Book series

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Kissing on WIP Wednesday

I’ve just sent The Trials of Benedict back to the editor. It should be published in a couple of months, so I thought you might like a first kiss. Here you go.

Lady Stowell looked rather dazed, and well she might. Alaric had simply assumed she would comply and left her to choose between being the gracious lady he assured her she was, and showing herself to be self-centred and petty. “Well. Yes. They are such good causes, after all.”

They had arrived at the drawing room door.

Alaric bowed again, and Bea curtseyed. “Thank you again,” they chorused. Lady Stowell inclined her head, but one last thought made it all the way to her mouth before Alaric could head it off. “This means I will have to wait between contests. I shall not wait with servants and farm workers, Lady Beatrice. You cannot ask it of me.”

“Of course not, Lady Stowell,” Bea assured her. “My cousin Beverley has a tent set up just for you and the gentry. I shall ensure suitable refreshments are waiting for you.” Alaric had opened the drawing room door, and was holding it for the viscountess.

“Hmmph,” said Lady Stowell. “That will do, then. But I shall be expecting the schedule to be better organised for next year, mind.”

With that final word, she sailed into the drawing room and, in the moment before Alaric shut the door, Bea could hear her saying, “Dear Lady Claddach. And Lady Lewiston, too. How splendid to see you.”

“Will the schedule change for next year?” Alaric asked Bea.

“I should put her on the organising committee,” Bea grumbled, “and leave her to figure it out. Except we would very likely finish up without an organising committee.”

He touched her hand. “We achieved what we needed,” he pointed out. “Time enough to worry about next year after this year is over. Thanks to you, Bea. You were brilliant.”

“And you were charming,” she pointed out. “We make a good team, do we not?” 

He leaned closer. “The best.” His eyes seemed to darken as his pupils expanded.

Had his mind gone to the same place as hers? There was a simple way to find out. “What are you thinking, Alaric?” 

“I am wishing I could kiss you,” he admitted.

“Not here, where anyone might come upon us,” she replied. “Follow me.” Was she really going to do it? She was. She had been thinking about it for days, and they might not get another time when most of the servants and all the younger house guests were out of the castle, as well as Papa, Uncle Lewiston and the other gentlemen.

Just beyond the head of the stairs was a linen closet. No one would have any reason to enter it. It was perfect for their purposes. She opened the door and led Alaric inside, then shut the door behind them.

Shelves full of household linen, sorted by type, quality, size and colour, lined both sides. Light filtered in from the direction of the back wall, which had a high round window above a table for folding linen before putting it away and a basket for anything that required mending.

Bea turned to face Alaric. Now what? She hoped he knew what he was about, for she had never before been kissed.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, his voice husky. He was certain, it seemed, for he was holding his arms out to her.

She nodded as she stepped closer to him. His hands came to rest on her waist, and he gazed into her eyes. After a moment, she asked, “Are you going to kiss me?”

“I am,” he assured her. “I am just deciding where to start.”

Bea frowned. Surely one simply pressed ones lips to the lips of the other person. Was that not the whole point? But she had no time to ask, for he used one hand to persuade her head to one side and placed a kiss on her neck, just below her ear. A shiver ran down her neck and through her body. 

He kissed her again, this time on her jaw, less than an inch from the first kiss, and followed along her jaw line. Not just kisses, either. He scraped his teeth over her skin then soothed it with his tongue. By the time his kisses reached the other ear, she was plastered against him, her knees too weak to hold her up. 

Then he came back across her cheek and at last reached her lips. Now he would settle his mouth over hers, as she had seen men do with their wives or lovers when they thought themselves unobserved. Good. His ministrations so far had set her whole body tingling, and particularly her womanly core. She could not wait to find out what his lips felt like on hers.

But no. The rain of kisses continued. She tried to object, but could manage nothing beyond a moan. An indignant moan, but hardly a clear request for more. Still, he responded, settling his mouth over hers. It felt amazing, but she still needed something else. 

He opened his mouth and ran his tongue along her lips. No. That wasn’t what she was waiting for. Not quite. Then, he nipped her lower lip with his teeth and she opened with a gasp. Alaric slipped his tongue into her mouth. 

A long interlude of learning one another followed. When she pressed her tongue against his, he hummed with pleasure, and when she chased his tongue into his mouth, he hummed even more loudly, then he followed her back, and their tongues tangled and danced while his mouth moved and his hands held her firmly against his body, one in the middle of her back and one grasping her behind.

She had no idea how long they kissed. The need for more returned, more urgent than ever. Her breasts felt heavy and sore, and so did that area in her lower torso, between her legs. 

Eventually, Alaric withdrew his mouth, sighed, and moved his hand from her buttock to her head, holding her in place while he rested his cheek against her hair. He was breathing heavily, she was pleased to note. She was panting, as if she had run from the castle to the beach.

