A Twist Upon a Regency Tale

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Escaping the family on WIP Wednesday

Lia went upstairs, the name Percy had called her running through her mind. My golden girl. She knew, of course, that Aurelia meant the golden one, but nobody had ever before suggested that the name was appropriate for her. Her mother had made the name distasteful by the way she said it, as if her disappointment with her daughter began with her name. But she didn’t mind Lance saying it, and Percy’s interpretation almost reconciled her entirely.

As she passed the second floor, she stopped to find out where her mother was, adopting the simple but effective tactic of asking the maids. Mama was no longer with the duke, but she and Father had retreated into their rooms. Since they could not be depended on to stay there, Lia hurried up to the third floor to ask after Miss Walton, who was resting and comfortable, or so said Miss Hatfield when she came to the door in answer to Lia’s knock.

“Do you or Miss Walton need anything,” Lia asked? “My mother has put me in charge of seeing to your comfort, so please let me know what I can provide to help you.” Remembering Percy’s twist on her mother’s words made her smile again. To think she had been afraid that marriage would just be a move from one prison to another!

Before she returned to the main stairs, Pansy arrived. “His lordship suggested we left the house by the servants’ stairs, my lady. He’s a right one, is Lord Thornstead, isn’t he, my lady? He and Lord Lancelot will be waiting by the kitchen door.”

They were, too, armed with enough umbrellas and rain capes to go around. “Let’s check the sheep,” Percy suggested. “I have a familial interest in the lambs that were born while I was in charge.”

Lia didn’t mind where they walked. When her mother was in residence, the air inside the house was harder to breathe and the knowledge that her mother might send for her at any moment weighed her down. Stepping outside allowed the weight to roll off her back, and she was able to take a full breath for the first time since Mama and Father returned from Berwick yesterday evening.

“We will not stay out for too long,” she decreed, against her own wishes. She must remember that the gentlemen were not long out of their sickbeds. “I will not be responsible for you becoming sick again. What would His Grace say?”

“Something sarcastic,” Lance suggested. “Seriously, though, if we choose to walk out in the cold and become ill again, His Grace will blame us. You are not responsible for what other people do, Lia.”

“I am apparently responsible for every misstep my brothers make,” Lia retorted.

Percy took her hand. “They cannot blame you when you are married to me and gone,” he pointed out.

Even through the gloves, his touch set off what she was beginning to think of as “the Percy effect.” Every time he touched her, she felt strange. Restless. Tingly. When he placed his bare hands around her bare hands in the library, and especially when he kissed them, she had had the mad urge to kiss his, or perhaps to kiss his cheek. Or more.

She had seen people around the estate kissing. By accident, such as when she came round a corner and a footman and maid leapt apart and tried to pretend they were working. Or when she entered the stable without warning and surprised a groom and a dairy maid in a passionate embrace.

At the party that celebrated the end of shearing, too. She was never allowed to stay past dark, but even before dark, drink dissolved inhibitions and propriety, and several couples were less hidden in the shadows than they thought.

Kissing had something to do with making babies. Mama became distressed and angry when she asked about it, and even Miss Walton refused to discuss the matter, saying any questions would be better addressed to her future husband.

Lia had been frustrated by the answer, but now she thought it was wise. She would ask Percy at the first opportunity, and she knew he would not laugh at her ignorance, but would give her a proper answer. She could trust Percy.

 

This one is from The Sincerest Flattery. The picture isn’t quite appropriate, but the period is correct.

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Tea with Lia and Percy

They met in the little park opposite the confectioners, The Pot and Pineapple. The Duchess of Haverford had brought her two sons, as promised. The Marquis of Aldridge, a boy of eleven, bowed in proper form and followed that with a brilliant smile.

He has his father’s–our father’s–charm in full measure, Lia thought. He looked like His Grace, too. Fair hair, hazel eyes, a figure that was still lean young boy but that bid fair to be as tall and well formed as his–as their father’s one day.

The duchess presented her younger son Lord Jonathan, a sturdy toddler who would look like his brother and father when he grew, and a youth of about her age with dark curls but the same hazel eyes. “And this is David, Lady Aurelia,” Her Grace said, when she introduced him. “Half-brother to my sons and to you.”

