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Investigations and shenanigans in WIP Wednesdays

I like a bit of mystery and detection with my romance — a spice of danger somewhat more serious than who kissed whom in the garden. If you do, too, then join my hero and his half-brother as they visit a brothel in search of a missing boy. (And if you have a piece you’d like to share, please pop it in the comments.)

Wakefield took the lead, pointing. “That girl and that one, and one room with a large bed,” he ordered. Aldridge nodded in agreement. Wakefield had contacts among the women who earned their living in the world’s oldest trade; presumably he’d recognised the ones he’d chosen.

The two selected approached, their smiles professional and meaningless. One was dressed in skimpy Grecian robes with her brunette curls dressed high and bound with gold cord—Artemis, from the little toy bow and arrow she carried in one hand. The other wore her fair hair down, flowing over her upper body. A bright scarf was her only covering other than her hair, cinched at the waist by a circlet of flowers that echoed the one on her head. Gauzy wings hinted that she was, perhaps, intended to be a fairy.

“Artemis,” the greeter confirmed with a wave, and, “Ariel,” with a second. “Something to drink or eat, my lords?”

“Perhaps later,” Aldridge said. He slipped an arm around the blonde fairy and sniffed at her flowers. Silk, but he ignored that detail. “Come on, sweet thing. Show me to a bed.”

“The India room,” the greeter decided. Wakefield offered the brunette a raised hand. “Shall we, your divinity?”

She giggled as she placed her hand in his, and raised her nose in the air, slanting a glance to the others in the room to ensure they noticed. Aldridge allowed the woman he was holding to lead the way down a passage.

They stopped at the fourth room on the right, where a partly opened door gave entrance to a brightly decorated room with richly embroidered silken wall hangings and what looked like copies of Hindu template painting in a frieze around the walls. The main feature of the room was a circular bed at least 10 feet across.

Aldridge gave Ariel a gentle push on her bottom to propel her further into the room so that he could disengage, then put out a hand to catch her wrist as she reached for her belt. “Don’t disrobe,” he said, as Wakefield escorted Artemis inside and turned to shut and secure the door.

The fairy attempted to rub herself against Aldridge as he held her away from him by the wrist. “How may I please you, my lord?” she asked.

“Information, Sukie, and an alibi,” Wakefield said, drawing the attention of both women. Their poise slipped as they narrowed their eyes at him. He had been examining the walls, and now led them all to the corner of the bedchamber nearest to the window.

With his back to the room, Wakefield removed the glasses whose tinted lenses disguised the colour of his eyes and ejected the pads that puffed out his cheeks into his hand.

“Gor blimey!” The goddess’s refined accent devolved into broad slum in her surprise. She lowered her voice at Wakefield’s urgent gesture. “Sukie, it’s Shadow.”

The fairy looked from the enquiry agent to Aldridge and back again. “You’re never here for a poke,” she decided. “Him, maybe, but not you. Your missus would feed you your bollocks.”

Wakefield laughed softly, and whispered back, “True, Bets. Ladies, may I make known to you the Marquis of Aldridge, my half-brother. Aldridge, Saucy Sukie and Bouncing Bets are old friends.”

Aldridge bowed as if being introduced to a couple of dowagers, and the two prostitutes giggled and flushed like debutantes.

“You’re right, Bets,” Wakefield agreed, “We’re here to take back… Well. Before I get to that, how do you like working here? Are conditions good?”

Bets screwed up her face in disgust. “Good? Like hell. Never been any place worse. Can’t leave the house without a bully-boy tagging along. Can’t make any money till we’ve paid for our costumes, and our food, and our anything. Twelve Johns a night or we get fined, unless the John pays double for more than forty minutes, and ain’t nobody going to pay twelve times as much for a whole night.”

Sukie added, “And that’s not the worst, Shadow. La Reine, she sells everything and anything. Doesn’t care if it damages the merchandise. One of the girls got beaten so bad she couldn’t come back to work again, and then she just disappeared. Gone back to her mother, La Reine said. Bullshit, I say.” She shuddered.

