Book series

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Secondary Characters on WIP Wednesday

I tend to have quite a cast of secondary characters, and to fall in love with them and want to know more. Other characters manage to be far more disciplined. How about you? Are your supporting cast just there to provide an ear (or a knife) at the appropriate time? Or do they insist on developing personalities and threatening to take over?

Give me an excerpt with a secondary character! I’ll show you one of mine. This is the Earl of Hythe in conversation with his older sister, the heroine of To Wed a Proper Lady. Hythe has a mania for tidiness which Sophia uses in this scene.

As soon as Sophia entered the house, Pinchbeck said, “Lord Hythe has arrived, my lady, and asks that you attend him in his study as soon as you return.”

“Very well,” Sophia agreed. “Tell my brother that I will be with him shortly. I will just go up to my room to wash.” London’s air and its filthy streets always left her feeling grimy.

The butler shuffled, but did not remove himself from her path. “Urgently, my lady, his lordship said.” His tone was apologetic, but uncompromising.

Sophia wondered what could possibly be so urgent. Hythe was not usually so peremptory. She handed her maid her bonnet, gloves, and pelisse. “Very well. Theodosia, take these up to my room, please, and begin to prepare for my next change. Lay out the green dinner gown with the deep flounce.”

The butler was leaving, his message delivered. “Pinchbeck, order tea and refreshments to Hythe’s study, please. Also, a bowl of hot water, soap, wash cloth, and towel. If Hythe wishes me to come to him directly, then he can watch my ablutions.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Sophia knocked and opened the door, catching Hythe with his boots on his desk, leaning back in his chair with his eyes shut. He swung his legs down and stood. “Sophia. Good. I wanted to talk to you.”

“So I understood from Pinchbeck. Immediately, he said. Without an opportunity to wash or tidy my hair.”

Hythe flushed. “I did not demand that you come as soon as you walked in the door. Old Pinchy exceeds his commission.”

“He misunderstood, then.” Sophia rolled her sleeves back, ready for her wash. “I was certain, my dear, that you would not be so discourteous.”

“Of course not.” Hythe was blushing still more, his eyes turned away from his sister’s scandalously exposed arms. “I only told him I wished to speak to you as soon as possible. When you returned, I said.”

“I collect that you told him it was urgent. You may be pleased, Hythe, that your butler is so eager to obey you.” While inconveniencing and potentially offending the woman who had been mistress of this house in the ten years since her mother died. The servants saw as clearly as Sophia did that her reign would end when Hythe took a wife.

“It can wait if you wish to…”

Hythe trailed off when a footman came in with a bowl of water, followed by Sophia’s maid Theodosia, carrying a towel, wash cloth, and soap.

“Not at all, Hythe. I have taken the liberty of sending for what I required.”

She sat on the sofa, and gestured to the footman to put the bowl on the table in front of her. Hythe, who hated anything out of order, looked at the arrangement with horror. To distract him, she asked Hythe, “Have you had a pleasant trip?” They conversed while she swiftly washed her face and then her hands. He had been to their estate in Sussex — to escape the social round, as she well knew, though he had clearly used the time to good effect, as he shared with her the decisions he’d made with his land steward while he was there.

Another pair of maids arrived with the tea service and a tray of tidbits. Sophia nodded to the footman to remove the bowl, and Theodosia took the towel Sophia handed her and wiped the table with it before the others put down their trays in front of Sophia.

Hythe paled at the misuse of the towel. Poor Hythe. It had been unkind of her to show her pique at his order by disrupting his study in this way.

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Published, in progress and planned books, mapped by series and connection

The image above shows my published books (black), those I’m currently writing (blue) and those I intend to write soon (red). If it’s shorter than a novel, I’ve put (novella) or (short story). A yellow container holds a series, with connected stories (those that are not part of the series but that include characters who’ve appeared in the series) out to the side and connected by a line. I have also marked my five mobile characters with a penciled line and the character’s names in green.