Lia had, she supposed, been fortunate to take after her mother, with her dark brown hair, but where the grey eyes came from, she did not know. Her father also had dark hair, and fair locks might have raised more than a few eyebrows.

The young marquess must have been thinking along the same lines. “I expected you to look like him,” he said. “We all do, except that David has black hair.”

“Lady Aurelia looks like her mother did at that age,” said the duchess, “or so I have been told.”

“Mama says that I cannot acknowledge you as my sister,” Aldridge announced. “Which is stupid, because everyone knows. But we can be friends, can we not?”

“Of course, we can,” Lia agreed.

“Good,” Aldridge agreed. “For your husband and I shall be dukes one day, and it is hard to have friends when you are going to be a duke, Lady Aurelia, Lord Thornstead.” He sighed, his eyes far too world-weary for an eleven year old. “Everyone wants something from a duke’s heir.”

“Friends then,” said Percy, holding out his hand. “I am Percy and my wife prefers family to call her Lia.”

The smile flashed again, even more brilliant. “Percy and Lia,” Aldridge repeated.

“Jonathan wants cake,” announced the toddler. Which, since The Pot and Pineapple was just across the road, Lord Jonathan was able to have. In fact, they all enjoyed some of the confections from the famous shop, and had a comfortable coze in the park.

Percy’s close relationship with his brothers and sisters had made Lia–not jealous, exactly, for they had welcomed her into their warm arms. Wistful was the right word. Her own family was broken–her mother and the man she had always thought to be her father at constant war, her brothers taught to regard her with suspicion and scorn. Now, perhaps, she had a family of her own. Brothers who wanted to be friends. It was a good day.

***

(Percy and Lia are hero and heroine of The Sincerest Flattery, coming in April 2024.)

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Nasty families on WIP Wednesday

I do write nice parents. Honest. Spen’s father, in Weave Me a Rope, isn’t one of them.

Chatter proved to be nearly as gentle a nurse as Spen’s housekeeper. He set Spen’s broken arm, bound up his cracked ribs, and provided poultices for the bruises. Spen had tried to defend himself from the earl, but the men the earl had brought with him held Spen’s arms, and Spen had been handicapped by being chained in one place.

He seemed to recall that his own head guard intervened to stop the beating, but perhaps that was just a dream. Certainly, he had no memory of being carried from the room, and he had not seen either peer again since. Chatter told him they had left, but the little lady remained.

He spent more than a week of very uncomfortable days. On the third day, he insisted on the binding being removed from around his ribs. A good deep breath hurt, but was not the stabbing pain Chatter warned him to watch for.

“You’ll do, my lord,” Chatter had assured him.

Spen certainly hoped so, because he still felt like one enormous bruise, quite apart from the sharp pain of his arm and ribs. But filling his lungs helped his general malaise. For the rest, it was just a matter of time.

The footman who served him was a little more forthcoming about what had happened after Spen was knocked unconscious. He confirmed Chatter had rescued Spen, intervening when it became clear the earl was not going to stop just because Spen was unconscious.

“Lord Deerhaven was right peeved with Lord Yarverton,” he confided. “Said he’d gone too far. Lord Yarverton stormed off. Lord Deerhaven went this afternoon, when he knew you hadn’t taken an infection, my lord.”

“Did they beat Lady Daphne?” Spen asked, and was relieved to hear the lady was unharmed, but locked in a suite of rooms just a little farther along the passage. “What is the name of this place?” he asked the footman. “Where are we?” But the guard on duty growled and the footman had paled and stopped talking.

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Arranged marriage on WIP Wednesday

An arranged marriage is a fairly common historical romance trope, and one I’ve used before. Apart from The Prisoners of Wyvern Castle, I haven’t attempted the challenge of turning an arranged marriage with a very young couple into a love match. Most couples of mine who find themselves in that situation are immediately separated and have to find their way back to one another again. Could I write a naive but reckless young woman and her somewhat more experienced but equally young husband, and make it fun for modern audiences? Challenge accepted. Here’s my hero of The Sincerest Flattery, a story inspired by the Goose Girl.

“Ride on ahead, Lance,” Percy begged. “Let them know I have been delayed.” At least, that is what he intended to say, though his stuffed up nose and raw throat garbled the words.