“Even kids,” Bets agreed. “I don’t hold with that. I wouldn’t have signed on if I’d known about that.”

“We’re here to rescue a boy,” Wakefield said. Aldridge shot him an alarmed glance, but presumably his brother thought these women could be trusted.

At that moment, someone tried the door handle, and then there was a knock.

“This room is occupied,” Aldridge called out, allowing some of his anger to colour his voice.

“Drinks!” came the reply, “Complements of the House.”

Wakefield nodded at Sukie, but Aldridge said, “Wait.” He pulled the scarf off her shoulder leaving her upper half bare, and tipped her floral coronet sideways. “Here.” He drew a heavy bag of coins from his belt. “Tell them we want the next three hours, and no interruptions.”

Sukie carried out her commission, barely opening the door, handing over a bag and opening the tray.

“The money is not going to help much,” Wakefield whispered to Aldridge. “If they’re not already watching through the walls, they’ll be on their way.”

“Then we’d better be on ours,” Aldridge whispered back, though he was kicking himself for forgetting that they were probably being observed. Disrobing Sukie just so she could answer the door might already be counting against them.

With the door bolted again, all four of them retreated to the corner by the window, where Wakefield and Aldridge laid out their reasons for being there and what they hoped to achieve.

“If we help you find the boy, will you take us with you?” Bets asked, and Sukie nodded.

“It’s going to be dangerous,” Wakefield warned. “I can’t give you any guarantee that we’ll get out safely.”

Sukie snorted. “For certain sure, we’re not getting out safely if we stay.”

“Then we’ll take you,” Aldridge decided. “Whether we find the boy or not.”

He crossed to the tray of drinks and reached for one of them. “I wouldn’t,” Wakefield warned.

Aldridge pulled back his hand as if scalded. “Drugged?”

“A drink given to you free in Wharton’s brothel? What do you think?”

Aldridge shuddered and followed the others from the room.

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Gossip and scandal on WIP Wednesday

 

Yes, I know I’ve said it again. But Regency romance set in high society does lend itself to the kind of ruthless gossip-mongering that today finds its expression through mean girls at high school and in the darker corners of social media. This week, I’m sharing an episode that shows how scandal can be wielded by a villain (or, in this case, two villains and a villainess). It’s from To Mend a Proper Lady. If you have an excerpt to share, please put it in the comments.

Because they were not socialising, Ruth didn’t notice people acting in a peculiar fashion until Rosemary pointed it out to her. “I wonder what the problem is,” she commented, as they rode home one morning from an early outing to Hyde Park. “Three times today, people coming towards us turned aside onto a different path. I didn’t say anything yesterday, when we took our niece and nephews to play in the square, but Mrs Wilmington collected her children and left, and so did two nursemaids with their charges.”

“You think they were avoiding us?” That had been the norm for a few months during the worst of last year’s feud with the Duke of Haverford, when he was challenging their legitimacy in a complaint to the Committee for Privileges. But their father’s evidence had swung the Committee their way, and most people in Society accepted them now.

Rosemary frowned. “I thought they might be avoiding Zahara’s children, but she and the little ones are not with us today.”

After that, Ruth watched, and soon concluded something was going on. No one was overtly rude, but a very few people directly approached them, and a number went to some lengths to avoid a casual meeting. Either that, or most of the people they came across while out walking were afflicted with a sudden need to cross the street or leave when the Winderfield family came into sight.

Or, more specifically, when Ruth appeared. Her brothers mentioned conversations that left no doubt that they were being treated as normal, and Sophia and Rosemary both had encounters with friends when Ruth was not with them.

It came to a head in Brown’s Emporium, where the ladies of the family had taken Zahara to purchase English cotton and lace, and perhaps an English porcelain tea set. Ruth had grown bored with discussing the relative merits of shawls, and had wandered over to some rolls of heavy fabric that might do for curtaining.