She stood leaning against him, waiting for her breath to settle while all the thoughts that the kiss had driven from her head came crowding back into it.

“I must go,” she said at last. Her voice shook, and she was still not certain her knees would hold her up. “I do not know the time, but the girls setting out the food on the castle stall will be looking for me.”

“And the contestants for me,” Alaric admitted. “I ought to warn you it would have been a bad idea to remain here together, even if we could. That kiss…” He shook his head, slowly. “It was a promise of more, dearest Bea. And we cannot take more. Not without being wed. I would not dishonour you or your father. Not for the world.”

A promise of more. Bea had sensed that. And while her body was perfectly willing to explore that more immediately, her mind knew better. “It was a beautiful kiss,” she told him. “My first. I shall never forget it.” She stepped backwards and he dropped his arms and let her go.

He looked alarmed. “Your first? And I kissed you in a closet among the linens? You deserve better than that.”

“I think a kiss any better than that would kill me, Alaric,” she replied.

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Spotlight on Inviting the Wild

(A novella in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D8BYJ8ST

Ruadh Douglas doesn’t want to go home. Years on the battlefields for the glory of the king have made him more beast than man and he won’t inflict his wounded mind and soul on his family. So, he wanders the streets of London, performing penance by rescuing those in need.

Rosalind Ransome is a misfit in London’s ballrooms, but in visiting the sick of all classes, she has found work she loves and the chance to make a difference. When she is attacked in the streets, she is rescued by the vigilante they call the Wolf.

Rose is drawn to Ruadh when he seeks her family’s help to free his ailing grandfather from a treacherous wife and servants. But is he the loving grandson? Or the wolf who patrols the streets at night?

Even as Rose discovers he is both, Ruadh realizes he must find a way to tame his anger if he hopes to win the maid.

But when Rose is in danger, Ruadh is glad he can still call on the wild.

Read in Kindle Unlimited!

A Twist Upon a Regency Tale
Lady Beast’s Bridegroom
One Perfect Dance
Snowy and the Seven Doves
Perchance to Dream
Weave Me a Rope
The Sincerest Flattery
Inviting the Wild
Hold Me Fast
The Trials of Alaric

Excerpt

They came from the shadows, half a dozen men in layers of dirty rags, with knives or broken planks in their hands and hunger in their eyes.

Reuben, the footman, moved in front of Rosalind Ransome and her stepsister, Pauline Turner. Harris, the groom, brushed past the sisters to join Reuben. He muttered, for their ears only, “Get back, my ladies, and if you see an opportunity, run.”

Rose would have stepped up beside him, ready to fight, but Pauline grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“We have to help them,” Rose objected.

Pauline did not agree. “The biggest help we can be is to stay out of their way, and to escape when we have the chance. They can make their own escape if they do not have to worry about us.”

She did not say it was Rose’s fault, but Rose knew. They were on London’s streets in this unsavory area after dark because of her. But how could she have left the hospital earlier? Private Brown had asked for her. He had not not expected to survive the night, and in fact he didn’t. Rose could do little but hold his hand. That helped, or so Mr. Parslow, the superintendent, believed.

When she’d agreed to sit with him, Rose had sent home the carriage her brother had sent for her, and her maid. She could not see any reason why her servants should sit up all night. That decision had brought them here, in the early hours of the morning, facing murder or worse for the sake of the clothes they stood up in and whatever price she and Pauline might fetch in the brothels. That was all the thieves would get, because neither of them was foolish enough to carry valuables on an errand into this part of town.

The footpads had still not attacked. Harris had a two-barrel pistol, which was making the footpads think twice, but Rose did not suppose it would deter them for long.

“Is it worth being shot?” Reuben was arguing, persuasively. “Harris is a good shot, so at least two of you will not survive. Just let us go our way and no one needs to be hurt.”

“I am sorry, Pauline. I never meant for this to happen.”

Pauline squeezed Rose’s hand. “You did not ask me to bring the carriage back to get you, and you did not arrange for the carriage axle to collapse.” Which it had done five streets after they drove away from the hospital and only three from the broader streets patrolled by the watch.

The footpads’ leader had a counteroffer. “How ’bout you gie us all the morts’ glimmers and you can go your way?”

Glimmers, Rose guessed, must be jewelry. “I am not wearing any jewelry,” she told Pauline. “Are you?”

“No, and I do not have money with me, either.”

I would rather die than be sold into a brothel, Rose decided. She put her hand into the pocket she wore under her gown, a slit in the side seam giving discrete access. At least Private Brown would not be disappointed when she did not return tomorrow. He had breathed his last some fifteen minutes before Pauline arrived with the carriage.

