Lion’s Zoo

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Enemies to lovers on WIP Wednesday

 

Actually, in One Hour of Freedom, from the Lion’s Zoo series, they were lovers before they were enemies.

She stopped by the window and turned to face him, the brighter lights in the bedchamber illuminating her face.  He traced the changes time had left. In London, when they first met, she had been more child than girl. In Spain, several years later, she was a girl hovering on the edge of womanhood. She was now fully a woman, and more beautiful than ever.

“I need to talk to you, Matthias.”

He sneered. “And you could not visit me in London? No, of course not, for undoubtedly you are involved in something illegal, and you know that in London I have the authority to arrest you.” A slightest exaggeration. His authority was limited to the river and the docks. But she wasn’t to know that.

She had learned to control her temper somewhere in the past four years. She did not react to his needling, but answered calmly, “I am being watched in London. I could not see a tail, but I may have been followed here, to Coventry. I cannot be seen to be talking to you.” She waved an expressive hand. “Hence the precautions.”

Despite himself, he was intrigued. No. He would not let her inveigle him again. “I have a way you can avoid that. Don’t talk to me. Go away, Electra.”

She sat in one of the two chairs by the hearth. “The Kingpin has ordered me to kill you,” she said, bluntly. “You are interfering with his trade, I am told.”

His hand had not left the gun in his pocket, but it had relaxed. No more. He hooked his finger back to the trigger, though every nerve in him jangled at the thought of sending a bullet into the flesh he had once loved so deeply.

The Kingpin was a shadowy figure that had, in the past couple of years, taken over some of the most lucrative illegal businesses in London. One of those was stealing cargoes from the ships in the Pool of London and the London docks, which put him in direct conflict with the Thames River Police. 

“I do not recommend that you try,” he growled.

She hooked a single eyebrow. “I have no intention of trying. But when I told the Kingpin that, he took someone very important to me. He tells me I have a choice. Kill you, or see the person I love die. I choose the third option. I have come to ask for your help.”

The sheer audacity of it silenced him for a moment, and then he swore, a long string of invective dredged up from the streets that birthed him. “You think I would lift a finger to help you save your lover?” he added. “Go to hell!”

“I undoubtedly will, for my sins,” Ellie agreed. “But first I must take down the Kingpin before he finds my daughter and carries out his threats against her, and I hope you will help me, for she is your daughter, too.”

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Cover reveal for Lion’s Zoo

Coming up in June and July are the first two books in my series about exploring officers (we’d call them spies) from the Peninsular Wars, finding their feet and their lifetime love as civilians. Two more will follow this year

Lion’s Zoo

Once they were wounded children, each helpless against the adults who controlled their lives. Later, they became exploring officers with Wellington’s army, under Colonel Lionel O’Toole, known as Lion.

Famed for their varied skills and their intrepid courage, they were renowned for carrying out missions where others had failed.

Now Napoleon has fallen, they all have a new mission. Each must use his own unique abilities to carve a niche for himself in civilian life.

Lion, their wartime colonel, will use his influence as Earl of Ruthford to help, but he wants more for them. He hopes they will, like him, find a love that enriches their lives.

The first book, Chaos Come Again, tells the story of the colonel who gave the cadre of exploring officers their name. It takes the reader on a journey to Portugal and into the wickedness of a jealous heart.

It is based on the play Othello, by Shakespeare. But, of course, I give it a happy ending. I promise.

Book two, Grasp the Thorn, is a rewrite of a book I published several years ago under the name House of Thorns. My hero is known as Bear, and he’s a Regency house developer, buying up old estates, doing them up, and selling them to the newly rich. His bachelor life is disrupted when a lovely woman comes to steal the roses from the cottage he has just purchased.

Book three, One Hour of Freedom, started as part of a Superheroines project that got snarled in everyone’s other commitments. My heroine is called Electra. Her trust in the uncle who trained her as an assassin destroyed her relationship with Matthias Moriarty, or Bull, as he was known to the Zoo. Now, four years later, he is a Supervisor with the Thames River Police, and she has been sent to kill him. It will be out in September.