The others where within earshot, so she heard when a lady address Sophia. “Lady Sutton! I had no idea you were in London.”

“Lady Ashbury.”

The name captured Ruth’s attention, and she turned to watch. From the tip of her fashionable hat to her dainty leather-shod feet, the lady was an exquisite doll; the epitome of the English fashionable beauty, fair-haired, pale-skinned and blue-eyed. So this was Val’s sister-in-law?

Ruth stepped closer. The illusion of youth evaporated under closer examinations. Fine lines in the corners of the eyes, around the mouth, spoke of temper and a sour disposition, and those clear eyes were hard as she accepted an introduction to Rosemary and Zahara with a condescending nod.

Sophia turned to hold out her hand to Ruth, beckoning her closer. “And this is my sister Lady Ruth,” she said. “Ruth, Lady Ashbury is related to…”

In one sweep of her eyes, Lady Ashbury had examined Ruth from head to toe, sniffed, and turned her back. “Lady Sutton, I advise you to distance yourself from this female.” She pitched her voice to be heard throughout the cavernous building. “She may have hoped to keep secret her dalliance with my monstrous brother-in-law, but the people near his lands were rightfully scandalised, and have taken steps to ensure the truth is known.”

Sophia, bless her, showed no reaction to the accusation beyond raised eyebrows, and spoke so that the riveted onlookers could hear her reply. “Have you been spreading lying gossip again, Lady Ashbury? My sister was fully chaperoned at all times while nursing your daughter through smallpox. She has the full support of His Grace my father-in-law and all of her family and friends.”

She then turned to the rest of their party. “Ladies, let us come back another time. I find the company here today… malodorous, and I owe you an apology for condescending to make the introduction.”

Ruth was swept along in Sophia’s wake, but looked back as they exited the warehouse. Lady Ashbury remained where they’d left her, staring after them with narrowed eyes. Several of the other customers were already converging on her. This was not over.

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Secondary romances

 

Do you enjoy romances with a second courting couple? Perhaps they are the couple for the next book in the series. Or perhaps they are a foil and contrast to the main protagonists. Sometimes, as in the excerpt that follows, the secondary couple have their romance arc over the whole series. Feel free to share an excerpt with your secondary courting couple. Here are the Duchess of Haverford and the Duke of Wellbridge, meeting alone in the third novel in the four novel series Children of the Mountain King: The Return.

James followed Eleanor across a small entrance hall to a cosy little parlour, where a fire burned in the hearth and a tray with a tea set waited on a small table between two chairs. Eleanor took the seat closest to the tea pot and waved her hand to the other. “Be seated, dear friend. Would you care for tea?”

Tea was not what he hungered for. For ten years after Mahzad’s death, he had thought himself beyond desire, but Eleanor brought it roaring back the first time he saw her on his return to England. Getting to know her again had only increased his longing; she was even lovelier, both within and without, than when they had first met long ago, before James was forced into exile and Eleanor was made to marry Haverford.

He kept his feelings to himself. If he told her his hopes, and if she shared them, he didn’t trust himself to be alone with her like this without besmirching his honour and insulting hers.

Eleanor was a married woman and virtuous, even if her husband was a monster. Even if the old devil was rotting from within and locked away for his own good and to protect the duchy. He accepted the offered seat and the cup of tea; asked after the duchess’s children and caught her up to date with his own; exchanged comments on the war news and the state of the harvest.

“James,” she said at last, “I proposed this meeting for a reason.”

“To see me, I hope. Since Parliament went into recess and we both left London, I have missed our weekly visits to that little bookshop you frequent.”

Eleanor smiled, and James fancied that he saw her heart in her eyes for a moment, and it leapt to match his. But her smile faded and her lashes veiled her eyes. “That, too, my dear friend. I have missed you, too. But there is another matter I need to bring to your attention.”

She grimaced and gave her head a couple of impatient shakes. “It seems I am always muddying our time together with gossip and scandal. I am so sorry, James.”