She unfolded the object she retrieved from the pocket, extracting the blade from the bone handle to give her a small but perfectly serviceable dagger. “I have this,” she announced. “If I kill my sister and myself, will the clothing you can retrieve from our bodies be enough to compensate for this area being overrun with Red Breasts for the next few weeks, until they find every last one of you? For we shall be missed, and my brother knows where we went.”

The footpads went into a huddle, most of them still keeping an eye on their annoyingly uncooperative prey.

“I’m not sure you should have done that,” said Pauline, and Harris, the groom, groaned. “Not a good idea, Lady Rose.”

In the next moment, Rose found out why, as the footpads’ leader shouted, “Take the skirts alive, especially the mouthy one!” Four of them hurled themselves towards poor Reuben and Harris, and two began skirting around the fight that ensued to grab Rose and Pauline.

Rose had no time to spare a glance for the servants, though she heard a shot. She was determined not to be taken. The man who attacked her jerked back, screaming imprecations, his hand spraying blood from the wound he had inflicted on himself when he grabbed her knife and not her hand. The second man took advantage of Rose’s distraction to seize Pauline, who hit him with her umbrella. He grasped the umbrella and ripped it from her hands, then stumbled backwards.

Rose took a moment to realize that a large someone in dark clothes and a cape had dragged the man away from Pauline and swung him headfirst into a wall. A meaty hand landing on her shoulder was her only warning that the assailant she had cut was back on the attack. Before she even had time to struggle, the caped man had punched him hard enough to hurl him backwards.

One of the other footpads shouted, “It’s the Wolf!” In moments, three of them were running. The two that had attacked Rose and Pauline lay where the caped man had put them. One of the servants’ attackers was also down, presumably shot, but so was Harris. Reuben was picking himself up from the ground. As far as Rose could see in the poor light, he was unharmed.

She hurried to Harris, kneeling to feel for his pulse. As she did, he groaned. Thank goodness! He was alive. “Harris, can you hear me?” she asked.

“Lady Rose.” He yelped as he rolled to get his legs under him. “Reuben, lad, a hand,” he begged.

As she got up from her knees, Rose did not voice her objection to him moving. She could not examine him in the dark, and they needed to get off these streets as quickly as possible.

Harris said out loud what she had been thinking. “We need to get the ladies out of here before they come back to get their men.”

The footpads! She had forgotten them. She took two steps toward the one who had been punched, and who was now groaning. The man they called the Wolf stopped her. “Stay back! If he can, he will use you as a shield, and your servants’ suffering will be for nothing.”

Oh dear. “But they have been hurt,” she pointed out. “I do not like to just leave them.”

“We shall leave them to their own kind,” Pauline decided. “We cannot risk Harris and Reuben for the sake of men who would have killed us or sold us without a second thought. Come along, Rose.”

“You are right,” Rose agreed, falling obediently into step with her sister. Reuben came behind, one arm around Harris to support him. The Wolf ranged around them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, and sometimes walking beside them for a few paces.

In the moonlight, filtered as it was through London’s fog, she could not see more of him than she had from the beginning. A large man, broad and tall. Dark clothes covered by a thigh-length cape, perhaps a domino. Try as she might, she could not see his face, even when he turned toward her to deliver a disparaging remark. He had an arsenal of them.

“This is no place for ladies of your kind.”

“What would your family do if you were killed?”

“I cannot always be here to stop you from being hurt.”

“You put your servants at risk. Did you think of that before you planned your little jaunt?”

All said in the accents of a gentleman and in a pleasant voice that sounded as if he might sing tenor.

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Tam Lin and other such faery abduction stories, interpreted for the Regency era

My book Hold Me Fast has just gone up on preorder. It is a dark and gritty story, but the story that inspired Hold Me Fast lends itself to some sordid and heart-stopping detail. The story is Tam Lin (and all its variants), in which a faithful sweetheart is determined to rescue her beloved from the Faery.

I say “story” rather than “stories” because they are, in essence, the same tale told in different ways by different bards, poets, or story tellers. The Queen of the Faeries steals away a human to entertain her and her court. He is sometimes a musician, sometimes a poet, and sometimes both. He is always called some variant of the name Thomas. He becomes the Queen’s lover and remains with her for seven years. (In some stories, it is seven years in faery time, but much longer passes in the everyday world.)

In the tale of True Thomas, the Queen sends him home at the end of his time, with the “gift” that he cannot tell a lie.

In other versions, she plans to offer him to Hell to pay a tax owed by the faeries. Shortly before the tax falls due, he meets Janet (Margaret in some versions), who determines to rescue him. This involves pulling him from his horse during a midnight ride of the faery court and holding him while the Queen turns him into all sorts of dangerous and dire things.

When the Queen realizes she has lost her pet, she loses her temper still further, but her threats and ranting cannot now keep the two lovers apart. Tam (Tom) is saved from his fate and is back in the human world.