His brother apparently understood, for he shook his head. “I shouldn’t leave you, Percy. I won’t leave you, at least until after I’ve spoken with the physician.”

“Can’t keep a lady waiting,” Percy insisted, but he might have saved himself the trouble. Lance might be nearly five years his junior, and mostly content to go along with his old brother’s plans and schemes, but when he dug his toes in, there was no moving him.

A knock on the door. Perhaps it was the physician? It was the innkeeper’s wife, with a tray. “Some chicken soup for the young lord,” she offered.

Percy didn’t want food, but Lance said the innkeeper’s wife insisted that he would recover more quickly if he kept up his strength. So he succumbed to having his pillows plumped so that he could sit up, at least enough to have the tray put on the bed.

But his head hurt to much to lift it, and the spoon felt as if it was made of granite and ten times the size. In the end, Lance fed him, a spoonful at a time, until he covered his mouth after the sixth spoonful. “Enough. Let me lie down, Tris. There’s a good chap.”

The innkeeper’s wife, who was hovering, asked, “Did you understand him, my lord?”

“He has had enough, and wants to lie back down,” Lance explained. “I daresay your head hurts, old chap.” He had picked up the tray and handed it the woman, and was supporting Percy with one arm, while rearranging the pillows with the other. “You should let me stay and nurse you, Percy.”

Percy shook his head, a slow and tiny movement from side to side, so as not to burst his pounding head right open.

Another knock on the door, and this time it was the physician. Lance hustled the innkeeper’s wife away and fetched Martin while the doctor did his examination. That was a relief. If he had brought Martin to listen to instructions for Percy’s care, then Lance intended to follow his brother’s instructions.

The brothers were on their way to meet the girl to whom Percy was betrothed. It would be rude to keep Lady Aurelia waiting, and Percy could already tell—was unsurprised to hear the physician telling his brother—that he would be a week or more in bed with this wretched cold.

This ague, rather, which is what the doctor called it. It didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did except for the wretched head, the throat, the blocked nose, the cough that seemed to twist his ribs inside his chest and tear his muscles.

The doctor droned on, and Percy heard bits and pieces in between bouts of coughing and musings about Lady Aurelia. Her miniature was pretty. His father had met her and said she was a comely chit. She had never had a Season, but then she was only seventeen, just a few months younger than Percy’s sister Gwen.

Their parents had signed the marriage agreements. The wedding was to be in six months. No one seemed to think it necessary for the two principals to the marriage to actually meet before the betrothal was announced, which would be before Lady Aurelia arrived in town with her parents for the Season.

And once the betrothal was announced, of course, the wedding must follow, or there would be scandal.

When Percy came up with the scheme to ride north and introduce himself to the lady and her family, the duke his father did not object. All he said was, “Comport yourself like a Versey, Thornstead. And take young Lance with you.”

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Tea with the Duke of Dellborough

 

“Your Grace,” said the Duke of Dellborough, the deep inclination of his head showing his respect for his peer’s estimable wife.

“Your Grace,” replied the Duchess of Haverford, with a polite curtsey, equal to equal.

He offered his arm. “May I purchase you a cup of tea?”

The duchess checked the whereabouts of her intrepid sons. The oldest was sailing a boat on the pond, with his tutor watching indulgently. The youngest was currently feeding ducks under the supervision of a nursemaid, but was as likely as not to take it into his darling but stubborn little head to leap into the pond after either a duck or his brother’s boat.

“Yes,” she said to the duke once she was reassured the tutor and nursemaid had all under control. “That would be pleasant. But if you would, Dell, not out of sight of my son.” An innovative street peddlar had set up a little booth with a pot-stove to boil water and little round tables with chairs. Undoubtedly the park authorities would move him on before long, but in the meantime, Eleanor would enjoy a cup of tea.

“Of course.” His smile was for a memory, distant and sweet. “My beloved duchess was similarly concerned with our brood, though we had nursemaids and governesses and tutors galore. Tell me, Eleanor, as an old friend, how are you? And how is that husband of yours?”

Trust Dellborough to tread into such fraught territory. Nobody else in Society dared to mention the Duke of Haverford to his duchess or vice versa.