All of the books are gothic in tone, but Book four is the darkest. The Darkness Within tells the story of Max, who is haunted by all the people he has killed, and particularly the first. When he is sent to rescue a former comrade from a religious cult, he manages to fit in, like the Chameleon they used to call him. The peace of the community almost seduces him. But the secrets it hides are even darker than Max’s own. I’m hoping to have this one ready for December.

Chaos Come Again

Tormented by his past and by vile rumours, will this Regency Othello allow a liar he trusts to destroy the love between himself and his wife?

Grasp the Thorn

When secrets, self-doubts, and old feuds threaten to destroy their budding relationship, can they grasp the thorn of scandal to gather the rose of love?

 

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Trust and doubt on WIP Wednesday

In this passage from Chaos Come Again, my hero does not feel worthy of his wife’s love, so begins to wonder if he has it.

Lion and Fox rode ahead of the column of troopers, driven mostly by Lion’s eagerness to return to Dorothea. According to Fox, Dorothea had been keeping herself busy in his absence. Fox was inclined to be annoyed that she had employed a couple of the camp followers to cook for them and do their laundry. Lion wished he had thought of it. Amelia was wife to a major now, and should not still be doing the work of a servant.

“She has been wandering all over the camp, making a nuisance of herself with the families,” Fox told him. “You’ll have to have a word with her, Lion.”

Lion would reserve judgement until he had talked to his wife. Which would be within the hour, for that odd shaped rock ahead marked the turn to their camp.

He resisted the urge to spur his horse on. It was too early. “I’ll talk to her,” he told Fox. And listen, too. Fox had an odd kick in his gallop when it came to socialising between the classes.

Fox fell silent for a while, and they’d passed Almeida and had the camp within sight when he rode up beside Lion again. “Dorothea and Cassiday have been getting on well,” he commented. “Nothing for you to worry about, Lion, I’m sure. Even if she has spent more time with our good major than she has with you.”

Lion repressed a sigh. Fox had been making remarks like this ever since he arrived back in Portugal. It was just Fox’s way, but Lion was finding it annoying. “I know I have nothing to worry about,” Lion told him. “My wife loves me, and I trust her.”

“Oh, good,” Fox said. “I am sure you are right to do so.”

Lion shook off a slight disquiet to wave to the camp’s sentries, who had been watching them approach. “Welcome back, Colonel,” said one of them.

“Thank you,” Lion said. “Glad to see you’re alert.”

“Always, sir,” the other man assured him. “Are we on the move, then?”

“Soon, trooper,” Lion assured him. “Soon.”

Within a week, or so Wellington intended. They were ready, rested, and well supplied. “Next year,” he predicted, “our winter quarters will be in Spain, or even France!”

Both soldiers grinned at that. “France, I say, sir,” the first one said.

Lion returned the grin and sent his horse forward again. The farmhouse was just behind the second line of sentries, on the edge of the camp. Lion dismounted outside and tossed his reins to Blythe, who had been trailing Lion and Fox, and had caught up when the two men paused to talk to the sentries.

Fox was close behind him as he opened the door, walking in to hear Michael say, “I hope you can persuade Lion to forgive me, Dorothea. I know I should have handled it better.”

It was the three of them: Dorothea, Michael and Amelia. At least she is not alone with Michael, Lion thought, and then was ashamed he had let Fox’s nonsense influence him.

Amelia saw them first and stood, with an exclamation of delight. “Major Foxton! And Colonel O’Toole, too. Dorothea, your husband is here.”

Dorothea already knew. She had turned towards him, beaming, her hands held out. He took them and pulled her towards him, kissing her in a passionate claiming that was, he acknowledged in his innermost heart, at least in part a demonstration—telling Michael and anyone else who needed to know that Dorothea was his. You are being ridiculous, Lion. The woman loves you.

Perhaps when he had her in his arms, joined to her in the most intimate of ways, his disquiet would settle. “Come,” he said. He led her to their bedchamber and shut the door.

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Intimacy on WIP Wednesday

This is from Chaos Come Again

She bumped her head into his shoulder, in a surplus of affection, and he winced.