The plan is to complete The Darkness Within, then finish The Children of the Mountain King series before I start anything else. That’s about 300,000 words to write, so maybe ten month’s work. Since I like to publish a Redepenning book a year, I’m hoping it’ll be quicker. I’m looking forward to writing The Flavour of Our Deeds, next in The Golden Redepennings. Lucas Mogg, Kitty’s amour and Rede’s gamekeeper, is hiding a secret. I’m dying to tell you what it is, but we’ll all have to wait.

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Scandal and gossip on WIP Wednesday

 

I’ve made the final changes to Unkept Promises and am in the process of generating the files to upload to the retailers. So this is my last work-in-progress extract from the book, and this time, I’m thinking about that perennial driver of Regency and Victorian romance, gossip. In my excerpt from Chapter 2, we find that gossip was the force behind Mia’s and Jules’s marriage.

How about your stories? Has gossip been a motivating factor? Share an excerpt in the comments.

“Tell me about the rumours,” Jules commanded.

The three gathered around his bed. Susan fussed over helping him to sit then left the room so the men could see to his comfort. She returned to say she had sent for breakfast. “Just a coddled egg and some thinly cut slices of bread, Jules. Nothing to inflame your fever again.”

“Tell me,” Jules repeated.

“Eat first,” Father suggested, “and get a little of your strength back.”

From what he’d heard, Jules would need it.

The egg and bread came with a few mushrooms, some bacon, and a cup of warmed milk flavoured with honey and spices. Jules rejected the drink and demanded some of the coffee that had been fetched for the other three. “Now tell me what they are saying about Mia,” he demanded. “Surely people realise the circumstances? She was trapped with me, yes, but her father was there too, and she is, after all, just a girl.”

“Gossip,” Aldridge said. “Rumour paints her as your lover, of course, but worse is being said.” He held up a hand. “Not my servants. They know how to be discrete. It seems a mix of village small-mindedness and a couple of females who should never have been invited to one of my parties. I am sorry. They shall be, too, but not soon enough to undo the damage.”

Jules turned to Susan. “How bad is it? She hoped to be able to return to her home.”

“She insisted on going,” Susan said. “It was not a happy experience. Apparently, the rumours had arrived first. Thank goodness I persuaded her to allow me to go with her. Her landlord has evicted her, and even the woman who runs the local dame school…”

“She believed the gossip?” Mia had spoken so highly of the woman.

Susan shook her head. “Not at all. But she depends on the money she receives from the parish and the wealthier parents.” She shrugged.

“It is the other two roles ascribed to her that have done the damage,” Aldridge explained. “Mutually conflicting, but when was the mob ever rational?”

One story said she was a member of the smugglers’ gang (and whore to one or more of those ruffians). “She fell in love with your pretty blue eyes and killed several of the smugglers, including her lover, to free you,” Aldridge explained. “The number of people she killed in order to get you out of your cell grows with each repetition of the story. The latest round has her father cast as the smugglers’ secret leader, and accuses her of parricide.”

Jules and his sister snorted in disgust, and the marquis quirked one corner of his mouth in a twisted smile. “People are idiots,” he agreed.

“The other story has her providing entertainment at Aldridge’s party,” Susan added. “Some have to invent a whole new messenger to tell Aldridge about the smugglers, and some knit the two stories together to say she sold herself to Aldridge in return for help to rescue you. Either way, she purportedly accompanied the Marquis to the rescue, on his horse, semi-clad.”

“Partly true,” Aldridge conceded. “Not the semi-clad bit, obviously, but she did come on my horse.” At identical glares from Lord Henry and Jules, he held up defensive hands. “She would not take no for an answer, and I certainly couldn’t leave her at the castle until my guests had departed. Not those guests.”

“Jules,” Father said gravely, leaving the point, “her father appears to have been her only family. She has been left near destitute and with her reputation in ruins. But she refuses the remedy that would save her.”