“I could not tell you, Dellborough,” she replied. “I have not seen  him in nearly a year.” Not since he had attempted to revisit his duchess’s bed despite the state of his intimate health and in breach of the agreement they had made for two sons, and she threatened him with documented evidence of lèse-majesté.

Dell sent her an amused glance, his eyes twinkling. “Dear me, I am Dellborough again. Do I owe you an apology, Your Grace? Or is it not me you are cross with?”

Eleanor swatted his arm with her fan. “You are far too perceptive, you impertinent man. And what is this I hear about you marrying that young man of yours to an even younger bride.”

“Tit for tat, Eleanor? But as it happens, Thornstead and his Aurelia are what I wanted to talk to you about. Aurelia in particular. She has the makings of a good wife and a magnificent duchess, but she is only seventeen. I am concerned about the pair of them. The marriage seemed like a good idea at the time, and once Thornstead met Aurelia he was besotted.” He sighed.

“What can I do to help, dear friend?” Eleanor asked, though in truth, it had been Dell’s duchess who was her friend. Still, for Maryanne’s sake…

“Just keep an eye on her, if you would, and I know I can trust you for a word in time, if needed.”

“Whether it will be heard is another matter,” Eleanor warned, “but of course I will do what I can.”

***

The Duke of Dellborough is a character in my current work in progress, The Sincerest Flattery. The year is 1791. Dell’s son and heir, Percival Versey, Marquess of Thornstead, is the hero, and the heroine is Aurelia Moreland, the daughter of the Earl of Byrne.

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Family on WIP Wednesday

I am rather enjoying my hero’s father in The Sincerest Flattery. Here’s a sample.

“I believe our children are in here,” Lord Byrne was saying, as he walked in the door. A step behind him was His Grace, the Duke of Dellborough.

Both young men shot to their feet, and bowed. “Your Grace,” they chorused.

“Here are mine,” His Grace said to Lord Byrne. “Yours appears to be missing. What have you done with your betrothed, Thornstead?”

“You missed her by a few minutes, Your Grace. Her mother sent for her.”

“I shall have her fetched,” Byrne announced, and disappeared back out the door.

His Grace approached his sons. “So. You are both here. Thornstead, you are back on your feet, if not quite as hale and hearty as a fond parent might hope. Lancelot, you have also been ill, from the look of you. Sicker than Thornstead, one might even guess.”

Lance blushed and Percy felt a stab of guilt. “Did my letter not reach you, Your Grace? I wrote to let you know what happened at the inn, and that I was better.”

The ducal eyebrows lifted halfway. A sardonic remark was on its way. “Your letter was—I shall not say appreciated, Thornstead. One struggles to summon appreciation for a letter that explains one’s eldest son and heir has been robbed and left for dead by a villain one selected oneself to be that young man’s most trusted servant.” His Grace their father held it as an important tenet that a gentleman never showed emotion, but apparently even His Grace made exceptions, for cold anger edged every word.

“I survived, sir,” Percy pointed out. “Thanks largely to the innkeeper’s wife.”

“Yes,” the duke drawled, “and you will no doubt be gratified to know that that part of your message pleased me. Especially since the previous mail had brought me no fewer three other messages that left me in doubt about that agreeable fact.”

“I wrote as soon as I could, sir,” Percy protested.

“Yes, my boy. And I am glad you did. The gratifying news that you were alive was, of course, a relief to a father’s heart. I could have wished for slightly more detail before I set off up the Great North Road at a pace not consistent with my dignity nor, I fear, my age. ”

Percy, processing that remark, was touched to think his father had set off north at high speed.

“I am, however, pleased to see you, young Lancelot, since my three letters all mentioned Thornstead, and ignored the existence, or at least the presence, of my second son. And Thornstead’s letter was sparse on the details important to a father, saying only, ‘I am now heading off to join Lance’. But one was left to wonder, joining Lance where? And why were my sons, who left together, in two different places?”

