A Twist Upon a Regency Tale

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Courting on WIP Wednesday

Phew. I met the deadline for The Trials of Alaric. Here’s a snippet. One of the trials is a treasure hunt. He has just been given the second clue, which is, like the first, a four line verse.

Mr. Redhaven arrived in the breakfast room looking pleased. His interview with Papa must have been successful, then. Bea itched to hear what had happened, but was not going to ask in front of the servants and the other guests. Only Lord Lucas and Lady Eleanor were up, and when she and Mr. Redhaven spoke about their planned walk, they announced their intention of coming along.

“If you do not mind, Bea,” Ellie said. The young ladies had all moved to first-name terms during their travels yesterday.

“It solves the problem of a chaperone,” Bea pointed out. “The older ladies are all still asleep, and I don’t wish to wait.” And she did not wish one of the older ladies hanging on every word that she and Mr. Redhaven exchanged. Whereas, unless she missed her guess, Lord Lucas and Ellie would be absorbed in one another, giving her and her escort all the privacy one could decently require.

It turned out just as she expected. They took the path down to the beach again, and the other couple lingered behind, clearly seeking their own privacy. “You seem to be none the worse for yesterday’s exertions,” Bea commented to Mr. Redhaven, as they scrambled down the steeper sections of the path. 

In truth, he was still being careful with some movements, but he no longer looked as if he was bruised in every bone and about to pass out.

“Colyn’s uncle has a liniment that is good for muscle strain,” he replied. “I can now swear by it, having put it on before I went to sleep yesterday. I might have applied more this morning, but it is rather pungent, and I would not wish to offend the company.”

She managed a shallow curtsey on the awkward terrain. “The company thanks you, Mr. Redhaven.”

“Could you be persuaded to call me Alaric?” he asked. “Just when we are alone. We are becoming friends are we not?”

Friends, and perhaps something more. The trials—and the choice at the end of them—loomed large in her mind. Perhaps a great deal more. “Very well, Alaric. And I am Bea.”

“A charming little name,” he commented. “Very useful things, bees.”

“I hope I am useful,” she retorted. “How did you get on with my father, Alaric?”

“I have the second clue. He said the panels were collectively the correct answer, but that the meaning of the answer will become clear with later answers. Or, at least, that was the substance of it.”

“So the solution to the treasure hunt is the sum of the clues,” Bea guessed. “How devious!”

“Clever, in any case. He wants to be sure your suitors are worthy of you, Bea. I cannot fault him for that.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to her. “Let’s read it together,” he invited.

She looked around to see if anyone else was close enough to interrupt them, but even Lord Lucas and Ellie were out of sight. Then she held one side of the paper and Alaric held the other.

“Roses ’neath moon’s silver light

Golden stars behold the sight

The flower climbs the mansion wall

For fleeting joy before the fall.”

Bea could not make head of tail of it. “Something in the garden? At night? We do not have climbing roses against the castle. I do not understand, Alaric.”

“Me neither,” Alaric admitted. “I am prepared to guess that the simple answer will not be the right one. Look how long I hunted for clocks and sun dials, and all the time, I should have been looking for the words.”

“But which words?” Bea wondered.

Alaric studied the paper again. “It isn’t necessarily the same type of riddle, but I must confess at the moment I am stumped. It could be at night, as you suggest, and in the garden. It could as easily be another ceiling or perhaps a tapestry somewhere.”

“Yes, or a painting. Here. You had better put it away. I see the others coming.” 

Ellie and Lord Lucas had been out of sight together for some time. Talking? Or something else?

Ellie was looking flushed, and her lips were redder than usual. She and Lord Lucas kept exchanging smiles and then looking quickly away. 

Bea might have her suspicions, but their behaviour was none of her business. Except that Lord Lucas had entered the trials. She hoped he was not kissing one girl while intending to marry another, if he won. 