“I heard,” Jules said. “Marriage to me. Because of Kirana.” He met his father’s gaze, his own solemn. “Kirana and I have two children, Father, if all went well with her lying in. I cannot desert them. My life is in Madras. I am posted to the Far East fleet, and should have been on my way back days ago. In addition, Mia is a child—just fourteen. Her peculiar upbringing has made her mature in many ways. Even so, she is not ready for marriage.”

“Mia is…” Susan began, but Father waved her to silence, leaving Jules to finish his own arguments for and against.

He was thinking about what his life might look like with Mia as his wife. He could think of worse fates. As Aldridge had implied, she would be a magnificent woman when she grew up. “Can I leave her with you? If I marry her… Would you take her in as a daughter and look after her until I come home?” Which could be years from now, and anything could happen. He was going back into the war. He might die. Any of them might.

Yes. He would marry Mia and let the future look after itself.

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Tension on WIP Wednesday

Tension is an important part of a story. If we’re not on the edge of our seat wondering how it’s all going to turn out, we might as well be painting our nails or watching the grass grow.

This week, I’m inviting you to share a passage where you ratchet up the tension. It might be dramatic tension, romantic tension, suspenseful tension, comedic tension–your choice. Mine is from To Wed a Proper Lady, and is set in the aftermath of a duel between my hero’s brother and his loathsome cousin.

“Good shooting, brother,” James said, clapping Drew on the shoulder.

“Idiot would have been fine if he hadn’t moved,” Drew grumbled. Weasel had shot before the final count and missed. When Drew had taken his turn, he had announced his intention of removing Weasel’s watch fob from the chain that drooped across his waist, and ordered the man to stand still.

At the other end of the field, Weasel was carrying on as if death were imminent. His second, the Marquis of Aldridge, after a brief examination, gave the Winderfield men a thumbs up before leaving Weasel to the ministrations of the doctor. Aldridge was now giving orders to the servants by the carriage that had brought him and Weasel to the duelling grounds.

“Breakfast?” James suggested.

“Good idea,” Drew said. “Let’s collect Yousef and…”

As if his name had conjured him up, their father’s lieutenant appeared from the trees and stalked towards them. Something about his posture brought James to full alert, and Drew sensed it too, stiffening beside him.

“Trouble?” James asked, as soon as Yousef was close enough.

“An assassin in the woods, armed with a pistol like these.” He gestured to the gun that Drew had replaced in its case until he had time to clean it. “You were not meant to walk from this field, Andraos Bey.”

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Tea with Jonathan

 

Her Grace of Haverford answered a question about her plans for the evening, while watching her younger son prowling her private parlour, picking up ornaments and putting them down, smoothing out a crinkle in a linen mat, twitching a flower out of a vase to smell it and put it back in the wrong place. He clearly had something to say, and was barely pretending to listen as he tried to decide whether to come out with it.

“What is on your mind, my dear?” she asked, after he had tossed out two more conversational sallies, neither of which related to the other.

He flopped into a chair opposite to her. “I need something to do, Mama. His Grace stops everything I try, and Aldridge thinks I am complaining about nothing.”

So that was it. The duchess knew that His Grace refused to allow his back-up heir to take up any worthwhile activity, but she had not realised that her older son had also proved unsympathetic.

“You know what happened when I tried to join the army,” Jonathan complained. “His Grace refused his permission. So I joined under a false name. His Grace had me hunted down, bought me out, and confined me until I gave my word not to do it again.”

“I am rather glad about that,” Eleanor confessed. “It is cowardly of me, but I hate the thought of you risking your life in the struggle against Napoleon.”

“I am not afraid,” Jonathan insisted, completely missing his mother’s point. “At least I would have a purpose.” He continued his litany of things he’d done. “I went to work for an architect. His Grace had the man beaten. I changed my name again, and found work as a factory clerk. He threatened to ruin the man if I wasn’t fired. He told me that if I tried it again, he’d throw my old nanny out of the cottage she has retired to.”

Eleanor had purchased the cottage, and Jonathan’s nanny now owned it outright, but the duke would find another stick with which to threaten his son into compliance.