At that point, Lord Byrne reappeared, escorting Lady Byrne and Aurrie. Aurrie looked unhappy. No. Subdued was a better word. As if some vital part of her had been extinguished. Lord and Lady Byrne fussed over the duke, who thanked them politely for their letters. Apparently, they had both arrived on the same day, one calling His Grace north as soon as possibly, for his son Thornstead was seriously ill, and the doctor feared for his life, followed by one that assured the duke that Thornstead was on the mend.

That accounted for two of the duke’s three letters, but Percy realised that they must have left His Grace with the wrong impression.

“Sir,” he said, when there was a pause in Lady Byrne’s assurances that they had been delighted to look after the young lord. “Lord and Lady Byrne did not realise that their patient was actually Lance, and not me. Lance was sick when he arrived, you see, and they found my signet ring and assumed he was me.”

“Thornstead, you have no ambition to become a novelist, one hopes,” His Grace replied. “I would not mention it, except that you seem to be beginning the story in the middle.”

He bowed to the two ladies. “Perhaps, if Lady Byrne and Lady Aurelia would permit, we might be seated to hear what happened in its proper order?”

Aurrie flushed a bright red at the subtle rebuke. Lady Byrne, whose responsibility it was to make guests feel welcome and comfortable, did not even notice she had been reminded of her duties. “Of course, dear duke. Do be seated, please. I haven’t heard this story myself. I wondered why Lord Lancelot was pretending to be his brother, but Lord Byrne said it was all a mistake and I was not to be concerned. It seemed very peculiar.” She frowned. “It was very peculiar. Do you not think so, duke?”

“We shall hear what Thornstead and Lancelot have to say, shall we?” His Grace replied.

Lord Byrne comment, “I have sent for tea and my daughter has ordered a room made up for you, Dellborough. Ah, yes, and here is the tea.”

“I shall pour for us all and the maid shall pass the tea around,” Lady Byrne announced. “How do you take your tea, Your Grace?”

His Grace, who would have preferred a wine, inclined his head in polite appreciation and asked for a cup with tea only, no additions. His sons, who were familiar with his smallest gesture, picked up his impatience from the tap of one middle finger on his thigh, but he said nothing as the lady continued chattering as she poured the tea.

He spoke, however, as soon as Lancelot was served and the maid withdrew.

“Now, if you please, Thornstead, and in order.”

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He Who Dares, Wins on WIP Wednesday

In honour of sending Hook, Lyon, and Sinker out for beta reading, here’s another snippet. My hero and Mrs. Dove Lyons chief guard are in Hyde Park, watching Lady Laureline from afar.

Your birth is the equal of hers,” Titan argued. “You have money enough for a wife, too—you only work because you want to. As to your legs, they won’t matter to someone who cares about you.”

Angel shook his head. Titan was wrong on all counts. Except, perhaps, the money. He had won some exceptional prizes while at war, though they were all invested and he wouldn’t see any return from them until the first one paid out—though the date for that was fast approaching. And he’d inherited his mother’s share of the Sicilian vineyards, which thrived under the stewardship of his cousins, but he’d written to ask them to keep the money in Sicily while he decided what to do with the rest of his life.

At the moment, the job stood between him and destitution, which would be uncomfortable, even if short lived.

As to family, his Sicilian family wasn’t good enough for the Warringtons, so why would it be good enough for Somerville? Angel certainly didn’t regard his father’s family as his own. They had cut their son off without regret when he married Angel’s mother.

Which left his feet. He could not be as sanguine as Titan about Laurel’s opinion of the poor mangled messes he carried around beneath his ankles. Or that of any other woman, for that matter.

“Perhaps,” was all he said.

“She’s out to purchase a husband,” Titan commented. “You are a fool if you don’t try to win her.”

Angel had been trying to ignore his friend, but that remark about a husband riveted his attention. Yes, she had been visiting Mrs. Dove Lyons, but Angel had convinced himself that she must have been on some errand other than the obvious. “Purchase a husband? Why?” He waved his hand towards the path along which Laurel and her escort were currently approaching. “I mean, look at her. She is beautiful, charming, clever…”

His eyes fixed on her, he ran out of words.

“Mrs. Dove Lyons does not share her clients’ secrets,” Titan told him. “But I have been told to meet Lady Laureline at the ladies’ door the evening after next and take her to a room from which she can view three possible husbands. After that, I have a contest to arrange, with the prize for wager on the outcome being the hand of the lady in marriage.”

