unaware of giving as he turned to look at Susan, his mouth gaping. “She told you?”

“Of course not. I was only fifteen then, and still in the schoolroom. I knew she became withdrawn and unhappy when your brother returned to Thornbury for the summer, and then she disappeared. I never even knew that she had eloped with Byrne until I heard the servants talking about how Byrne had ruined your sister and your brother was going to kill him.”

“Walk on,” Gil said to the horses. He had to control himself better. He was confusing the beasts. “Then…” He didn’t know how to ask what she thought she knew without disclosing the scandal at the heart of his family’s misery. Perhaps she had heard of the beatings; the cruel punishments. But not the other.

“Papa told me all when your brother thought to court me. He had it from Will when Will asked for his help to get Clem away.”

Gil didn’t know what question to ask first. When had Rupert courted Susan? Did Lord Henry help the fleeing couple, and was it him Gil had to thank for getting them away so secretly that Rupert never found a trace of them? And what, exactly, did Lord Henry tell his daughter?