“One day, I hope we will be able to meet without subterfuge, and for no reason but our pleasure,” James said. The last word was a mistake. He might be old, but at the word ‘pleasure’ his body was reminding him urgently that he was not dead yet.

Eleanor seemed unaffected, focused on whatever bad news she had to give him. “You are aware, I am sure, of the history of your niece Sarah’s ward?”

“Her daughter?” James queried. Of course Eleanor knew. She was a confidante of his sister-in-law.

“Indeed. What you may not know—what I have just found out—is that Society is making that assumption and spreading the story.”

James shook his head. “I assumed the gossips and busybodies would reach that conclusion, but without proof or confirmation, and with the family firmly behind her, the rumours will die.”

“True, if that was all. But James, you may not know—Sarah may not know—that her little girl’s father is back in England and, if my sources are accurate, seeking a bride.”

James stiffened. “The coward has returned?”

“As to that,” Eleanor said, “Grace always suspected that Sutton and Winshire had something to do with his disappearance, and it is whispered that his father bought him out of the navy, where he had worked his way up to being a surgeon, after being press ganged.”

“And your sources are connecting Sarah and her child with this man?”

Eleanor shook her head. “Not yet. The two rumours are separate. But if the two of them meet, people may make connections. Especially if the child resembles her father.” She shrugged, even that small elegant movement unusually casual for the duchess. “It is all very manageable, James, but you needed to know.”

“I appreciate it, Eleanor.” He sighed. “English Society is more of a snake pit that the court of the Shah of Shahs or the Ottoman Sultan Khan. Tell me, what is going on between my niece Charlotte and your son Aldridge?”

Eleanor’s answer was hasty, but her eyes slid away from his. “Nothing. There can be nothing between Charlotte and Aldridge.

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Unusual skills on WIP Wednesday

What sets your hero or heroine apart from the ordinary? Share an excerpt in the comments! Here’s an excerpt from To Mend a Proper Lady, which is due to be published the month after next. My hero is admiring the skill of his beloved and her best friend.

“Join me,” Ruth suggested. “A little sword work will soon loosen your muscles.”

Val hoped he was successful in hiding the anguish twisting his gut, but he didn’t attempt to speak; just held up the arm that ended at the wrist.

“That?” Ruth waved away his maiming as if it was a trivial detail. “You can hold a sword in the other hand, can you not?”

Nettled, he followed her into the room. She had had it cleared of furniture, apart from a table against one wall. On it, a number of edged weapons lay—foils, sabres, swords both curiously curved and straight, and daggers of various lengths.

Val was torn between admiration for their quality and nausea at the thought of displaying his incompetence. “I have never fought with my left hand,” he commented.

Ruth was picking weapons up and then putting them down again. “We are not going to fight.” She handed him a large sword. “Here, this looks to be about your size. The weapons act as a weight to force your muscles to work harder. And, of course, the practice steps I use are useful in an actual fight, training the body to particular movements. Like the exercises that we teach our horses. They ensure the fitness of the horse and rider, but also can be used in battle.”

Bemused, Val took the sabre and performed a couple of practice swipes. It felt heavy and ungainly, and he missed his former skill with a deep ache.

Zyba entered the room. Dressed like her friend, she held one of the curving swords in one hand and a long dagger in the other. A slight widening of the eyes was her only reaction to Val’s presence. She inclined her head in a graceful greeting. “Princess, Lord Ashbury.”

“Val is joining us today, Zyba. Val, why not stand in front of me so you can copy what I do.”

Val was slow, that first day. The two women took him through a series of movements of body and sword that left his muscles trembling, and then suggested he rest. He watched, awed, as they moved into a sequence as fluid as a dance, one facing the other, on opposite sides of the room as they continued to honour the quarantine.

They started slow, but the graceful movements of feet and arms sped up gradually, until they were moving with blinding speed, each swing of a weapon enough to eviscerate anyone unfortunate enough to be in reach.