Angel had trouble getting out the words through the anguish that filled his chest. “What sort of a contest?”

Laurel and her brother were nearly level with them. Laurel caught his eye, smiled at him, and lifted a hand in greeting. He bowed and Lord Somerton touched his hat, as did Titus. Then they were past, out onto the London streets on their way home. She glanced back over her shoulder, and Angel waved again. He watched her ride away down the street, his heart warmed by her smile.

“She recognized you,” Titus observed.

“From yesterday,” Angel insisted. “She knows me only as Nereus, the lame musician.”

“Let me ask Mrs. Dove Lyons to include you in the possibles,” Titus said. “If she says no, you will be no worse off.”

Angel couldn’t answer. He had too many thoughts clamoring for room on his tongue. He fixed his crutches under his armpits, and began propelling himself toward Whitehall and the Lyon’s Den. Titan kept pace, but didn’t speak, for which Angel was grateful.

After several minutes, he had his ideas in a row, but still he didn’t speak them out loud. Instead, he found himself arguing with himself.

Mrs. Dove Lyons has no reason to agree. Her reputation won’t be enhanced by such a match. I can’t pay her—not at the moment, anyway. Her guests will object if I am included among them. But, as Titus said, if she refused him, he would no worse off.

Laurel will demand I am removed from the running. Again, if that happened, he would have lost nothing.

I cannot compete against able-bodied men in a game of strength or speed. Probably not skill either. I’ll just make a laughing stock of myself. But even in the last month, Angel had seen that most of the wagers at the Lyon’s Den involved foolish things. Insect races. Contests to eat or drink some disgusting substance or far too much. Card tricks. And if he did look a fool, what of it? Was Laurel not worth the risk?

Better not to try than to try and fail. That was a gloomy thought too far, even in his current mood. His father’s motto had been nothing venture, nothing win, and Angelo had tried to live up to it all his life.

Before he could think again, he found himself saying, “Yes, Titan. Please ask Mrs. Dove Lyons if I might be a contender. If you think it would help, tell her how I know—how I knew, Lady Laureline.”

The gambling den’s chief wolf grinned and clapped Angel on the shoulder, hard enough that he had to brace himself against a fall.

“There speaks The Mer-king,” he said.

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Reaction to crisis on WIP Wednesday

While Cordelia watched, helpless to prevent it, the two footmen grabbed Spen by the arms and dragged him backwards, easily ignoring his struggles.

Oh Spen. She would cry later. The remaining footmen were moving on her, and she would not put it past them to drag her, too. Perhaps her uncle could do something to help the man she loved. “Gracie,” she said to her maid, “let Aunt Eliza know we are leaving. I want you and her downstairs at the front door with our belongings as quickly as you can make it.”

She fixed one of the footmen with a stare she had seen the Duchess of Haverford use on a gentleman who was in his cups and making a nuisance of himself. “You will go with my maid to carry our bags. You may need someone else to help.” She applied the look to his companion. “You will conduct me to my coachman and other servants so I can order them to have my father’s carriage brought around.”

For a moment, she thought they would be difficult, but they must have concluded her instructions fitted within the commands of their marquess, for they nodded and obeyed.

She had to get Aunt Eliza out of here before that horrid man did something nastier still.

Oh, Spen.

No. She could not let herself break down. That evil monster could not hurt Spen too much. Her beloved was his heir. And in a few short months, Spen would be twenty-one. No wonder he had warned her they might have to marry in defiance of the marquess! She wished they had known the man had misunderstood who Spen planned to marry.

Again,  fear and grief threatened to overwhelm her. Again, she thrust them away.

She could break down after she had safely removed her people from this house.

***

I’m currently going through the wonderful Cynthia’s developmental edits on Weave Me a Rope. It is getting closer! Meanwhile, here’s another excerpt.

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Plot devices on WIP Wednesday

How did my goose girl equivalent come to be looking after sheep in the grounds of the castle of his betrothed? Amnesia seemed unlikely. And the goose girl trope of the thieving maid stealing her identity didn’t make sense to me, in a Regency context. (Though I’ve found a use for it.) So I have influenza, a snowstorm or avalanche, and a young man who doesn’t like fuss. This is how The Sincerest Flattery begins. (Don’t you love the cover?)

