I love twists and turns. One of my favourite plotting mechanisms is to think about what might possibly go wrong, and then make it happen. How about you? Do you enjoy surprising your characters and your readers? Show me an excerpt in the comments!

Mine is from the start of To Mend the Broken-Hearted, the second book in the Mountain King series. My hero, Val, is a recluse after some terrible experiences at war and at home. His seclusion is about to end.

Val heard Crick before he saw him. “My lord, my lord,” the man was shouting, his voice high with barely suppressed panic. Val excused himself from a discussion about clearing a blockage in a stream that was threatening to flood the young barley, and took a few paces to meet Crick as the butler came hurtling across the field, careless of the new shoots.

“My lord, we’re under attack. They’ve captured the house, my lord.”

Val took the man’s arm and led him to the side of the field. “Take a deep breath, Crick,” he soothed. “All is well. We are in England. For us, the war is over.”

Crick pulled his arm free and so far forgot himself as to seize Val’s shoulders. “No, sir, you don’t understand. Soldiers on horseback. A lady with a sword. Another lady in the carriage. I tried to stop them, sir, but they forced their way into the house. They made Mrs Minnich take them to the family wing. We have to marshall the tenants, my lord, and rescue the servants.”

Being addressed as ‘my lord’ gave Val pause. Usually, when Crick had one of his episodes, he reverted to Val’s former rank. Always, in fact. When Crick called Val ‘major’, the whole household knew to hide anything that could be used as a weapon.

Barrow and his gangly young son had followed and were listening. Val met Barrow’s concerned eyes. “A carriage and some horsemen went down the lane a while back,” Barrow disclosed. The lane was out of sight from here, but Barrow explained his knowledge by fetching his son a clip across the ear. “The boy here saw them when he went to fetch the axe, but didn’t say nothin’”

Young Barrow’s observation suggested some truth to Crick’s fantasy, but it couldn’t possibly be the invasion Crick imagined. What would be the point? “I’ll investigate,” Val decided.

Crick and Barrow protested him going alone. “Five men, my lord,” Crick insisted. “Foreigners, they were, and the lady, too.”

Val’s troops were a half-mad butler, a burly tenant farmer, and his fifteen-year-old son. Val would do better alone. “You shall be my back-up,” he told them. “Stay at the edge of the woods where you can see the house. If I don’t come out within thirty minutes and signal that everything is safe, ride to the village for help.”

Crick argued, but Val was adamant. Still, as he crossed the open ground to the house, his skin prickled with the old familiar sense of walking into enemy territory.

He diverted his path to pass the stables. Sure enough, a strange carriage stood outside the carriage house, and through the open door of the stable block he could see two strangers, one with a fork of hay and one with a bucket, heading towards the stall. They stopped when they saw him, and stood waiting for him to approach.

Val saw why Crick had identified them as foreign. The olive skin and the beards would have been enough, without the red tunics that flowed loosely to mid thigh, the loose black trousers gathered into knee high boots, the bushy sheepskin hats. They did not put down their burdens, which argued for peaceful intentions, but the weapons in their belts, their alert stance, and their wary eyes suggested that ‘warrior’ was the correct identification.

“Who told you to make free with my stables?” he demanded.

The man with the hay fork used his head to indicate Val’s elderly stable master, who appeared from the aisle the men had been heading into. “Is it a mistake, my lord?” Greggs stammered. “Only, Mrs Minnich said I was to let them have what they needed.” His eyes lit and he smiled blissfully. “Such horses, my lord! I have never seen such horses in my stables. No, not in all my years.”

The man with the hay fork bowed. “Lord Ashcroft, I take it. I regret the necessity to trespass on your hospitality, your lordship.” The English was perfect, but Val could not place the accent any more than he could the clothing.

“You have the advantage of me,” he pointed out.

The thick brows drew together over the eagle’s beak of a nose. “The advantage, sir?” He cast a glance at his companion, who did not quite shrug.