They took it in turns to call out, at frequent intervals, a single word he didn’t know, but whose meaning he guessed at something like ‘swap’ or ‘change’. “Caly,” the one whose turn it was would shout, tossing both sword and dagger in the air and snatching them back again, but with the opposite hands. The game seemed to be for the other dancer—for it was a dance, though without music, fluid and beautiful—to react so quickly that the two sets of weapons rose and fell in unison.

Val could not tell whether his deepest yearning was for the skill they showed, the hand whose loss had robbed him of his own skill, or Ruth, whose movements mesmerised him. Sore though he would be once his muscles caught up with the strain he’d put them under, he would be here tomorrow, too, if they allowed him. Even if his reasons for that were as confused as his desires.

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Rivals to the love interest on WIP Wednesday

One common barrier to happiness in romance–although often a spur to the developing interest between the main couple–is another love interest, whether former, would-be, or prospective. In this week’s post, I’m inviting you to share in the comments an excerpt from your work in progress about rivals to the love of one of your protagonists. Mine is from To Claim the Long-Lost Lover, and my heroine is on the hunt for a husband.

After four days at the house party, Sadie was fighting the urge to order her carriage and escape. Lola had not arrived, instead sending a message to say that something had come up concerning the school and she would be there as soon as she could.

Some of the more disreputable house guests had taken Lola’s absence to mean Sadie would be susceptible to their charms, which was more than a little insulting. One had even told Sadie that he was pleased to see her without her twin, since Lola was a bluestocking and a prude, and out to spoil a man’s fun.

As if Sadie, without Lola, would not have the brains to see that Parkswick was all glitter and no substance! In their first year as debutantes, Society had dubbed her the Diamond and Lola the Saint. They seemed to think Sadie’s fashionable colouring and figure were the sum total of her being, and being beautiful must necessarily mean being stupid. Lola’s preference for a quieter social life and her dedication to educational causes meant, in their eyes, she was some kind of a religious fanatic, determined to spoil their fun.

Parkswick’s fun, in this case, fetched him sore toes from Sadie’s riding boot. When the fool chose to take that as clumsiness, she decided that threatening him with her cousin would provoke less gossip, if a lower degree of personal satisfaction, than a sound punch to his mating equipment. Drew’s marksmanship had become legendary in his first months in England, when he had shot the buttons off an opponent’s jacket in a duel, then repeated the feat at Manton’s with a succession of volunteers.

She hadn’t, in fact, told her cousin. Drew presented as an affable easy-going young man, slow to take offence and always ready with a joke to diffuse a tense situation. But scratch that surface, and the warrior lurked beneath. As her escort, Drew would take any threat to her seriously, and she wasn’t convinced that Parkswick deserved to be thrashed or worse.

Besides, on their way to the house party, she had asked him to give her space to get to know the three men she had been considering from her husband short list, and she hated to have to admit that was a mistake. Still, if the rakes and scoundrels couldn’t take a hint from her ever colder demeanour, she might have to ask Drew to have a quiet word.

Sadie sighed. Her husband list was shrinking, too. Out of three candidates at this party, two had disqualified themselves already. Drew had found out that Lord Hurley was an inveterate gambler and needed a wealthy wife to fund his habit. Sadie had no objection to a man marrying her for her dowry, but not if he was likely to wager it away and leave her and Eliza penniless.

Lord Colyford had seemed promising. He wanted a wife to mother his little girls and provide a son or two. Since Sadie wanted a father for her daughter and more children, it would be an even bargain. He was pleasant to talk to, treated her as if her opinions had value, and showed no signs of descending into sentiment. This was to be a practical marriage, with respect and affection, surely, but Sarah had done with love. The twinge when she thought of Nate was a scarred-over wound, mostly sound but subject to the occasional phantom pain. So she had been telling herself, trying not to build anything on the visit her sister had told her about, or his expressed desire to explain himself.