“Don’t tell me to speak to Aldridge. He doesn’t understand. I can’t live this life—this meaningless, idiotic life. He has work. I am allowed none. He has purpose. Mine is to simply exist until he marries and has children. After that, I’m redundant. Aldridge thinks I should be happy to drink and gamble and swive — I beg your pardon, Mama. And indulge myself until I’m silly, then get up the next day and do it again. He can’t believe I’m not. But he wouldn’t like having nothing useful to do nearly as much as he thinks. Can you talk to him, Mama?”

“Of course I will.” It would not help. The duchess knew His Grace had forbidden Aldridge to involve Jonathan in the many duties of the duchy that burdened the eldest son. Still, she would speak to Aldridge, and suggest he explain that to Jonathan, so at least the young man’s ire would be directed at the proper target. Meanwhile, she would try to give his mind another direction. “Perhaps, my dear, you might consider being of use to me?”

He looked up from the fist he had been punching into his other palm. “With what, Mama?”

“I understand you are friends with Miss Lilly Diamond,” the duchess said. Jonathan blushed. So those particular rumours were true, then. Eleanor discounted much of what she heard about her sons, but clearly Jonathan was at least acquainted with the famous demi-mondaine. “My friend Lady Sutton is concerned. Apparently Lady Georgiana is a frequent visitor at Miss Diamond’s house.”

The young lord sat up straight, his face grave, “I do not think it the part of honour to be your spy, Mama.”

Eleanor hid a smile at the indignant rebuke. “Nor do I ask you, dear. But Grace thinks, and I agree, that something odd is going on in the circles where your friend Miss Diamond presides. It may be nothing to do with her, of course. But will you keep your eyes out, Jonathan? And will you watch out for Lady Georgiana, if you can? I would hate to see her hurt.”

“I can do that,” Jonathan agreed. His eyes lit, and he shot her a devilish grin. “I see what you are doing, Mama. You are making it my job to drink and gamble and– other things. Well, a man has to do what a man has to do.”

Lord Jonathan Grenford is carrying out his mother’s commission when the courtesan, Lilly Diamond, is poisoned. Gren (as his friends call him) finds himself helping his half-brother David Wakefield to investigate the murder, in Revealed in Mist.

 

 

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Animal friends on WIP Wednesday

 

Animal companions can be useful in a book. They show our character’s empathy and kindness (or lack thereof). They can be comic relief. They might, if the character doesn’t have anyone else to talk to, be an ideal recipient of the kind of information we want the reader to know and need the character to talk about.

So give me an excerpt with an animal. Mine is from To Wed a Proper Lady, the rewrite of The Bluestocking and the Barbarian. My hero is gate crashing a house party with the help of his horse.

Limp,” James said to Seistan. “Limp, my lovely, my treasure, my Jewel of the Mountains.”

The horse obeyed his master’s hand signals and limped heavily as they turned through the gates of the manor, beginning the long trek along the dyke that led between extensive water gardens to where Lady Sophia Belvoir was attending a house party.

In his mind, James was measuring his reasons for being here against his reasons for staying away.

His grandfather faded fast, and the end of the year – and his reprieve – was fast approaching. Lady Sophia was the other half of his soul, and only she could fill the place in his heart and at his side. Every meeting since the first had merely confirmed the connection in his mind. Was it only his imagination that had him believing she felt it too?

Surely her eyes spoke for her, finding him as soon as he entered a room and following him until he left, blue-gray eyes that veiled themselves when he caught them watching, in the longest soft brown lashes he had ever seen. She was not, as these English measured things, a beauty: her arched nose and firm chin too definite for their pale standards, her frame too long and too robust. They preferred dolls, like her sister, and Sophia was no doll.

On the other hand, there was Hythe’s threat and Lady Sophia’s rejection to consider. Beyond that, his father’s greatest enemy owned the house he approached. The party would be full of aristocrats and their hangers on, ignoring him until they found out whether he was a future duke or merely the half-breed bastard of one.

