This week on work-in-progress Wednesday, I’m inviting you to post about partings. Do your characters leave a lover, a friend, a relative, an enemy? Do they part for an hour, a day, a month, forever? Show me what you’ve got.
(The video clip is the wrong period, but the right mood for my excerpt, which is below.)
In my current work in progress, the hero and heroine both work, and their commitments take them in different directions several times in the course of the novel. I like this parting.
Gren kept up a light patter of social conversation over the meal, and Prue made a valiant effort to contribute, though she was dreading the coming parting, and kept lapsing into silence to just watch David and soak up her last moments with him.
He was quiet, too, and Charrie oscillated from bright and bubbly to morose and silent. Without Gren, it would have been a dismal meal.
When the men got up to leave, Gren suggested to Charrie, “Shall we leave them the breakfast room for a moment, Charity? I know my brother wants to kiss her goodbye, and he doesn’t want to embarrass her in front of her sister.”
Charrie looked from one of the men to the other. “You are brothers?”
“Half brothers,” David confirmed.
Charrie opened her mouth, thought better of whatever she was about to say, and shut it again. Without another word, she left the room, Gren trailing in her wake.”
As soon as the door closed behind them, Prue walked into David’s arms.
“Travel safely,” she said.
“I’ll call for you on my way back.”
“No; I doubt I’ll stay long. I will go back to London. Come to me there.”
“Stay at my place, Prue. Mrs Allen knows to welcome you and make you comfortable. Treat it like your own home.”
“I will. I would like to.”
They kissed, and it was a hello and a farewell all at once. This one kiss would have to sustain them for a month or more. It lasted an eternity and was over too soon.
“I do not want to leave you,” David said at last, drawing his head back but keeping her locked in his arms.
“I do not want you to go. But we each have our duties. Go, David. Finish your enquiries and come home to me.”
David smiled, more a warmth in the eyes than a movement of the lips. “Home. Home is wherever you are, Prue.” He kissed her again, a gentle benediction, then stepped away and opened the door.