“What has happened?” Dorothea asked.

“A slight strain in my shoulder, dearest. Nothing to worry about,” he replied, dropping a kiss on her hair. “I will just have my bath, shall I?”

But while Abigail was dressing Dorothea’s hair, she heard Blythe say, “You’ve bruised your shoulder, Colonel. You should get my lady to rub some of her liniment into that. Going to be a whopping bruise.”

Dorothea put up a hand to tell Abigail to stay where she was and tiptoed to the dressing room door, so she could see what her husband was trying to hide from her. A livid bruise about the size of a fist coloured his shoulder.

“I shall get my liniment,” she said.

Lion looked over his shoulder. “It is nothing to worry about,” he repeated. He submitted to her ministrations, all the while protesting that he hardly felt it at all. “It looks worse than it is.” Which wasn’t true, for when she asked him to windmill his arm, he was unable to do a full circle.

“You will need to rest it,” she scolded him.

He put his other hand on the nape of her neck and encouraged her ear close to his mouth. “You’ll have to be on top, then, my love.”

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Compromised in WIP Wednesday

 

The compromise is a standard historical romance trope. And, of course, they then fall in love, because this is a romance. So it is in Chaos Come Again, my June release.

Dorothea screwed up her courage. “You said ‘betrothed’,” she said.

Colonel O’Toole shrugged. “I know I should have asked properly before announcing it,” he said, “but your former companion’s intrusion, followed by that of Lady Blaine, rather forced the issue.”

Dorothea did not know what to say. He had intended to ask her before Mrs Austin burst in?

He misunderstood her silence, because he rushed into speech. “If you do not like the idea, I will understand.” It was the first time she had seen him discomposed. “I know I am much older than you, and I should also tell you that I am not legitimate. My father was the eldest son of the Earl of Ruthford, but he was not married to my mother, who was the daughter of an Irish soldier and his Indian wife. So I am not actually even English.”

Her own remembered rejections told her he was trying to discourage her, but she recognised the pain of old hurts in his eyes and they emboldened her to say, “I am a merchant’s daughter, tainted with trade. One of my grandfathers was a farmer and the other a shopkeeper. My father started as a millworker, and is a coarse man, unfit for polite company. I am not pretty—too short, too plump, and ordinary in every way. If I marry without my father’s approval, I will not even have a dowry to make me attractive. I will be twenty-one in three months—which is old for an unmarried woman. You cannot possibly want to be burdened with me. No one else ever has.”

His gaze heated. “I don’t care about your ancestors or your dowry,” he countered. “I have money enough to keep us both in comfort. You are very pretty, at least to me. I prefer brown hair and dark eyes, and a complexion with a little colour in it to the pale wraiths that are fashionable.” His eyes dropped lower, to her breasts, and then he met her eyes again. “You are not plump, you are delightfully curved.” He chuckled. “I will allow that you are short, Dorothea. May I call you Dorothea?”

He reached out a hand to her, and she accepted it, though his touch scrambled her wits and it took her a moment to order her thoughts enough to say, “I do not care about your ancestors, either,” she admitted. “And you are just the right age. Did you really think of marriage before Lady Blaine came?”

“Yes. Almost from the first.”

There was nothing but sincerity in every line of his face.

“I am no prize, Dorothea,” he warned. “I was reluctant to ask. I hoped to find a solution that would not burden you with me.”

“It would not be a burden, but a privilege,” she protested.

“I am a military man, and must go back to war as soon as I have seen my grandfather.”

“I would not mind living in a tent and travelling with the army. Not if I can be with you.”

“Ah, Dorothea,” he said, and he lifted her hand to place a kiss within the palm. “Is that a yes, then? You will marry me?”

“If you truly want me,” she agreed.

He kissed her palm again. “Then eat your meal before it gets cold, my love. We have a long way to go and must be on our way soon.”

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News and journalism in Regency England

Researching for one of my works in progress, I came across an article by journalist, author, and academic Brian Cathcart about the arrival of the official despatches from Waterloo.