“Shall we walk to the end of the beach and then back again?” Alaric asked, and everyone agreed. Bea’s concerns lessened as they walked, Bea with Alaric and Lord Lucas with Ellie.

“It must have been fun growing up with a beach on your doorstep,” Alaric said.

Bea agreed. “My governess and I had many a fine walk on the beach, and when I was older, I used to help the stablehands exercise the horses here. There is a ride down the hill on the side away from the sea, and a path that leads to the beach.”

“Do you spend most of your time here at the castle?” Ellie asked. “Or do you go to London with your parents?”

“I have never left Claddach,” Bea told them. “Mama wanted me to make my come out, but I was determined not to do so, and Papa supported me.”

Ellie stopped in her tracks. “You did not make your come out?”

Bea chuckled. “I did not. My cousins consider me very odd.”

“What made you so determined?” Lord Lucas asked. “I thought all girls dreamed of gowns and balls and the like.”

Ellie poked him in the side. “All girls are not the same, Luke.”

Lord Lucas yelped. “Ouch! Note to self. Turns to violence when annoyed.”

Ellie tossed her head. “When provoked,” she corrected, laughing, and he laughed back. “There is not a girl in the world like you, Ellie.” If Lord Lucas was serious about winning Bea, he would surely not be flirting with Ellie right under her nose. And they were callling each other by their first names. Not even that. Their nicknames.

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Courtship questions on WIP Wednesday

“Merrick danced with you again last night,” Peter observed at breakfast. “Twice, and one of them the supper dance.”

“Yes,” Rose said. “He asked me at the ball a few days ago. And last night he asked if he might take me driving this afternoon.”

“Did he, indeed?” asked Peter. “Is he courting you, Rose?”

Rose pondered that. He had certainly been attentive. He had not danced with Vivienne at all, and he had not danced with anyone twice. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his way to pick ladies who were not usually invited to dance. Debutantes who were young, shy, and spotty. Companions long past their last prayers and sinking into oblivion. Several wives who were faithful to their husbands but fond of dancing.

It had crossed Rose’s mind to wonder whether she was another of his charity cases, but she was beginning to hope that was not the case. No one else had been begged for four dances between the two balls. No one else was asked for a waltz, or for the privilege of escorting her into supper. He had directed the smoldering heat in his eyes in her direction and in her direction only. And now he had asked her to come for a drive.

She had not allowed herself to think as far ahead as courtship, however. “Usually, the men who pay me attention are trying to curry favor with Viv,” she told Peter.

“Lord Merrick has no interest in me,” Viv said.

“Lord Merrick has eyes for no one except Rose,” Arial observed.

“The question is,” said Peter, “how does Rose feel about Lord Merrick?”

Rose could feel her cheeks heating. “The question is a little beforehand, is it not? Lord Merrick has not asked to court me.”

Arial gave a quick shake of her head. “I disagree, Rose. If you think you might be developing an affection for Lord Merrick, then yes, wait and see what happens. If you are sure he is not someone you could tie yourself to for the rest of your life, now is the time to gently discourage him.”

“He’s rather old,” Viv observed.

“Thank you,” Peter said, dryly. He, Rose knew, would be thirty-seven years of age on his next birthday.

Viv refused to be squelched. “You are twice as old as I am, Peter, and Rose is only a year older than me.”

“It is a sizeable age gap,” Arial agreed, “but Rose is mature for her age.”

It is rather annoying to be talked about instead of to. “I am here, you know,” she pointed out.

Arial turned the tables on her rather neatly. “Do you mind the age gap, Rose? Would you like Lord Merrick to court you?”

She thought about the question and the man. Lord Merrick, with his haunted eyes, with his warrior’s face and figure, that looked as if all excess flesh had worn away, leaving only muscle and skin stretched over the bone. With the innate kindness that led him to offer dances to the overlooked and to agonize over the plight of an old man he had no reason to like.