Perhaps next week I’ll share the excerpt in which Lord Colyford shows himself in his true colours.

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Gossip on WIP Wednesday

Drawn and engraved by Robert Cruikshank 

The gossip trope that often appears in Regency novels has been given a wider audience by screening of Brigerton. As one of the perpetrators of The Teatime Tattler, it’s one I’m fond of. You can do a lot with gossip, and–of course–it’s not just specific to the Regency!

So this week, I’m sharing an excerpt in which my hero of To Claim the Long-Lost Lover goes seeking gossip about his beloved. I’d love you to share an excerpt from your work in progress where you use gossip to further the plot.

Nate found that Sarah’s interest in finally choosing a husband had caught the attention of the bored young men who inhabited the clubs, moved in packs to entertainments in both high and low society, and whiled away their hours by wagering, gossiping, and competing within their set: corinthians, dandies, young blades.

“The Winderfield Diamond?” said one rakish gentleman, when Nate managed to bring her name into a conversation over brandy. “Nothing there. She looks lovely, I’ll grant you, but not safe. Even before those terrifying cousins arrived, a man’d risk his future offspring getting too close. Seems very sweet, right up until she freezes you into an ice block.”

“And her sister!” His friend shuddered. “Cut you into little strips with her tongue, that one.”

“Anyway,” Rake One commented, “she’s looking for a groom. Don’t know why this season, when she’s turned down more proposals than any other female on the Marriage Mart. Truth to tell, I only chanced my arm because of that. I usually leave the virgins alone, but I thought she’d decided on spinsterhood.”

“Anyone would have,” his friend commiserated. “Did myself.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t like men.”

“Then why is she getting married?” the first rake asked.

They considered the perplexing conundrum of a woman who did not find their advances appealing while Nate thought about how satisfying it would be to punch them.

Someone sitting nearby interrupted their silence. “Bit of a honey pot all around. Looks, money, connections. A man could do worse. And if she doesn’t warm up in bed, that’s what mistresses are for.”

“Good luck with that,” another opined. “She’s already turned away don’t-know-how-many fortune hunters. The war office should hire her mother and her aunt. Their intelligence gathering is impeccable.”

The topic drifted and circled, but kept coming back to what gossip had gleaned about Sarah’s intentions and expectations. Nate didn’t have to say a word. He sat and sipped his brandy, and before an hour had passed, he had a list of eight men that, the company agreed, the Winderfield Diamond was considering.

Other conversations added two more, and rounded out a picture of a settled man with interests beyond fashion, gambling, and sports. Of the seven landowners, four were peers and three untitled gentlemen. The three younger sons all had independent incomes from their own successful enterprises, one as a Member of Parliament in Commons, one an architect, and one a barrister. Nine of the ten preferred country to London living. Four were widowers, two with children.

One factor they had in common was that all had a name as philanthropists, in some measure. That was another thing Nate had learned about the Winderfield family in general and Sarah and her twin in particular; they not only supported good causes, they actively worked in charitable ventures as diverse as barefoot schools, orphanages, and support for military widows and their children.

Most of the useless fribbles who gossiped in his hearing were contemptuous of such efforts. “Not going to be able to make silk out of that kind of sow’s ear.” The young viscount expressing that opinion was only saying what his fellows thought. “They’re born in the gutter and they belong there. Don’t have the brains for anything else, and will rob you soon as look at you.”

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Settings on WIP Wednesday

Once upon a time, authors might devote pages to descriptions of the setting. Even back in the day, did readers peruse every detail? I’m not sure that they did, and I’m certain they wouldn’t today. The trick is to establish setting and background in as few words as possible. Do you have a bit you’d like to share in the comments? Mine is from To Claim the Long-Lost Lover, and introduces the reader to the home of my villainess.

In the half light just before dawn, the last of the club’s patrons stumbled out of the front door, those employees who did not reside in their place of work left through the back door, and the building slipped into its usual early morning slumber.