This is one of my favorite folk tales, and I wanted to do it justice. As soon as I began to think about the mechanics of Regency-era people with the underlying viciousness and cold-hearted hedonism of the faeries in the oldest tales, I knew I had a group of selfish entitled aristocratic men with too much money and too little conscience. And what is more likely than that a person in withdrawal from drug addiction is going to be changeable, near mindless, and dangerous?

By the way, I use the spelling faery, for the Fae of the old tales do not at all resemble the sweet creatures of more modern stories, with their butterfly wings, and their human-like lives and morals.

Hold Me Fast will be published on 19th September, and can be preordered from Amazon.

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Trapped in time on WIP Wednesday

This is a passage from the start of my new series. My hero is interrupted and alarmed. My heroine’s plans go awry.

Cornelius Tullius Laeca lay relaxed in the hot bath, his shoulders against the side wall, his buttocks on the shelf below the water, and his long legs stretched out before him. He was currently the only patron of the inn’s private bath house, which was probably just as well, because he was a large man, and the three baths—cold, warm, and hot, each in a separate room—were all small.

According to the innkeeper, he was within a day’s ride of Londinium. He should be there tomorrow. Perhaps he should consider buying a slave. The innkeeper, like others on this trip down from Britannica’s north, had been taken aback to find that Cornelius was travelling without any. There were no slaves in an army fort, and what Prefect of an auxiliary cohort would want soldiers at his elbow every minute?

Not Cornelius. A couple of orderlies had cared for his kit and his rooms, and if he had needed anything else, one of his centurions would produce a legionnaire with the appropriate skills.

He could have done with one of his orderlies on this trip, even if just to manage his luggage. But of course, he no longer had orderlies. A new prefect led the 10th Lycians, and Cornelius had a civilian position waiting for him in Rome. A temporary position. Just until he was assigned to a legion as one of its tribunes. Mama had written that Uncle Rufus was working on it.

His toes touched the shelf on the other side of the bath when he stretched out his good leg. He could do with someone to wrangle his luggage, fetch his dinner, do all the little things he had never needed to think about.

Now for the other leg. It stretched with only a minor pull on the scar tissue. And when he bent the knee to bring it as far up towards his torso as he could manage, it went nearly all the way. Better. His thigh still had a ragged line of red, nearly a span long, with both sides marked by red blobs where the stitches had pulled it back together. Evidence that the northern tribes were not as peaceful as Rome liked to claim. The medicus who had sewed him up had assured him that he’d get full use of the leg back if he exercised it, and apparently the man knew what he was talking about.

It was probably time to call for one of the bath slaves to assist him again with the strigil. Cornelius could hear them chattering in the exercise room on the other side of the wall. He had already, between leaving the warm pool and getting into the hot pool, had a good basting with oil and a scrape all over with the strigil. Now he’d stewed for a while in the heat, he’d get the slaves to repeat the strigiling and then dip back into the cold.

In a minute. His bones, weary from the long day of trouble, had relaxed in the hot water and moving seemed like more trouble than it was worth. He stretched his arms along the sides of the bath and let both legs float upwards.

Then a noise had him lifting his head and looking towards one of the walls. He’d never heard anything like it—a long chord played on some instrument he could not identify. A whole array of instruments, he corrected himself, as his hair stood on end and his skin seemed to vibrate to the sound.

It was swelling, building to a crescendo, and suddenly a tunnel appeared in the middle of the wall. Before he had time to do more than narrow his eyes to sharpen his vision, something was rushing along the tunnel toward him. A speck. No, a figure. A woman. And then the tunnel blinked out of existence and the woman remained, standing on the tiles against an unblemished wall.

A lady, he amended, wrapped in a palla of fine golden wool with a broad border of a blue a few shades darker than the tunic she wore beneath. A goddess, given the way she had arrived, but then would a goddess be staring at him as if she’d never before seen a man in his bath?

Perhaps he had fallen asleep and this was a dream.

“What manner of being are you?” he demanded, “and how did you come here?”

She blinked a couple of times, and the hand that was not holding her palla crept underneath it. “Allow me to introduce myself, honoured sir. I am Flavia Elizabeth MacDonald, daughter of William MacDonald, of the Aotearoa tribe.”

He had never heard of a goddess called Flavia whatever it was. Her Latin was execrable. It had never occured to Cornelius that a foreign god might speak Latin with an accent.

Her manners were good, though, and he would not want to insult her. Who knew what she was capable of doing? Even in a dream, an patrician of Rome should be mannerly. He straightened. “Greetings, revered lady. I am Cornelius Tullius Laeca, son of Cornelius Tullius Laeca, of the Esquilina tribe. By what manner of sorcery am I honoured by your presence?”