“I do not see why he would,” she said. “What do I have to offer a man like him? As Viv says, he is a man grown, in the prime of his life. He has traveled the world and has had experiences I cannot imagine. Even if he finds me attractive…” She thought about the heat she had seen in his eyes and had to acknowledge, if only to herself, that he was attracted to her. “It does not mean he plans to act on his attraction.”

“He had better not,” Peter growled. “Not unless he has offered for you. Not unless you have his ring on your finger.”

“What do you want?” Arial asked, with gentle insistence.

I want Lord Merrick, Rose realized. “I would like to go driving with Lord Merrick, and see what happens after that. He has said he intends to return to Scotland, soon. If he does, then at least I will have had an enjoyable drive, and a pleasant partner for several dances.”

If he did not intend anything more than a flirtation to while away his time in London, he would leave Rose with a bruised heart, but so be it. She would not discourage him now and precipitate the loss she fully expected to suffer but would build a few memories to keep her company in the coming years. One waltz, one conversation, one drive at a time. Perhaps, if she was very fortunate, one kiss?

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Spotlight on The Sincerest Flattery<\i>

Can an arranged marriage become a love match? Or will lies and misunderstandings tear Percy and Lia apart?

When Percival Lord Thornstead heads to the far north of England to meet the bride his father has arranged for him to marry, bad weather, the ague and a crooked valet disrupt his travel plans. Turned away at the door of the manor, he takes a job minding sheep to stay close.

Lady Aurelia Byrne sneaks away from the house dressed as a kitchen maid. She is angry at being told she must marry someone she has never met. She’d rather marry the shepherd she meets in the fields than the London fop her father has chosen for her.

Percy guesses who Lia is and is charmed. Lia discovers who Percy is and falls in love. If not for Lia’s overbearing mother all would be perfect.

Then Percy’s father intervenes to carry Lia off to London to make her debut with Percy’s sister. She is having the time of her life when her mother makes public accusations that call her reputation into question. A hasty marriage restores her to favor. Deep in the throes of love, the young couple are blissfully happy, and have fashionable London at their feet.

Until a former mistress of Percy’s comes seeking a boon that takes him away from Lia’s side, and old rumors about Lia’s mother are revived, causing Lia to be shunned by the highest sticklers.

Their marriage will be tested to breaking point.

(The Sincerest Flattery is inspired by The Goose Girl)

 

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Dreams on WIP Wednesday

“What is it about Mrs. Dove Lyon’s masked balls,” Dorcas asked the upstairs girls who had gathered in the kitchen for breakfast before going home to their rooms to sleep, “that makes the Earl of Somerford think I should be gone from here before the next one.”

The girls looked at one another and laughed. “Lord Somerford is rather stiff about what is appropriate for ladies,” one of them offered.

“Not that we know him personally,” said another. “He is not a patron of our services.”

Scarlett Brown explained, “Some of us met his sister when she was using Mrs. Dove Lyon’s services as a matchmaker. She told us all about him.”

“Lord Somerford’s sister came to Mrs. Dove Lyon for a husband?” Dorcas was fascinated. The girls had told her stories about the women who paid for Mrs. Dove Lyon to match them to a gentleman, but she was somehow startled that an earl’s sister would be one of them.

They took it in turns to tell Dorcas about Lady Laureline and her long betrothal, which she ended when the man tried to put the wedding off for the fifth time. “Then she found out she must marry by the time she was twenty-five. Lord Somerford tried to talk her out of it, but she objected.”

When she visited the Lion’s Den she bumped into a lame violinist, who turned out to be an old acquaintance and the heir to an earl. He won a series of contests and they were soon married. And happily, by all accounts.

“All of Mrs. Dove Lyon’s matches are good ones,” one of the girls said, somewhat wistfully.

“Lord Somerford bought drinks for the whole house to celebrate the birth of their baby, his nephew,” Scarlett commented. “And I heard him tell someone that Angel—that is, Lord Findlater, is now able to walk with only a pair of walking sticks, and not crutches.”