The club comprised two houses thrown into one in a street of four-story terraced houses. Behind, the areas that serviced the public rooms had spread to include the building’s neighbours in the parallel street, but that was not obvious from the front. There, apart from its double width, little set the building apart from its neighbours. Perhaps it was a little tidier; its window-sills and doors newly painted, its bricks scrubbed and firmly set in newly pointed mortar. Only the discreet brass sign beside the door identified it as very different from the family homes and boarding houses that surrounded it.

Heaven and Hell, the sign whispered, engraved into the brass in discrete italics, only an inch tall. To read it at all, even in the light of the lamp that had hung just above it all night, one needed to climb the steps from the street. No one came to the building without a personal referral, but occasionally, first-time visitors needed reassurance that they were in the right place before they were emboldened to knock on the door.

A glimpse through the open door as the porter allowed entry  would leave a passerby with an impression of light and gilt. Members, or those referred by members, were surrounded by opulence as soon as they stepped inside. Opulence and decadence. In Heaven and Hell, nothing was forbidden. Everything was available for a price.

The woman known as La Reine, the ruler of the brothel Heaven that occupied the two upper floors of the main house, retired to her personal sitting room in a penthouse suite above the mean street behind the club. It had been a profitable night, at least upstairs. Supper was laid ready, and when her business partner joined her, she would find out how things went in Hell, the gambling establishment on the lower two floors.

 

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Broken families on WIP Wednesday

I’m beginning to get my first comments back on the beta draft of To Mend the Broken Hearted, so I thought I’d give you a piece. Val’s sister-in-law and Ruth’s cousin have stolen his little girl as revenge, and Ruth was captured when she went after them. Ruth’s family and Val’s comrades from the army have banded together to get Ruth and Genny back.

This story is about family. Val’s family is broken, but with Ruth’s help, he’ll rebuild what he can. Her family is split in two, with half left behind in the East. Another kind of break. Still, love binds them together.

Do you write about families? Born, made, or cobbled together? Share an excerpt in the comments.

Every strategy had risks, as the duke said when he summed up the discussion that followed. “We don’t have any idea where in the house our ladies are being kept. If we break in, they may be hurt before we can get to them. If we wait until morning, or whenever Wharton chooses to emerge, our ladies may be suffering right now, and we’ll be standing by while it happens.”

Val had been examining the house from where they stood in the cover of the stables. “What if we could get in from the top? Find an empty room in the attics and enter that way? If we could get even a couple of people inside, and they could find our ladies…?”

“It would be a tough climb,” Rutledge mused, his eyes narrowing as he considered the idea.

“I could do it,” Drew offered. “It’s our best chance, Kaka. If we can find our ladies and take out their guard, we can defend them while the rest of you make a full on assault.”

The duke gave a sharp nod, and Drew fell into a quiet conversation with one of his warriors, while the pair of them removed their gloves, their jackets, their boots and their stockings. “Kaka, we’ll ascend between the porch pillars and the side of the house, then walk that bit of pediment, climb up where that wing meets the main house, and make our way to the roof. We should be able to drop down to that bit of roof by the gable there,” he pointed to each feature as he named it. “The window is slightly open, so there may be someone inside. We’ll make a decision on whether to enter or keep looking once we’ve got up there. Once we’re inside, watch for us to signal that we’ve found the ladies.”

The duke nodded again. “And then we’ll attack. We will be ready, my son.”

Val watched in agonised envy as Drew and his companion ascended the house face, taking it in turns to lead, the lower one often offering a foothold for the other, who then would pause to reach back for his partner. I should be doing that. But even when he had both hands, he couldn’t climb the way those two did.

“They are quite mad,” Jamie murmured in his ear. “Back at home, they used to climb rockfaces for fun. Still do. The pair of them are making a list of all the mountains in Wales and Scotland with climbs they consider worth doing.”

Around them, the men dispersed, one group to each face of the house, to choose windows to break through when the signal came. Val stayed, watching the climbers approach the attic window.