She waved to the door. “Is that the way out?” she asked. “I am not here for long, and I would like to see Rome before I am called back. I shall leave you to your bath.”

Rome? “Rome is many weeks away, your worship,” he told the apparition. “We are in Verulamium, in Britannica.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Verulamium? Britannica?” Her voice rose on the second word.

One of the bath slaves appeared at the door. “Sir? Is there…” He trailed off as he realised that another person was in the room—one who had not entered the bath house by the door into the exercise room—the only outside door.

“Go away,” Cornelius told him. “I will call you if I want you.”

The slave bowed and backed away out of the room, not removing his eyes from the lady.

“You expected Rome, Lady Flavia?” Cornelius commented. This must be a dream. A goddess whose transport had been misdirected? Ridiculous. “Then your tunnel has brought you to the wrong place.”

“My tunnel?” Her eyes lit up with interest. “You saw me arrive in a tunnel?”

Was she going to try to convince him otherwise? Cornelius knew what he had seen.

“A tunnel,” he insisted.

“I saw nothing,” she said. “Saw nothing, heard nothing, could do nothing. I stepped into the portal and then nothing. Until suddenly I was here.”

“A long tunnel,” he insisted, though it sounded as if she was merely commenting on a different experience rather than disagreeing with him. “You came towards me very fast, but without moving your feet. And there was a sound. Music.”

“Fascinating,” Flavia commented. “None of Janet’s instruments recorded a tunnel. Or, for that matter, the darkness.” She sighed. “I suppose I should have a look at Verulamium, then. But I did so want to see Rome.”

“It is after sundown, lady,” Cornelius pointed out. “The city is not safe after dark.” That probably sounded foolish to Lady Flavia. What did a goddess have to fear from the kind of scum who preyed on the weak?

But the lady grimaced. “Bother. This is not turning out the way I expected.”

“I can show you the inn if you wish,” Cornelius offered, responding to the disappointment in her face and voice. She was a very pretty goddess, and this was the most peculiar dream he had ever had.

Her face brightened. “If it would not be too much trouble,” she said.

Cornelius got his legs under him. “If you’ll give me a minute, lady,” he said, as he stood up, the water now only waist deep.

She was standing at the steps end of the baths, and for a moment he was tempted to exit by the shelf so he could keep his distance. He squelched the cowardly thought. If she had god-like powers, she could smite him from any distance. He headed towards the steps and began his ascent, keeping an eye on the lady.

She had taken a fold of her palla and put it over her head, turning away to show him her back, but not before he saw the colour flood her face. If it wasn’t ridiculous, he would think her embarrassed to be alone with a nude man.

“Lady?” he said. “Are you well?” Perhaps she was just hot, all wrapped up like that. “You will be cooler if you take the palla off, my lady.”

“Yes, of course,” she said, and let the palla drop so it draped from her elbows.

Before Cornelius could continue past her, he felt a sudden tug at his neck. His amulet—the spiral he and his friends had chosen to symbolise their friendship and commitment—was doing its best to fly away from him to Flavia, pulling the plaited leather cord hard against the back of his neck.

The lady made a choking noise and stumbled towards him. He had only enough time to notice that an amulet she was wearing was reaching for him when the two amulets touched. The lady fell against him as both cords fell back against their wearers, and the pressure on the back of his neck released.

Flavia was a lovely armful, no higher than his chest but beautifully curved. He looked down onto her dark curls and reminded himself that she controlled a vast magic he did not understand. “Lady? Are you well?” He had said that before, he remembered.

She turned to face him and then set herself back from him while retaining her hold on his forearms, as if she needed the help to balance. She rubbed at her neck, where a red mark showed how strongly the leather had pulled. A pat on the cord was followed a search along it with both of her hands. Had it not held an amulet? If so, it held one no longer.

“It’s gone,” Flavia said, her voice shrill with panic. “My spiral. It is gone.”

“I’ll help you look,” he offered. “What did it look like?”

She met his gaze. Perhaps it was the lamp light that shot gold flecks through her dark brown eyes. “Like yours, except older,” she said. “Much older. A bronze coil with a tiger stone.” She dropped her eyes to his chest. “Just like yours. Cornelius Tullius, I think your amulet swallowed mine. Now what am I going to do?”

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Courting on WIP Wednesday

Phew. I met the deadline for The Trials of Alaric. Here’s a snippet. One of the trials is a treasure hunt. He has just been given the second clue, which is, like the first, a four line verse.

Mr. Redhaven arrived in the breakfast room looking pleased. His interview with Papa must have been successful, then. Bea itched to hear what had happened, but was not going to ask in front of the servants and the other guests. Only Lord Lucas and Lady Eleanor were up, and when she and Mr. Redhaven spoke about their planned walk, they announced their intention of coming along.