“But he was not happy about his sister using Mrs. Dove Lyon, for all that it turned out so well,” another concluded.

“The Mystere Masque happens once a year,” Scarlett, returning to the point. “It is to celebrate Mrs. Dove Lyon’s birthday, and the tickets are very sought after, and very expensive. Anything might happen on the night, and usually does. But nothing that a person does not want. Our lady’s wolves make sure of that.”

“It is a grand night out for all of us,” said another. “Even though we are working, we all wear masks and consumes and we can pretend to be whoever we want to be.” She giggled. “Last year, I was a Prussian princess in exile.”

“Every year, Mrs. Dove Lyon gives away golden tickets. No one knows how she chooses who will get them, but everyone who gets them has a wonderful time, and some find love.” Scarlett sighed.

The sigh was repeated around the table. “It is a magical night.”

The Mystere Masque sounded wonderful. Dorcas hoped she would be allowed to see it. That was, if she was still here. Which she would not be, if Lord Somerford had his way. “Does Lord Somerford go?” she asked.

The girls did not know. Only those who dealt with the tickets would know—perhaps only Mrs. Dove Lyon herself. “Probably not,” Scarlett thought. “He sits and he watches. He nurses a drink or two all night and plays a friendly game of cards or two with friends, but he does not know how to enjoy himself, that one. What would he do at the Masque?”

The event caught Dorcas’s imagination. When the girls showed her their costumes, she could not help but imagine herself in one. As she embroidered the last of the current pile of linens, her mind was designing a costume for herself.

She had never been to—had never even seen such an event. She had been too young even for village assemblies before Michael met her in the village street. He’d run away with her after just three weeks of stolen meetings—how wicked she had been! But to be fair to her seventeen year old self, Michael had been seven years older, so should have had the wisdom that she lacked.

She had attended two assemblies with him as his wife, wonderful affairs to her young eyes, but even then she understood that the venues and even the gowns were the best that could be managed in a hostile country in the middle of a war, even behind English lines, as they were.

And the impromptu dances she and Noah had enjoyed during their marriage would have horrified her clergyman uncle and his wife, who had raised her.

Stephen jerked her out of her reverie, asking for help with a castle he was building, for the highest tower would not stay up.

Still, when she was settled back in her chair again, her needle flew all the faster for thoughts of a stunning costume that would fascinate and capture Lord Somerford.

There. She had put her yearnings into concrete thoughts. Very silly thoughts. If she was not well enough born, as a gentleman’s niece, for a duke’s third son, she was far more unsuitable, as a sergeant’s widow, for an earl.

The only role available for such as her in Lord Somerford’s life was not one she could possibly accept. For Stephen’s sake, if for no other reason. Scarlett would say it did not hurt to dream, but Dorcas thought Scarlett was wrong.

The kinds of dream that Dorcas was tempted to have about Lord Somerford would far too readily lead her into more temptation than she could resist. Then she would either be rejected or accepted. She didn’t know which would be worse.

No. Temptation was not something to be encouraged. Except perhaps for that one single night.

And there. She had knotted off the last thread and woven it back into the pattern until it disappeared from view entirely. She had better see whether Cook would mind watching Stephen while she took this lot to her employer.

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Cornwall and Cornish in Hold Me Fast

The story I’ve just sent to the publisher is at least partially set in Cornwall, so I needed to do some research to make sure I did justice to the county. Tin has been mined in Cornwall for four thousand years, right to the end of the twentieth century. Other metals, too. By the mid-nineteenth century, overseas competition made the Cornish mines less profitable, and so many miners and their families emigrated that the Cornish have a saying. “A mine is a hole in the ground with a Cornishman at the bottom”.

In my research I discovered that Cornish (Kernewek) is one of those languages that has been brought back from extinction in the past fifty years. It is still classified as critically endangered. In the sixteenth century, many people in Cornwall spoke only Kernewek, and objected strongly to the English Book of Common Prayer becoming the sole legal form of worship in England.