The family needed him to marry a strong woman, one with family ties to half the peerage of this land to which they somehow belonged, though he had only first seen it eight months ago. His foreign blood and upbringing meant he needed a wife who was English beyond question, and English nobility to her fingertips.

James needed to marry Sophia; had needed to since he first saw her in a village street. And then he found she had all the connections his family could desire. Surely their love was fated?

The house came into view—a great brick edifice rising four stories above the gardens and glittering with windows. Nothing could be less like the mountain eerie in which he had been raised, but he squared his shoulders and kept walking, soothing Seistan who reacted to his master’s nerves with a nervous sideways shuffle.

“Hush, my Wind from the North. We belong here, now. What can they do, after all?”

Beat him and cast him out, but from what he knew of the Duchess of Haverford, that was unlikely to happen.

“It is, after all,” he reminded his horse with a brief laugh, “the season of goodwill.”

The stables were off to one side, on a separate island to the main house. At the fork in the carriageway, James hesitated, tempted to take Seistan and see him cared for before chancing his luck at the house. If they invited him in, he would need to hand his horse over to grooms who were strangers while he consolidated his position.

But if they turned him away, he might need to remove himself at speed, Seistan’s convenient limp disappearing as fast as it appeared. Besides, in the mountains between Turkmenistan and Persia, as in England, one did not treat a private home as a caravanserai. He must be sure of his welcome before he took advantage of their stables.

The carriageway crossed the moat surrounding the house and ended in a generous forecourt. James left Seistan at the foot of the long flight of steps leading up to the front door, giving him the command to stay. Seistan stood, weight on three legs and ears pricked with interest as he watched his master climb the steps. Nothing short of outright panic would move the horse from his silent watch before James gave the counter command.

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Tea with Cedrica and Sophia

Today’s post is an excerpt from To Wed a Proper Lady, the novel I’m creating from The Bluestocking and the Barbarian.

Several days after her arrival in London, Sophia followed the liveried footman through the ornate splendour of Haverford House paying little attention to the treasures around her. What could Her Grace mean by the cryptic comment in her note of invitation?

I have someone for you to meet and a job that I think you will enjoy.

The thought crossed her mind that her godmother might be match-making, but she dismissed it. Aunt Eleanor would never be so obvious. Still, when she was ushered into the duchess’s private sitting room, she was relieved to see that the room held only Aunt Eleanor and a younger woman – a soberly-dressed girl perhaps a year or two older than Felicity.

Something about the face, particularly the hazel eyes behind the heavy-framed spectacles, identified her as a Haverford connection. Another of the duke’s poor relations, then. Aunt Eleanor had made a calling of finding them, employing them, discovering their yearnings and talents, and settling them in a more fulfilling life.

“Sophia, my dear,” the duchess said, holding out both hands in welcome. Sophia curtseyed and then clasped her godmother’s hands and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

Her Grace immediately introduced the poor relation. “Sophia, allow me to make known to you my cousin Cedrica Grenford. Cedrica is staying with me for a while, and has been kind enough to help me with my correspondence and note taking.” The undoubtedly very distant cousin was the duchess’s secretary, in other words.

Cedrica served the tea, enquiring timidly about her preferences. She seemed overwhelmed by her surroundings. She addressed Sophia as ‘my lady’ in every other sentence, and had clearly been instructed to call the duchess Aunt Eleanor, for she tripped over every attempt to address her directly and ended up calling her nothing at all.

“Please,” Sophia told her, “call me Sophia as my friends do. Aunt Eleanor’s note suggests we shall be working together on whatever project she has in mind, and we will both be more comfortable if we are on first name terms.”

The duchess leaned forward and touched Cedrica’s hand. “May I tell Sophia some of your circumstances, my dear? It is pertinent to the idea I have.”

Cedrica nodded, and Her Grace explained, “Cedrica is the daughter of a country parson who has had little opportunity to set money aside for his old age. When he fell into infirmity, Cedrica wrote to ask for her cousin’s help, as was right and proper, and I was only too happy to have her here to be my companion, and to arrange for her dear father to be comfortably homed on one of our estates.”

