The Trials of Alaric, inspired by The Princess and the Pea, is now on preorder. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ9WB9WQ
The Trials of Alaric
Kissing on WIP Wednesday
I’ve just sent The Trials of Benedict back to the editor. It should be published in a couple of months, so I thought you might like a first kiss. Here you go.
Lady Stowell looked rather dazed, and well she might. Alaric had simply assumed she would comply and left her to choose between being the gracious lady he assured her she was, and showing herself to be self-centred and petty. “Well. Yes. They are such good causes, after all.”
They had arrived at the drawing room door.
Alaric bowed again, and Bea curtseyed. “Thank you again,” they chorused. Lady Stowell inclined her head, but one last thought made it all the way to her mouth before Alaric could head it off. “This means I will have to wait between contests. I shall not wait with servants and farm workers, Lady Beatrice. You cannot ask it of me.”
“Of course not, Lady Stowell,” Bea assured her. “My cousin Beverley has a tent set up just for you and the gentry. I shall ensure suitable refreshments are waiting for you.” Alaric had opened the drawing room door, and was holding it for the viscountess.
“Hmmph,” said Lady Stowell. “That will do, then. But I shall be expecting the schedule to be better organised for next year, mind.”
With that final word, she sailed into the drawing room and, in the moment before Alaric shut the door, Bea could hear her saying, “Dear Lady Claddach. And Lady Lewiston, too. How splendid to see you.”
“Will the schedule change for next year?” Alaric asked Bea.
“I should put her on the organising committee,” Bea grumbled, “and leave her to figure it out. Except we would very likely finish up without an organising committee.”
He touched her hand. “We achieved what we needed,” he pointed out. “Time enough to worry about next year after this year is over. Thanks to you, Bea. You were brilliant.”
“And you were charming,” she pointed out. “We make a good team, do we not?”
He leaned closer. “The best.” His eyes seemed to darken as his pupils expanded.
Had his mind gone to the same place as hers? There was a simple way to find out. “What are you thinking, Alaric?”
“I am wishing I could kiss you,” he admitted.
“Not here, where anyone might come upon us,” she replied. “Follow me.” Was she really going to do it? She was. She had been thinking about it for days, and they might not get another time when most of the servants and all the younger house guests were out of the castle, as well as Papa, Uncle Lewiston and the other gentlemen.
Just beyond the head of the stairs was a linen closet. No one would have any reason to enter it. It was perfect for their purposes. She opened the door and led Alaric inside, then shut the door behind them.
Shelves full of household linen, sorted by type, quality, size and colour, lined both sides. Light filtered in from the direction of the back wall, which had a high round window above a table for folding linen before putting it away and a basket for anything that required mending.
Bea turned to face Alaric. Now what? She hoped he knew what he was about, for she had never before been kissed.
“Are you sure?” he asked her, his voice husky. He was certain, it seemed, for he was holding his arms out to her.
She nodded as she stepped closer to him. His hands came to rest on her waist, and he gazed into her eyes. After a moment, she asked, “Are you going to kiss me?”
“I am,” he assured her. “I am just deciding where to start.”
Bea frowned. Surely one simply pressed ones lips to the lips of the other person. Was that not the whole point? But she had no time to ask, for he used one hand to persuade her head to one side and placed a kiss on her neck, just below her ear. A shiver ran down her neck and through her body.
He kissed her again, this time on her jaw, less than an inch from the first kiss, and followed along her jaw line. Not just kisses, either. He scraped his teeth over her skin then soothed it with his tongue. By the time his kisses reached the other ear, she was plastered against him, her knees too weak to hold her up.
Then he came back across her cheek and at last reached her lips. Now he would settle his mouth over hers, as she had seen men do with their wives or lovers when they thought themselves unobserved. Good. His ministrations so far had set her whole body tingling, and particularly her womanly core. She could not wait to find out what his lips felt like on hers.
But no. The rain of kisses continued. She tried to object, but could manage nothing beyond a moan. An indignant moan, but hardly a clear request for more. Still, he responded, settling his mouth over hers. It felt amazing, but she still needed something else.
He opened his mouth and ran his tongue along her lips. No. That wasn’t what she was waiting for. Not quite. Then, he nipped her lower lip with his teeth and she opened with a gasp. Alaric slipped his tongue into her mouth.
A long interlude of learning one another followed. When she pressed her tongue against his, he hummed with pleasure, and when she chased his tongue into his mouth, he hummed even more loudly, then he followed her back, and their tongues tangled and danced while his mouth moved and his hands held her firmly against his body, one in the middle of her back and one grasping her behind.
She had no idea how long they kissed. The need for more returned, more urgent than ever. Her breasts felt heavy and sore, and so did that area in her lower torso, between her legs.
Eventually, Alaric withdrew his mouth, sighed, and moved his hand from her buttock to her head, holding her in place while he rested his cheek against her hair. He was breathing heavily, she was pleased to note. She was panting, as if she had run from the castle to the beach.
She stood leaning against him, waiting for her breath to settle while all the thoughts that the kiss had driven from her head came crowding back into it.
“I must go,” she said at last. Her voice shook, and she was still not certain her knees would hold her up. “I do not know the time, but the girls setting out the food on the castle stall will be looking for me.”
“And the contestants for me,” Alaric admitted. “I ought to warn you it would have been a bad idea to remain here together, even if we could. That kiss…” He shook his head, slowly. “It was a promise of more, dearest Bea. And we cannot take more. Not without being wed. I would not dishonour you or your father. Not for the world.”
A promise of more. Bea had sensed that. And while her body was perfectly willing to explore that more immediately, her mind knew better. “It was a beautiful kiss,” she told him. “My first. I shall never forget it.” She stepped backwards and he dropped his arms and let her go.
He looked alarmed. “Your first? And I kissed you in a closet among the linens? You deserve better than that.”
“I think a kiss any better than that would kill me, Alaric,” she replied.
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.