“Ride on ahead, Tris,” Percy begged. “Let them know I have been delayed.” At least, that is what he intended to say, though his stuffed up nose and raw throat garbled the words.

His brother apparently understood, for he shook his head. “I shouldn’t leave you, Percy. I won’t leave you, at least until after I’ve spoken with the physician.”

“Can’t keep a lady waiting,” Percy insisted, but he might have saved himself the trouble. Tris might be ten months his junior, and mostly content to go along with his old brother’s plans and schemes, but when he dug his toes in, there was no moving him.

A knock on the door. Perhaps it was the physician? It was the innkeeper’s wife, with a tray. “Some chicken soup for the young lord,” she offered.

Percy didn’t want food, but Tris insisted that he would recover more quickly if he kept up his strength. So he succumbed to having his pillows plumped so that he could sit up, at least enough to have the tray put on the bed.

But his head hurt to much to lift it, and the spoon felt as if it was made of steel and ten times the size. In the end, Tris fed him, a spoonful at a time, until he covered his mouth after the sixth spoonful. “Enough. Let me lie down, Tris. There’s a good chap.”

The innkeeper’s wife, who was hovering, asked, “Did you understand him, my lord?”

“He has had enough, and wants to lie back down,” Tris explained. “I daresay your head hurts, old chap.” He had picked up the tray and handed it the woman, and was supporting Percy with one arm, while rearranging the pillows with the other. “You should let me stay and nurse you, Percy.”

Percy shook his head, a slow and tiny movement from side to side, so as not to burst his pounding head right open.

“Are you twins, my lord?” the innkeeper’s wife asked, as people often did. They were not identical, but they looked very alike. It was an impertinent question, but Tris lacked the arrogance to give her rebuke any of the other Verseys would have offered. It was one of the things they all loved about Tris.

“We are not,” he said.

Another knock on the door, and this time it was the physician. Tris hustled the innkeeper’s wife away and fetched Martin while the doctor did his examination. That was a relief. If he had brought Martin to listen to instructions for Percy’s care, then Tris intended to follow his brother’s instructions.

This was a journey to meet the girl to whom Percy was betrothed. It would be rude to keep Lady Aurelia waiting, and Percy could already tell—was unsurprised to hear the physician telling his brother—that he would be a week or more in bed with this wretched cold.

This ague, rather, which is what the doctor called it. It didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did except for the wretched head, the throat, the blocked nose, the cough that seemed to twist his ribs inside his chest and tear his muscles.

The doctor droned on, and Percy heard bits and pieces in between bouts of coughing and musings about Lady Aurelia. Her miniature was pretty. His father had met her and said she was a comely chit. She had never had a Season, but then she was only seventeen, just a few months younger than Tris.

Their parents had signed the marriage agreements. The wedding was to be in six months. No one seemed to think it necessary for the two principals to the marriage to actually meet before they gathered in the church to be made man and wife.

Still, when Percy came up with the scheme to ride north and introduce himself to the lady and her family, the duke his father did not object. All he said was, “Comport yourself like a Versey, xxxtitlexxx. And take young Tris with you.”

Of course, that didn’t prevent his father from organising their travel, complete with a train of carriages branded with the crests of the Duke of Dellborough and full of servants. Percy and Tris abandoned them on the first day out from home. So here they were, travelling on horseback with just Martin to attend them, a couple of days behind the letter announcing their visit and at least four days ahead of the carriages with the rest of their servants and luggage.

The doctor had apparently finished, and was turning back to Percy. “Rest, Lord xxx. That’s the best—the only possibly medicine. I have left instructions for various ways to soothe your symptoms, but sleep is what you need more than anything.”

He left, taking the innkeeper’s wife with him. Tris took Percy’s hand and looked into his eyes, worried. “I do not want to leave you,” he said.

Percy squeezed Tris’s hand. “Lady Aurelia,” he said, though it sounded more like “Laay Aweia.”

Tris sighed. “Yes, I know.”

“I will look after Lord xxxtitlexxx,” Martin assured Tris.