The so-called Prayer Book Rebellion was harshly put down. The language declined in the next two centuries, for several reasons, but at least in part because the local gentry adopted English so that they would not be considered disloyal and rebellious.

By the end of the eighteenth century, very few people (and perhaps no young people) spoke Kernewek.

Names are a different matter. Both first names and surnames are passed down through the generations. My hero and heroine have Cornish first names, as do several of the other Cornish characters.

As to the bogs and mires that play an important part in the story, Bodmin Moor has numerous peat deposits, as well as spectacular granite outcrops. Blanket bogs are peatlands that cover crests, slopes, flats, and hollows of a gently undulating terrain. Valley mires are areas of water-logged deep peat in valley bottoms or channels.

Good advice to walkers is to test the depth of any wet or shaky ground before you step on it.

I hope readers who live in Cornwall will enjoy what they recognise and forgive any errors.

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First Kiss from Hold Me Fast on WIP Wednesday

I’ve just sent Hold Me Fast off to Dragonblade. Here’s a foretaste–Jowan’s and Tamsyn’s first kiss. (And before you ask, those are traditional names in Cornwall.)

Her smile faded. “Jowan, why are you upset? Do you not wish to be my friend?”

Exasperated all over again, he snapped back, “I wish to be your husband and your lover.”

Tamsyn gaped at him. “You do? Still?”

He couldn’t believe she said that. “What did you think I was about? I’ve been courting you for months!”

“But you have never even tried to kiss me,” she replied.

It was the mystified tone that shredded the last of his self-control. If it was a kiss she wanted, then a kiss is what she would have. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to him, but all his indignation eased as his lips touched hers, and he gentled the kiss, his lips firm but tender.

She opened beneath him, her tongue darting out to taste him, and his hands left her shoulders and pulled her closer. Her arms went around his waist and she plastered her body to his, and an endless moment passed as their tongues explored one another and so did their hands.

It wasn’t until he felt her hands pulling his shirt from his trousers that he remembered they were standing on a lookout above the village, where anyone could see them. Reluctantly, his lips attempting to cling, he pulled back.

“The village,” he panted.

“Oh! I forgot.” Tamsyn cast a glance in that direction, and Jowan’s ego celebrated the fact that his kiss had made her unaware of their surroundings.

“I was waiting to be invited,” he told her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The kiss. You said I never even tried to kiss you, but I was waiting to be invited. Tamsyn, you couldn’t control what has happened to you over the years, and you didn’t need another male forcing their desires on you. If that gave you the impression I had stopped wanting you to be my wife, then I am sorry. But I am not sorry you were upset I didn’t kiss you.” Jowan was, in fact, decidedly smug about that last fact, and about how enthusiastically she had responded when he did kiss her.

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A little mouse of a heroine in WIP Wednesday

Thrown to the Lyon is beginning to gel in my mind.

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Dorcas Kent hoisted the heavy bag of linens and embroidery thread a little higher on her shoulder. Short as she was, it was hard to keep the bag from brushing the ground, which would be bad enough on any day, but worse when three days of heavy rain had turned the streets into a swamp of mud, dirty water, and other far more noxious substances.

She had walked to the drapery warehouse as soon as the sun had peeped through the clouds. Even if she had had the coins to spare, she was unwilling to risk the table linens she had embroidered in the filthy interior of a hackney. Mr. McMillan would dock the price of damaged linens from her wages and would, moreover, refuse to pay for any work she had done on them. Mr. McMillan was the man who employed her to apply family crests, monograms, or whatever motif buyers desired onto the household linens he supplied.

That was also why she was walking home, keeping one wary eye on the gathering clouds.

She carried two weeks or more of work and therefore a month’s rent, and food on the table for at least part of that month. The loss of even a set of table napkins could leave her destitute. Scraping the bag in the mud would be a disaster. Rain before she reached her room would be a disaster.