He points out that no one in London on 18th June 1815 knew that the great battle had taken place, let alone who had won. The news was slow to arrive, too. The battle was on a Sunday, and it wasn’t until late on Wednesday that Wellington’s messenger, Major Henry Percy, arrived in London, with a French eagle sticking out of each window of his yellow post chaise. Escorted by a delirious crowd, he brought the report to Cabinet, who were dining in Grosvenor Square. After they’d read it and made an announcement to the crowd, Percy continued on, with an even larger crowd and followed by most of the Cabinet, to the house of the banking family where the Prince Regent was dining that night. In the words of the hostess, Mrs Boehm:

The first quadrille was in the act cf forming and the Prince was walking up to the dais on which his seat was placed, when I saw every one without the slightest sense of decorum rushing to the windows, which had been left wide open because of the excessive sultriness of the weather. The music ceased and the dance was stopped; for we heard nothing but the vociferous shouts of an enormous mob, who had just entered the Square and were running by the side of a post-chaise and four, out of whose windows were hanging three nasty French eagles. In a second the door of the carriage was flung open and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, out sprang Henry Percy – such a dusty figure! – with a flag in each hand, pushing aside everyone who happened to be in his way, darting up stairs, into the ball-room, stepping hastily up to the Regent, dropping on one knee, laying the flags at his feet, and pronouncing the words ‘Victory, Sir! Victory!’

In another article, Cathcart makes the point that not a single war correspondent was in Brussels to cover the battle, and explains why. Journalism as we know it had not yet been born, though London had many many papers. Indeed, the news they printed came from reports from ordinary civilians who happened to know something, official reports printed verbatim, or articles lifted from other papers.

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Sowing Chaos on WIP Wednesday

Here’s an excerpt from Chaos Come Again, my retelling of Othello, now on preorder.

Lion walked out of his bedchamber at peace with the world. Dorothea was still asleep—the sleep of the well-pleasured, Lion thought as he closed the bedchamber door as quietly as he could. Amelia was already up, and was frying bacon and eggs on a skillet over embers in the hearth. Blythe must have given her the provinder he had brought from headquarters.

“Coffee, Colonel?” she asked. “I am making breakfast for Major Foxton. Can I fetch you a plate?”

Lion was suddenly remarkably hungry, which was unsurprising given how physically active he had been in the night. “Yes, thank you. Breakfast would be very welcome. I can pour my own coffee, Mrs Foxton.”

He carried his mug out into the morning sun, where Fox was already sitting on the bench under the front window.

“I didn’t expect to see you up so early,” Fox commented. “Busy night, wasn’t it?”

Lion bristled. Admittedly, he and Dorothea had not been quiet, but the comment was in poor taste.

Fox didn’t seem to notice. “I am glad you have some compensations for your hasty marriage,” he commented.

That was an odd thing to say. “I have Dorothea,” Lion pointed out.

Fox chuckled. “Yes, I heard.”

Lion glared at him. “Enough of that, Fox. Show my wife some respect.”

“Sorry, Lion. It’s just, it seems so unfair that you didn’t know you were earl-in-waiting until after you’d taken a merchant’s daughter to wife. There are better-born women—ladies—with dowries her equal or better, and you could have had your pick. I blame our grandfather.”

“Don’t say that Fox. Don’t even think it. I count myself the luckiest man alive that I was there to rescue her from Westinghouse. I love her, Fox, and she loves me.” He smiled out over the camp, recovering some of the peace with which he’d started the day.

He wanted his cousin to understand. “You can’t know what it is like. My life has been turmoil and chaos since my mother died, but she makes sense of everything. She is my order and my peace. Be glad for me, cousin.”

Fox looked blank for a moment, as if he could not understand Lion’s words. Then he lifted his cup to sip his coffee and looked away, across the sea of tents where earlier risers than they were already busy. “That’s good then,” he said.

She loves me, Lion reminded himself again. And then, unbidden, And I do love her. If ever I do not, chaos is come again.

“What was that, Lion?” Fox asked.