Still Tris stayed, supervising the administration of the potion the doctor had ordered, which contained something in it that soothed the throat and sent Percy into the prescribed sleep. Next time he surfaced, Tris wasn’t there, which was a good thing, but Percy could not remember why. It was a woman who spooned stuff down his throat—chicken soup and some more of the potion. He thought she washed his face, too, but he was sinking back into sleep, his last thought as he succumbed, “The innkeeper’s wife!” Yes. That was who she was.

***

Aurrie was the first to see the man as he came up the drive, hunched over his horse’s neck. It was a beautiful piece of bloodstock. That was her first impression, her eyes drawn to the horse ahead of the gentleman.

He was a gentleman, as witnessed by the greatcoat he wore against the cold bearing five capes and the top hat that he retained on his head despite his collapsed position. Was he hurt? She cut across the lawn while the horse followed the curve of the drive, and reached the arch to the stableyard just before the rider.

He had managed to draw himself up. His face was hectic with fever and his eyes looked through her without seeing her.

“Sir,” she called out, and for a moment his eyes focused on hers. “Lady Aurelia,” he said, clearly. “Profound apologies…” And then his eyes rolled back and he slumped again, this time so fully that the top hat finally fell.

NOTE: I don’t appear to have referenced Percy’s heir by title in the books where he has been mentioned, so I’ll have to think of one for the heir to the Dellborough dukedom. My first drafts can be fairly messy

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Villainous actions on WIP Wednesday

Do you intend to deprive me of all comforts?” Spen asked his father, to prolong the conversation and keep his father’s attention from the window.

“I intend to do everything necessary to bend you to my will, you ungrateful scoundrel,” the marquess replied. “Where is your brother?”

“How would I know?” Spen asked. “He was here when I was locked up. He was sent home with a broken arm. Has he gone back to school? Home to Rosewood Towers?” He couldn’t help the scorn that colored his voice

He braced himself as his father swung a hand back for a blow, but one of the servants shouted. “There are ropes my lord. I think it’s a ladder.”

“Haul it up and look, man,” the marquess scolded.

“I cannot, my lord. Someone is on it.”

The marquess strode to the window, his eyes narrowed. “Coming up or going down? But why? Ah! I see.” He grabbed the loose bar and pulled it out, then stuck his head through the gap to look down the tower wall.

Spen managed two paces towards the marquess before men grabbed him and dragged him backwards again.

“It’s a boy,” the marquess was saying, sounding bewildered, then chortling, “No, a girl dressed as a boy.” He pulled his head back and glee in his eyes as he said, “and I think I know her name.” He held out his hand. “Someone. Pass me a knife.”

“No!” Spen shouted as he struggled, but the two men holding him didn’t let go. “No, my lord. Don’t do it!”

The marquess managed to get one arm and his head out the window. Spen could see him sawing back and forth as he continued to speak. “Did you think I would not hear Milton has interfered with justice for that trespasser who was spying for your little slut?”

He snorted. “The magistrate had the nerve to tell me I could not have had him hanged or transported for his villainy, and my imprisonment of the man was punishment enough. My illegal imprisonment! Can you believe it? Who does the magistrate think he is? Ah.” A shriek from below, short and sharp, coincided with the marquess’s sigh of satisfaction.

He moved to the second rope, and Spen imagined Cordelia clinging to the rungs as the ladder, collapsed with one of its uprights gone, twisted and turned. “Don’t,” he moaned.

“What do I find when I stopped at the village inn on my way here,” the marquis went on, “but the magistrate with Milton’s solicitor, and both of them demanded to know what I have done with Milton’s niece. I told them I did not know what they were talking about. Now, of course, I do.”

He pulled back again, to grin at Spen. “Three quarters cut through. Let us leave the bitch’s destiny to fate, shall we? If the rope holds, she spins for a while until I feel like sending someone to retrieve her. If the rope breaks, she dies.”

Another scream came as he finished speaking. The marquess looked out of the window again. “Oops,” he said. His grin was wider as he turned back into the room. “Well, my son. It seems your impediment to the marriage I wish is no longer a problem.”

***

This scene comes from my reimagining of Rapanzel, Weave Me a Rope. It’s with the publisher, and I’ll let you know as soon as I have a publication date.