“If you do not mind, Bea,” Ellie said. The young ladies had all moved to first-name terms during their travels yesterday.

“It solves the problem of a chaperone,” Bea pointed out. “The older ladies are all still asleep, and I don’t wish to wait.” And she did not wish one of the older ladies hanging on every word that she and Mr. Redhaven exchanged. Whereas, unless she missed her guess, Lord Lucas and Ellie would be absorbed in one another, giving her and her escort all the privacy one could decently require.

It turned out just as she expected. They took the path down to the beach again, and the other couple lingered behind, clearly seeking their own privacy. “You seem to be none the worse for yesterday’s exertions,” Bea commented to Mr. Redhaven, as they scrambled down the steeper sections of the path. 

In truth, he was still being careful with some movements, but he no longer looked as if he was bruised in every bone and about to pass out.

“Colyn’s uncle has a liniment that is good for muscle strain,” he replied. “I can now swear by it, having put it on before I went to sleep yesterday. I might have applied more this morning, but it is rather pungent, and I would not wish to offend the company.”

She managed a shallow curtsey on the awkward terrain. “The company thanks you, Mr. Redhaven.”

“Could you be persuaded to call me Alaric?” he asked. “Just when we are alone. We are becoming friends are we not?”

Friends, and perhaps something more. The trials—and the choice at the end of them—loomed large in her mind. Perhaps a great deal more. “Very well, Alaric. And I am Bea.”

“A charming little name,” he commented. “Very useful things, bees.”

“I hope I am useful,” she retorted. “How did you get on with my father, Alaric?”

“I have the second clue. He said the panels were collectively the correct answer, but that the meaning of the answer will become clear with later answers. Or, at least, that was the substance of it.”

“So the solution to the treasure hunt is the sum of the clues,” Bea guessed. “How devious!”

“Clever, in any case. He wants to be sure your suitors are worthy of you, Bea. I cannot fault him for that.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to her. “Let’s read it together,” he invited.

She looked around to see if anyone else was close enough to interrupt them, but even Lord Lucas and Ellie were out of sight. Then she held one side of the paper and Alaric held the other.

“Roses ’neath moon’s silver light

Golden stars behold the sight

The flower climbs the mansion wall

For fleeting joy before the fall.”

Bea could not make head of tail of it. “Something in the garden? At night? We do not have climbing roses against the castle. I do not understand, Alaric.”

“Me neither,” Alaric admitted. “I am prepared to guess that the simple answer will not be the right one. Look how long I hunted for clocks and sun dials, and all the time, I should have been looking for the words.”

“But which words?” Bea wondered.

Alaric studied the paper again. “It isn’t necessarily the same type of riddle, but I must confess at the moment I am stumped. It could be at night, as you suggest, and in the garden. It could as easily be another ceiling or perhaps a tapestry somewhere.”

“Yes, or a painting. Here. You had better put it away. I see the others coming.” 

Ellie and Lord Lucas had been out of sight together for some time. Talking? Or something else?

Ellie was looking flushed, and her lips were redder than usual. She and Lord Lucas kept exchanging smiles and then looking quickly away. 

Bea might have her suspicions, but their behaviour was none of her business. Except that Lord Lucas had entered the trials. She hoped he was not kissing one girl while intending to marry another, if he won. 

“Shall we walk to the end of the beach and then back again?” Alaric asked, and everyone agreed. Bea’s concerns lessened as they walked, Bea with Alaric and Lord Lucas with Ellie.

“It must have been fun growing up with a beach on your doorstep,” Alaric said.

Bea agreed. “My governess and I had many a fine walk on the beach, and when I was older, I used to help the stablehands exercise the horses here. There is a ride down the hill on the side away from the sea, and a path that leads to the beach.”

“Do you spend most of your time here at the castle?” Ellie asked. “Or do you go to London with your parents?”

“I have never left Claddach,” Bea told them. “Mama wanted me to make my come out, but I was determined not to do so, and Papa supported me.”

Ellie stopped in her tracks. “You did not make your come out?”

Bea chuckled. “I did not. My cousins consider me very odd.”

“What made you so determined?” Lord Lucas asked. “I thought all girls dreamed of gowns and balls and the like.”

Ellie poked him in the side. “All girls are not the same, Luke.”

Lord Lucas yelped. “Ouch! Note to self. Turns to violence when annoyed.”

Ellie tossed her head. “When provoked,” she corrected, laughing, and he laughed back. “There is not a girl in the world like you, Ellie.” If Lord Lucas was serious about winning Bea, he would surely not be flirting with Ellie right under her nose. And they were callling each other by their first names. Not even that. Their nicknames.

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Courtship questions on WIP Wednesday

“Merrick danced with you again last night,” Peter observed at breakfast. “Twice, and one of them the supper dance.”