Very much the short version of the story, Sophia suspected. Cedrica was blinking back tears.

The duchess continued, “As it turned out, Cedrica has a positive gift for organisation, and is extremely well read. She is proving to be an absolute genius at my secretarial work; so much so that Aldridge has threated to hire her from under my nose to assist with the work of the duchy.”

Cedrica protested, “He was only joking, Your Gr… Aunt… um. Who has heard of such a thing!”

“That brings me to my point, dear,” Aunt Eleanor said. “Cedrica is entirely self-educated, except for a few lessons at her mother’s knee before that dear lady passed beyond. Why, I ask you? Are women less capable of great learning than men? Cedrica is by no means an exception. You and I, Sophia, know a hundred women of our class, more, who study the arts and the sciences in private.”

Sophia nodded. She quite agreed. Part of Felicity’s restless discontent came from having little acceptable outlet for her considerable intelligence.

“I have done what I can in a small way to help my relatives,” the duchess went on. “Now, I want to do more. Sophia, Cedrica, I have in mind a fund to support schemes for the education of girls. Not just girls of our class, but any who have talents and interests beyond those assigned to them because of their sex and their place in life. Will you help me?”

In the discussion that followed, Cedrica forgot her awe at her exalted relation and that lady’s guest, and gave Sophia the opportunity to see the very gifts Aunt Eleanor spoke of. In a remarkably short time, the young woman had pages of lists — ideas for the types of project that might be sponsored; money raising ideas; names of people of who might support the fund; next steps.

“We are agreed, then,” the secretary said, at last, losing all self-consciousness in her enthusiasm. “The duchess will launch the fund at a Christmas house party and New Year Charity Ball to be held at one of her estates.” She glanced back at her notes. “Our first step will be to hold a meeting at a place to be decided, and invite the ladies whose names I’ve marked with a tick. The purpose of the meeting will be to form a committee to organise the event.”

She sat back with a beaming smile, clutching her papers to her chest.

“An excellent summation,” the duchess agreed. “My dears, we have work to do, but we have made a start; a very good start.”

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Spotlight on Unkept Promises

It’s on preorder. My story of Mia Redepenning and her reunion with her absent husband, and what happened next, is finally with the proofreader, and I’m setting up a publication plan as we speak. Read on for an excerpt. See my book page for the previous three books, and The Golden Redepennings web page for more about the series. And all my novels are on 50% discount at Smashwords this month.

Unkept Promises

Book 4 in The Golden Redepennings series

She wants to negotiate a comfortable marriage; he wants her in his bed

“… oaths and anchors equally will drag: naught else abides on fickle earth but unkept promises of joy.” Herman Melville

Naval captain Jules Redepenning has spent his adult life away from England, and at war. He rarely thinks of the bride he married for her own protection, and if he does, he remembers the child he left after their wedding seven years ago. He doesn’t expect to find her in his Cape Town home, a woman grown and a lovely one, too.

Mia Redepenning sails to Cape Town to nurse her husband’s dying mistress and adopt his children. She hopes to negotiate a comfortable married life with the man while she’s there. Falling in love is not on her to-do list.

Before they can do more than glimpse a possible future together, their duties force them apart. At home in England, Mia must fight for the safety of Jules’s children. Imprisoned in France, Jules must battle for his self-respect and his life.

Only by vanquishing their foes can they start to make their dreams come true.

Buy links:
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/947394
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TXXK53N/

Excerpt

Jules had somehow found the time to organise for the military chaplain to visit Kirana, and he arrived later that afternoon when Mia was reading to her friend. The chaplain was a middle-aged man, balding and running slightly to fat, but with a kind eye.

Jules presented him to Mia. “Mrs Redepenning, may I make known to you Captain Albrooke, chaplain to the nth Regiment. He has been kind enough to come to see Kirana.”