So, she readjusted the handle for the umpteenth time and trudged on.

Disaster came looking for her just as she rested for a moment against a stone water trough set a little back from the footpath. She had her back against the trough and the precious bag clasped to her belly as she looked idly at the passersby and wished that she did not have so far to walk.

People must have rushed out to enjoy the brief sunshine, for both road and footpath were crowded. One lady caught her eye. She was clad in deep black, and a veil fell from her bonnet to cover her veil. Dorcas found herself wondering about the widow. Did the heavy mourning represent the truth or a social lie?

Dorcas had worn black for Michael, and then again for Noah. Not, however, quite like the lady she observed. She smiled at the very idea. It was like comparing a sparrow and a peacock—her in her hastily dyed everyday gowns and the clearly wealthy lady who was picking her way cautiously around a puddle in her expensive and fashionable sails and velvets.

The lady was just walking past Dorcas when someone dashed out from the shadows and pushed her, so that she stumbled into the street, right into the path of an approaching carriage.

Dorcas was barely aware of the assailant running away and was not conscious at all of casting her bag down and hurling herself after the lady. She didn’t think, but grabbed a double handful of the lady’s redincote and swung her around, just before the horses, snorting and stamping, reached their position.

For one horrid moment, she lost her own balance as the carriage raced towards her. Then hard hands grabbed her, pulling her to safety. And the lady in black, too, she noticed as a tall strong man with hard eyes set her on her feet, and another did the same for the widow. The carriage had driven on by, the driver hurling imprecations over his shoulder.

“How can I ever repay you?” The widow held her hands out to Dorcas. “You saved me from serious injury, at the very least. Titan, did you see who pushed me?”

“No, Mrs. Dove Lyon,” said the man who had caught the lady. “I’ve sent a man after him, but he was fast on his feet.”

“And you, Miss?” Mrs. Dove Lyon asked Dorcas.

“Mrs.,” Dorcas commented. “And no, all I saw was his back as he gave you a shove.”

“Mrs…?” Mrs. Dove Lyon asked.

It was at that moment that Dorcas remembered her bag. “Kent,” she replied absentminded as she looked for the bag. Her heart quailed when she saw it lying on the edge of a puddle. “My linens!” she moaned.

Sure enough, when she picked up the bag, she could see that one corner was completely saturated in muddy water.

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Mysteries to solve in WIP Wednesday

Another excerpt from Hold Me Fast, which should be finished this week. (I’m editing, but I also have to write the very end. The villain is dead, but the story isn’t over until my couple are happily married.) In the following excerpt, Jowan has been turned away at the house where Tamsyn lives, and decides to hire an investigator.

“There is another matter,” Bran said, with a nod of encouragement to Jowan.

Wakefield raised an eyebrow.

Jowan wasn’t sure where to start. “The singer, Tammie Lind. I need to know… That is, could you find out…” What? If she was a prisoner? It sounded ridiculous to his own ears, and he could only imagine what Wakefield would think of it.

“The lady is actually Tamsyn Roskilly, the daughter of our father’s housekeeper,” Bran explained. “She left Cornwall when she was sixteen, promising to keep in touch. She failed to write, even to her mother. When her mother died, shortly after our father, we informed her through the Earl of Coombe, her patron.”

Wakefield, who had been toying with his pen looked up at that, his focus sharpening.

“We received no reply even to that,” Bran continued. “When we called on the Earl of Coombe, we were denied entry. It is possible that the lady has brushed the dust of her homeland from her feet and wants nothing to do with anything from her past. My brother fears that letters from home might have been kept from here, or that she is being suborned in some way, or both.”

“Bran puts it very well,” Jowan agreed. “We will leave her alone, if that is her choice. But we owe her a rescue if she needs one.