“Yes,” Rose said. “He asked me at the ball a few days ago. And last night he asked if he might take me driving this afternoon.”

“Did he, indeed?” asked Peter. “Is he courting you, Rose?”

Rose pondered that. He had certainly been attentive. He had not danced with Vivienne at all, and he had not danced with anyone twice. Indeed, he seemed to go out of his way to pick ladies who were not usually invited to dance. Debutantes who were young, shy, and spotty. Companions long past their last prayers and sinking into oblivion. Several wives who were faithful to their husbands but fond of dancing.

It had crossed Rose’s mind to wonder whether she was another of his charity cases, but she was beginning to hope that was not the case. No one else had been begged for four dances between the two balls. No one else was asked for a waltz, or for the privilege of escorting her into supper. He had directed the smoldering heat in his eyes in her direction and in her direction only. And now he had asked her to come for a drive.

She had not allowed herself to think as far ahead as courtship, however. “Usually, the men who pay me attention are trying to curry favor with Viv,” she told Peter.

“Lord Merrick has no interest in me,” Viv said.

“Lord Merrick has eyes for no one except Rose,” Arial observed.

“The question is,” said Peter, “how does Rose feel about Lord Merrick?”

Rose could feel her cheeks heating. “The question is a little beforehand, is it not? Lord Merrick has not asked to court me.”

Arial gave a quick shake of her head. “I disagree, Rose. If you think you might be developing an affection for Lord Merrick, then yes, wait and see what happens. If you are sure he is not someone you could tie yourself to for the rest of your life, now is the time to gently discourage him.”

“He’s rather old,” Viv observed.

“Thank you,” Peter said, dryly. He, Rose knew, would be thirty-seven years of age on his next birthday.

Viv refused to be squelched. “You are twice as old as I am, Peter, and Rose is only a year older than me.”

“It is a sizeable age gap,” Arial agreed, “but Rose is mature for her age.”

It is rather annoying to be talked about instead of to. “I am here, you know,” she pointed out.

Arial turned the tables on her rather neatly. “Do you mind the age gap, Rose? Would you like Lord Merrick to court you?”

She thought about the question and the man. Lord Merrick, with his haunted eyes, with his warrior’s face and figure, that looked as if all excess flesh had worn away, leaving only muscle and skin stretched over the bone. With the innate kindness that led him to offer dances to the overlooked and to agonize over the plight of an old man he had no reason to like.

“I do not see why he would,” she said. “What do I have to offer a man like him? As Viv says, he is a man grown, in the prime of his life. He has traveled the world and has had experiences I cannot imagine. Even if he finds me attractive…” She thought about the heat she had seen in his eyes and had to acknowledge, if only to herself, that he was attracted to her. “It does not mean he plans to act on his attraction.”

“He had better not,” Peter growled. “Not unless he has offered for you. Not unless you have his ring on your finger.”

“What do you want?” Arial asked, with gentle insistence.

I want Lord Merrick, Rose realized. “I would like to go driving with Lord Merrick, and see what happens after that. He has said he intends to return to Scotland, soon. If he does, then at least I will have had an enjoyable drive, and a pleasant partner for several dances.”

If he did not intend anything more than a flirtation to while away his time in London, he would leave Rose with a bruised heart, but so be it. She would not discourage him now and precipitate the loss she fully expected to suffer but would build a few memories to keep her company in the coming years. One waltz, one conversation, one drive at a time. Perhaps, if she was very fortunate, one kiss?

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Hero to the rescue in WIP Wednesday

I’m getting A Most Excellent Adventure prepared for publication. Here’s a sample:

Paul Baldwin had not spent as long as expected in the collieries of the Nettlebridge Valley. The enterprises were well enough, but the price they put on their shares was beyond what Paul was prepared to pay. The tramways and canals that had made a difference in getting the East Somerset coal to market had not reached the valley, and coal was still transported by horse and cart. Or, sometimes, in hard economic times, carts pulled by teams of men, women and children.

In fact, even if the investment had made economic sense, Paul would have turned away from it. He might now be a wealthy baron, but he had been raised as a gamekeeper’s son and had seen plenty of rural poverty and the human misery that it caused. He wanted no part in profiting from the desperate need of others.

His next meetings were tomorrow, in Wells. At this rate, he’d be there in time for a noontide snack and a relaxed look around the town. Meanwhile, he and the horse he’d hired at Shepton Mallet were in no hurry.

The weather was pleasant and the countryside pretty. The traffic was fairly light, too, though a cluster of horses around a gig in front of him drew his attention. Odd. Four riders had approached the vehicle from behind and stopped it. It was now turning towards Paul.

He narrowed his eyes to sharpen his vision. They were the same horses that had passed him ten minutes ago, on the other side of Cranston, and one of the riders was waving what looked suspiciously like a gun.