What was the etiquette for introducing a man of the cloth to a mistress? Mia was certain the question had never been covered in any of her conversations with her mentors. She would have to behave according to her own best instincts, and hope she did not offend the man. “Captain Albrooke, thank you for coming. Please. Take my seat.” She rose, putting the book to one side “Kirana, my dear, Jules and I will be close by if you need us. Captain Albrooke, you may be wondering how to address my friend. Mrs Redepenning would be acceptable, or Mrs Kirana, if you prefer.”

Jules held the door for Mia, followed after her, and closed it not quite shut behind them. From inside the room they could hear the low hum of the chaplain’s voice, punctuated by Kirana’s cough.

“Albrooke was a bit non-plussed,” Jules told Mia. “More by your presence than by Kirana’s, I suspect. Not many wives would be as charitable, Mia.”

Mia shrugged, suppressing the movement part way through. Did Jules notice? Possibly not, but anyone raised as a lady would. Every day in a dozen ways she showed she had not absorbed the thousands of tiny rules of Society with her mother’s milk. Ladies did not shrug, or slouch, or skip, or shout, or saunter, or stride, or… she couldn’t think of another ‘s’ word, but she was sure she could create a list of ‘do not’s’ for every letter of the alphabet.

“Kirana had the prior claim, Jules.” Thinking about holding her body straight and still, she failed to guard her tongue. “I have never counted your relationship with her as a breach of your vows.” She would have caught back the last sentence, with its emphatic stress on the word ‘her’, but it was too late.

Jules was looking out of the window into the courtyard below, where Hannah was sitting with the two girls, reading them a book. But he heard the emphasis, for his head jerked around and she felt the burn of his blue gaze as he examined the flush that swept her face.

She bit her lip, but the words were said, and they were true.

“But you do count other relationships?” he asked. She was not deceived by the light conversational tone; not when the search beam of those eyes still stripped her soul bare.

“I daresay you think it presumptuous of me.” She could offer that much, though she herself did not think it presumptuous. He had acted in honour when he made sure she knew, before they married, that he intended to return to his mistress, and so she accepted that as a codicil to the vows they had exchanged in their hasty wedding. No exception for her, and only one for him.

“Not presumptuous at all.” Jules sounded tired all of a sudden, and her indignation evaporated. What a homecoming this had been for the poor man. “You are the one person on earth with the right to comment. And Kirana, perhaps, but she has never complained.”

Again, Mia spoke before her brain could censor her tongue. “You might be a better man if she had.”

He turned back to the window and his voice was dry as he replied, “You will undoubtedly amend her lapse. You’ve got yourself a poor bargain, Mia. I told you before I married you, I was not the Sir Galahad type. I’m no saint, either. Don’t expect me to be; I’ll only disappoint you.”

The door to the bedchamber opened. “Mrs Kirana Redepenning will sleep now,” Captain Albrooke said. “If I may, I will call again in a few days.”

“Of course,” Mia agreed. “Kirana will appreciate that.”

Jules carried the man off to his study for a drink and Mia set a maid to watching Kirana then went in search of a task, preferably one that involved punching things.

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Courtship woes on WIP Wednesday

Cicely and Gwendoline put their would-be suitors through their paces in The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde.

They met, they fell in love, they wed, they lived happily ever after. Where’s the story in that? We need conflict. We need challenges. In romance, we need courtships to go wrong.

So that’s the theme of this week’s invitation. Share an excerpt from your romance where a courtship is failing to take off, or is taking a wrong turn. Mine is from To Wed a Proper Lady.

When the other guests went up to change for dinner, James met Lady Sophia by the stables. He drove her over to the far corner of the estate, nearly a mile by the lanes, happily filling in the time by telling her the history of the Turkmen horse breed.

She asked interested and intelligent questions, which pleased him enormously. He’d love for his own passion for horse breeding to be something they could share. From his observation, couples who had at least some interests in common had better marriages and happier lives.

Should he hint at his desire to make her his wife? She must suspect by now, surely. He’d been careful to stay within the boundaries of an English courtship, as explained to him by his aunt: no more than one dance an evening, no steering straight to her side as soon as he saw her at any event they both attended, no singling her out without including her sister to give the appearance of propriety, no gifts beyond a polite note or a bunch of flowers. But within those constraints, he had been faithfully attentive for months.