“The Earl of Coombe has a dark reputation,” Wakefield told them. “I can tell you that without any investigation at all. How much it is still deserved, I do not yet know. When he was last in England, he was infamous for his parties and his liaisons, and known in certain circles for dissolute behaviour beyond that normally expected of a young British aristocrat. I have not followed his activities on the continent, but I know who might have done so. I can ask. Also, I have another client who has asked me to investigate his current activities. I can report on what I find to you, if you wish.”

“If you would,” Jowan said.

“As to Miss Roskilly, or Miss Lind as she is now known, I should be able to find out what you want to know. You might not like any answers I find for you, however. Coombe was well known for his ability to corrupt innocence, and I cannot imagine that any young woman in his power would escape his attentions.”

Jowan shut his eyes against the roaring in his ears. His sweet Tamsyn in the hands of a villain! He didn’t want to imagine it but was beseiged by a kaleidoscope of scenes of her calling for help while a malign presence assailed her.

“Jowan?” Bran’s voice anchored him back in the presence and allowed him to catch his breath.

“Find out, Wakefield. It is better to know the worst rather than be haunted by speculation.”

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Spotlight on Hook, Lyon and Sinker

Hook, Lyon and Sinker

When Lady Laureline Barker asks Mrs. Dove Lyons to find her a husband, she does not expect one of her choices to be the man she admired years ago, when she was still a schoolgirl—the man who rescued her from drowning. He is also a war hero, famed for trading his own freedom and health for the safety of others.

Laurel is committed to a contest, with the winner taking her and her dowry. Can she back out? And will he still want her if she does?

Angelico Warrington doesn’t expect Laurel to remember him. Even if she does, why should she favor him over other suitors? She is the respected sister to an earl, the only flaw on her reputation that she refused to marry a jerk who has been putting off the wedding date for five years.

Angel is a musician in a gambling den, unable to walk without crutches, and with no place in the Society to which Laurel belongs.

This apparently ill-assorted couple are a perfect match, but history must repeat itself and secrets be revealed before they can win their happy ending.

Preorder price only 99c. Published this coming Wednesday. https://www.amazon.com/Hook-Lyon-Sinker-Lyons-Den-ebook/dp/B0CSF79RMD

Excerpt:

One of Titan’s men came to tell Carter and Angel that the first contest was about to start. While they had been talking, some of the servants had rolled out a large square piece of furniture. Angel couldn’t imagine its purpose until he approached closely enough to see that it was an open-topped box about ten feet across. It was lined with something that must be impervious to liquid, for the box was full of water almost to the top. A score or more toy ships sailed on the surface.

“Gentlemen,” said Titan, “if you will take your places, please.” He directed Angel to one side of the box, and Carter to the opposite side. Angel picked up the sling he found waiting for him. The bowl full of smooth blue stones told him what the game comprised before Titan explained.

Carter’s stones were red, Angel noticed. Half a dozen gentlemen took their places along the remaining sides of the tank, and two of Mrs. Dove Lyons men stood flanking each of the players.

Other gentlemen crowded in behind the spotters, though several of Titan’s wolves kept them back from behind Carter and Angel.

Then Titan said, “Go,” and Angel picked up his sling, fitted a stone, and hurled it at a ship. It was harder than it appeared. For one thing, it took considerable force to sink a ship. For another, any lesser hit sent the target careening across the water, rocking the other ships and setting them sailing in unexpected directions. All that movement started waves, which complicated matters still further.

The watchers roared when a lucky shot from Angel sank an already-damaged ship, and again a few moments later, presumably for Carter, though Angel was not about to take his eye from his current target.

As he continued to launch stones, someone came to fill the bowl. Was he getting better? He had the impression he was sinking ships more rapidly, but perhaps it was just that time had slowed as he slung stone after stone, not pausing to see the effect, but moving on the next.

Every now and again, though, another stone hit a ship he was aiming for just before or after his own. If the ship sank, the spotters yelled out the name of the man who was responsible. Twice, there was a dispute, but Angel didn’t allow that to distract him, either.