Did I say that out loud? He must have. “Nothing,” he told his cousin. “Look, here is Amelia with our breakfast.”

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Jealousy on WIP Wednesday

I think I’ve finished the first draft of Chaos Come Again, my retelling of Othello. The following is the scene illustrated on the cover.

Dorothea lay sprawled on their bed, still fully dressed but sound asleep, though it was only early evening. Lion bent over her, and his heart turned over in his chest. Her eyes had the red puffy look of someone who had cried herself to sleep and the tracks of tears stained her cheeks.

In the course of the day, he had imagined wiping out the insult of her betrayal by killing her. Yes, and Michael Cassiday, too.

He had not expected to reach the farmhouse and find it empty. Empty, that is, except for his sleeping wife.

Lyon had visualised a bullet for Michael, or killing him with his own officer’s sword. Not a duel. The kind of scum who took advantage of his colonel’s wife did not deserve the honour of a duel.

He could not use a gun on Dorothea. He could not bear to think of the damage that a bullet would do to the body he had loved with such passion and tenderness. The same applied to a knife.

He had considered strangling her with his own hands, but he couldn’t do that, either. To touch her with violence—no, it was inconceivable. He could not see her suffer or mar the perfection of her skin in any way.

As he gazed at her asleep, he realised that a pillow would be a solution to the conundrum. He could place it over her face and hold it down. He wouldn’t have to look at her. She might wake. Probably would. But not for long, and death would be as kind as death ever could be in one so young.

He shuddered, and his tears were as much revulsion as grief and shame.

This is a romance, I promise. There will be a happy ending.

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Second chances on WIP Wednesday

Second-chance love is a great trope, whether with the original lover or with someone new. One of my current works-in-progress has my protagonists coming back together after an explosive parting years earlier. These two fell in love when they were adolescents running wild in the streets of London. They fell into bed when they met again in Spain during the war, and parted when each believes the other a traitor. Five more years on, he is a Surveyor for the Thames River Police, and she is an assassin sent to kill him.

If you have a second chance love on the go, please share an excerpt in the comments.

Rather than stay awake until the early hours of the morning, Matt had feinted going out to dinner, and his pursuer turned quarry had taken the bait. He’d subdue the man, find out what he wanted and who sent him, hand him over to the local constables, and still have an early night.

The light glinted on a pair of weapons in the intruder’s belt and suddenly Matt knew why he had been dogged all evening by the sense he was missing something obvious. He knew who was breaking into his room, even in dim light when all he could see was her back. Who else carried short daggers with three blades in a trident? His subconscious had seen past her male disguise. Probably even the disguise as the veiled widow.

Once, he would have said his heart would recognise her anywhere. Apparently, that was still true, which was why he had long since stopped listening to the unreliable organ.

She bent to his door, a lock pick at the ready.

“No need, Elektra,” he told her. “It is unlocked.”

He had to give her credit. She did not start, nor show any other outward sign of alarm. Perhaps she froze for a brief second, but nothing more. “Matthias. It has been a long time.”

“If you have come to finish what you started in Spain, I suggest you turn around and leave. And keep going.” He was annoyed at the bitterness in his voice. His feelings for Ellie—any feelings, including the hatred he had nurtured since her betrayal—were a weakness. She was a vicious she-wolf, and would tear into any weakness without mercy.

“I made a mistake in Spain,” Ellie told him. “I trusted the wrong person. I have regretted it ever since. I am not here to attack you, Matthias.”

An apology? Did she think that would make things right between them? “Whatever your errand, you have wasted your time. We have nothing to say to one another.” No point in letting fly with all the accusations he could mount against her.

After their last confrontation—after she had sworn she was only following orders and then disappeared into the night never to return—he had set out to prove her innocence of the accusations against her, only to find her treachery confirmed at every turn.

If he let go of the volcano of words stored up inside him, he knew he would not stop. It would be no wiser to begin a verbal battle than to let free the physical desire that had sprung to full life as soon as he had seen her. Hatred and lust could apparently coexist, but he would as soon touch a viper. “Leave, Elektra.”

Instead, she opened his bedchamber door and stepped inside.