And he’d sought her out in Cheltenham and organised this journey to spend time with her. Did that not tell her his intentions? Although she believed he was on his aunt’s errand.

In Para Daisa, his mother or another female relative would already have met with a female relative of hers. In England, he should, according to the courtship rituals Aunt Grace had described, call on the Earl of Hythe, the male head of the lady’s family.

Given Hythe’s attitude, such a meeting was unlikely to produce the results James needed.

by

Parents on WIP Wednesday

 

We all have parents and many of us have offspring. Both ways, the relationship is hugely formative, and in stories, scenes between a parent and offspring, or memories of such scenes, can be important for both plot and character. This week, I’m inviting excerpts about relationships between parents and children. Good or bad. Mother or father. Children grown up or still young. With our protagonist as parent or as offspring.

Mine is from Unkept Promises, and shows how Jules feels about his children by his mistress.

“I would rather do laundry than wash dishes,” Marshanda argued.

“Washing dirty pots is the worst,” Adiratna agreed, and Perdana nodded. “I hate washing dirty pots.”

The children fell into a discussion about the baked on grime that was hardest to remove, and Jules pulled Mia to one side, his face thunderous. “When have my daughters cleaned dirty pots?”

“While you were away,” Mia explained. “Maureen O’Riley sent them to the kitchen when she took over Kirana’s place.” She bit at her lower lip, frowning. Now to tell him her fears. But he spoke before she could, his voice cold enough to freeze.

“Took over Kirana’s place? Explain yourself, Mrs Redepenning.”

“Has no one told you? After you left, Maureen announced she was your new mistress, and was taking over the mistress’s room. She had the servants move Kirana to the little storeroom by the kitchen.”

“That hole?” Jules took a deep breath and two or three swift paces, back and forth, colour ebbing and flowing in face.

“Quite,” Mia agreed, reassured by the strength of his reaction. Clearly, Maureen had not had his authority for the move.

“No wonder she— Kirana told me you’d moved her from a hot stuffy room, and I thought she meant the one you are in now.”  He took another two swift paces, his struggle to remain outwardly calm clear on his face.

“Papa?” Marshanda left her conversation to run to Mia, putting an arm around her waist and peeping at Jules from that place of safety. “Why is Papa angry, Ibu Mia?”

“Your father is angry you were made to work in the kitchen, and your mother was made to sleep in the storeroom,” Mia said.

Jules had himself under control, and his voice dripped ice, though sparks of fire lit his blue eyes. “My servants will explain to me how they allowed this to happen — how they helped this to happen.”

Marshanda plastered herself closer to Mia, and Adiratna explained. “Dench said you had told him this was what you wanted. I told Marsha he was lying. I don’t like Dench.”

“You were right, Ada,” Jules told her. “He was lying. And I don’t like him, either.”

“Dench hits people if they say he is lying,” Marshanda warned. “He hit Japheth when Japheth didn’t believe you had given the orders. And he hit Ada when she bit him.”

Jules dropped to his knees and took his youngest daughter’s face between his hands. “He hit you, sweetheart?”

“Papa will hit him,” Perdana promised. “Papa will hit him right through to next Tuesday, won’t you Papa?”

“I will certainly make certain he never lies to my little girls or hits them again,” Jules vowed, not taking his attention off Adiratna. “Biting him was a very dangerous thing to do, my darling.”

Adiratna stuck out her lip and glowered. “I am not sorry,” she insisted. “He was dragging Mami by her arm. It hurt her. I made him stop.”

“She was very brave, Papa,” Marshanda insisted, her whole body trembling as she stood up for her sister. “Mami tried to walk, but she fell down, and he said a bad word and began to drag her, but when Ada bit him and ran away, he ran after her and Japheth and I had time to help Mami to her new room.”

“You were both very brave, then,” Jules said. “I am proud of you. And Ibu Mia is proud of you, too.”