After: William Hogarth

Scandal, or the threat of it, is a useful tool in historical romance—and in many other types of fiction. Indeed, much of history revolves around what happens when people try to avoid scandal, or when a scandal breaks.

Today, I’m looking for an excerpt to do with scandal: past, present, possible, imagined, or actual.

Mine is from A Midwinter’s Tale, my box set story for the Speakeasy Scribes. It’s the scandal that wasn’t, because they managed to keep their secret.

Tee would have loved to have sisters, or at least known the ones her mother told Uncle Will about. Two older sisters, and a brother who was her twin, and who escaped with her mother. If the escape was real, and not just a kind story Uncle Will made up to comfort a grieving toddler.

After all, it could not be true. Her mother could not have walked out of the twentieth century into a tavern in nineteenth century Boston and then skipped two hundred years to frozen Jogenheim. That was Uncle Will’s story—his pregnant great grandmother had made a double time jump, first to the past and then to her future, where she gave birth to twins. Tee and her brother.

When the PED tried to scoop her up to add to the breeding pool, Tee’s mother and brother stepped through the tavern door into history, leaving Tee to be raised by Will, who was her great nephew and also sixty years older than her.

Tee snorted. More likely, her mother escaped the breeding pool long enough to have Tee, was then locked up, and would arrive once more on their doorstep when her breeding days were over. Breeders who coupled with unlicensed males or hid their babies lost their freedom of movement. Everyone knew that.

If they caught Tee, they would lock her up, too.