Then Titan shouted, “Time! Put down your slings, gentlemen.”

Angel replaced his sling on the side of the box and looked across the water to Carter, who nodded and smiled. Angel had no idea whether he or Carter had won. He returned the nod and the smile. Carter was a decent man.

Angel’s eyes drifted up to the ladies’ gallery, where Laurel stood, watching the first of the contests that would decide her fate. Carter was a decent man, but he wanted a mother for his daughters.

Laurel deserved more. She deserved a man who adored her.

 

 

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A cunning plan on WIP Wednesday

 

My hero abducts my heroine in Hold Me Fast. The image above belongs to one of the stories that inspired mine.

It was time, then. Jowan mounted his horse. “Wish me luck, Bran.”

“Always,” Bran replied from the back of his own steed, extending his hand. Jowan shook it and Bran rode off, away from the main ride.

After a nod for the boy on lookout, Jowan nudged his horse into a swift walk. So far, so good. Coombe kept coming. Jowan kept his head down so that the hat would shade his face. The conspirators had calculated that Coombe would not give Jowan a second look, given he was on a side ride and not likely, at his current pace, to reach the main ride before all of Coombe’s retinue had passed.

Good. Coombe was beyond the intersection of the two rides. Jowan gave the horse the signal for a trot, then a canter. One. Two. Three. By the time he counted to fifteen, he was pulling the horse up alongside Tamsyn, clasping her around the waist, and lifting her to sit on his pommel. The clever lady had already kicked her feet free of the stirrup, and so the transfer took a count of two, but that was enough time for one of Coombe’s men to react, forcing his horse foreward to block Jowan’s escape.

The horse Drew had provided for the rescue shouldered the other horse away out of the way and bounded away, reaching a gallop within a second. Ten strides and they were through the gate. They slowed and turned left, continuing to reduce speed. Drew had assured Jowan that the horse would be able to stop within ten yards of the gate, and so two of Jowan’s accomplices waited at that point.

The horse was still moving, if slowly, when Jowan let Tamsyn down into Drew’s arms. By the time he had dismounted himself, Tamsyn had abandoned her riding cape to Prue Wakefield and was donning the hat Prue gave her—a stylish flat hat that tied on with a scarf and hid part of Tamsyn’s face.

Jowan tossed Tamsyn up into the saddle of one of the two horses that a boy was holding, and himself mounted the other. Meanwhile, Prue had put on Tamsyn’s cape and Drew tossed her up on the horse Jowan had abandoned, and was mounting behind her.

“Thank you both,” Jowan called to them as they rode off along Park Lane. Jowan led Tamsyn in the opposite direction. They had organised several more decoys, and would fire off one of them as soon as they reached the corner of Cullross and Park. Drew’s horse would go one way along Park, and the near identical horse that was standing at wait would go the other. They’d repeat the ploy at three more corners, until sixteen chestnut geldings spread out across London, all around 16 hands high and all bearing a rider in a black coat and top hat, with a passenger sitting on the front of his saddle. All those decoys had to do was stay out of reach of Coombe and his men, but even if they were caught, they all had good reason to be out on the roads on such a day.

Meanwhile, Jowan must trust them to know their work, for his part of the plan was to turn off into a street away from the shell game of the multiplying horses, where a hackney waited that would take them west to Bran and the travelling carriage.

“We will go to Southall tonight,” he told the woman in his arms. “It’s two hours, so we will not need to change the horses.”

“They are lovely horses,” Tamsyn said, her voice distant as if she was thinking of something else. “We will send these beauties home to their owner,” he told her. “We turn here, and there, up ahead, is our transport for the next step. It’s not the final, though. The hack will take us to the last vehicle of the day.”

Tamsyn giggled. “It is like the children’s game. Stop the music, and if there is not a horse to plop down on, you lose.”

She willingly allowed him to help her down from her horse and see her into the hack.

So far, so good.