They were almost there when the window opened wide, and someone leaned out of it. Val stepped out of the shadow, staring. “Ruth!” It was. She and Drew were embracing through the open window, and then she stepped back out of sight and returned to help Genny climb out of the window into Drew’s waiting arms.

He settled the child on his back, clinging like a monkey, and Ruth followed her out the window. “What is she doing?” Jamie asked. “Ah! I see.” Ruth had taken off her pelisse and her shoes and stockings. She looped her skirt up between her legs and bound it in place by tying her pelisse around her waist by the sleeves. She used her sash to tie Genny to Drew’s back.

Val waited, his heart in his mouth, and Drew led the way down, Ruth following, and his friend bringing up the rear, helping Ruth whenever she had trouble making progress. Never had five minutes moved so slowly, but at last Drew set one foot and then another onto the ground, and Val was there to untie his little girl and take her in his arms.

 

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Spotlight on Short Stories

I occasionally hear people say that they don’t like short stories. I love them. I acknowledge that they’re a different art form to a novel, or even a novella. But when life is rushed and there’s little time for reading, there’s nothing like the mini-escape — the micro-holiday — of a shorter form of fiction.

Even novels are only part of a story–they have a beginning and an ending, which real life lacks (even conception and death being but punctuation points in the larger story of a community or a family). In a novel, though, the author has time to draw out the motivations and history of the main participants, maybe to follow several plot lines, to allow characters to develop and change, and to solve complex problems and untwist complicated knots. This gives novels their fascination, and the larger and more complicated the novel, the more some people seem to like it. A series with an overarching plot is a wonderful thing, allowing three, six, ten–even fifteen (in some cases) individual full stops within a larger story that spans the entire series.

Novella–that is, 20,000 to 40,000 words of story–are animals of quite a different description. When writing them, I’ve found it best to limit the cast of characters and reduce the plot lines to one major and maybe one minor. Novellas still allow for a problem to be solved, a character to grow, a relationship to be formed.

Short stories, though, are vignettes–paintings of a moment in time. The past is hinted at; character development is minimal; motivations are brushed on in broad strokes; only the main characters stand out and the rest are reduced to background. The shorter the story, the harder the craft of making a satisfying read. And I do love a challenge.

A well crafted short story may leave you wishing it was longer, but is also satisfying. The end is leaves you free to catch that bus, pick those children up, pack up that lunch and return to your desk, turn off the light and go to sleep. Short stories are fun.

So what do you say? Short, novella, short novel or long novel, series or stand-alone? Or (my answer) “Yes, please,” to all.

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This Christmas, I have a novella and a short story in the Belles’ 2020 Christmas collection Holiday Escapes, published in November and comprising four novellas and two short stories. I’ve also just published eleven short stories in Chasing the Tale. I hope you enjoy them.

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A Tale of Two Princes

The handsome young pair above are Prince George, the Prince of Wales, and his next youngest brother, Frederick, Duke of York and Albany. They were fifteen and fourteen respectively when this was painted. Prince George was two years off his much-publicised affair with the actress Mary Robinson that marked the transition of his strained relationship with his father from sullen obedience to open rebellion, and that gave him the moniker ‘Florizel’.

Poor George was stuck with the role of Prince of Wales–fundamentally king in waiting and by all that’s holy boy, you’d better wait patiently. Frederick, on the other hand, was gazetted as an officer in the army the following year. So the age of seventeen was momentous for both of them: one set out publicly on a life of hedonism, display, emotional excesses and rebellion, and the other began a career in the army, and is credited with accomplishments that include carrying out the major reforms that fitted the army for the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic wars, founding Sandhurst, a military school which promoted merit-based training for future officers.

Yes, he had an expensive gambling habit, but he was also a hardworking military officer and later served in the House of Lords.

The Prince of Wales, on the other hand, had to invent his own role. Patron of the arts, pain in his father’s rear end, lover, entertainer, home renovator extraordinaire… poor George.