Paul urged his horse onto the grass, where its hooves would make less noise, and nudged it into a fast walk as he unlatched the leather cover of his saddle holster. His pistol was handier, but the rifle would be more accurate at a distance. He would get only two shots, but by then he’d be close enough to use the smaller weapon.

The woman at the reins of the gig was saying something that drew the attention of all the riders. The girl beside her had her head buried in the woman’s shoulder, so no one was watching Paul’s approach.

Yes. It is a gun. Paul halted the horse, sent up a quick prayer that the beast was not gun shy, raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted on the gunman’s hand, and fired. His horse, thank all the powers of heaven, had stayed rock steady under him, which was more than could be said for the gig’s mule, broke free from the man holding it and took off at a gallop, shying away from the road to bounce the gig across the pasture beside the road.

Which at least removed the two in the gig from the firing line. His shot had hit its mark, too. Either the gun or the hand. The man who had been threatening the pair was bent over his hand and more or less out of the game.

However, Paul had also lost the advantage of stealth, for the other three had turned to see him.  Two more guns had appeared. The man who had been holding the mule fired at Paul. Paul shot at his hand, too, but the man shifted at the last minute and the bullet must have hit him somewhere, for he gave a cry and slumped over in his saddle. Paul shoved his rifle back into its holster, drew his pistol, and nudged his horse into action.

He felt the impact just after the third gun fired. His left arm, and in the fleshy part of the muscle. It could be ignored for the moment. He shot again, this time taking the hat off the woman who had shot at him. He couldn’t quite bring himself to cause bodily harm to a female.

She had no such compunction, and was reloading her weapon, but the third man spoke sharply to her and their wounded companions. He collected the reins of the second man, and the woman and the first man followed him across the fields, the first man stopping to shake his uninjured fist in Paul’s direction before they disappeared out of sight behind a small cluster of trees.

Paul turned to look for their victims. The gig had come to a halt on the other side of the pasture. Halfway between him and the vehicle, the girl was bent over a huddled form on the ground. Paul sent his horse into a walk, and the girl looked up as he approached. The woman lay still and pale, and tears streamed down the girl’s face.

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Spotlight on The Sincerest Flattery<\i>

Can an arranged marriage become a love match? Or will lies and misunderstandings tear Percy and Lia apart?

When Percival Lord Thornstead heads to the far north of England to meet the bride his father has arranged for him to marry, bad weather, the ague and a crooked valet disrupt his travel plans. Turned away at the door of the manor, he takes a job minding sheep to stay close.

Lady Aurelia Byrne sneaks away from the house dressed as a kitchen maid. She is angry at being told she must marry someone she has never met. She’d rather marry the shepherd she meets in the fields than the London fop her father has chosen for her.

Percy guesses who Lia is and is charmed. Lia discovers who Percy is and falls in love. If not for Lia’s overbearing mother all would be perfect.

Then Percy’s father intervenes to carry Lia off to London to make her debut with Percy’s sister. She is having the time of her life when her mother makes public accusations that call her reputation into question. A hasty marriage restores her to favor. Deep in the throes of love, the young couple are blissfully happy, and have fashionable London at their feet.

Until a former mistress of Percy’s comes seeking a boon that takes him away from Lia’s side, and old rumors about Lia’s mother are revived, causing Lia to be shunned by the highest sticklers.

Their marriage will be tested to breaking point.

(The Sincerest Flattery is inspired by The Goose Girl)

 

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Dreams on WIP Wednesday

“What is it about Mrs. Dove Lyon’s masked balls,” Dorcas asked the upstairs girls who had gathered in the kitchen for breakfast before going home to their rooms to sleep, “that makes the Earl of Somerford think I should be gone from here before the next one.”

The girls looked at one another and laughed. “Lord Somerford is rather stiff about what is appropriate for ladies,” one of them offered.

“Not that we know him personally,” said another. “He is not a patron of our services.”

Scarlett Brown explained, “Some of us met his sister when she was using Mrs. Dove Lyon’s services as a matchmaker. She told us all about him.”

“Lord Somerford’s sister came to Mrs. Dove Lyon for a husband?” Dorcas was fascinated. The girls had told her stories about the women who paid for Mrs. Dove Lyon to match them to a gentleman, but she was somehow startled that an earl’s sister would be one of them.

They took it in turns to tell Dorcas about Lady Laureline and her long betrothal, which she ended when the man tried to put the wedding off for the fifth time. “Then she found out she must marry by the time she was twenty-five. Lord Somerford tried to talk her out of it, but she objected.”

When she visited the Lion’s Den she bumped into a lame violinist, who turned out to be an old acquaintance and the heir to an earl. He won a series of contests and they were soon married. And happily, by all accounts.

“All of Mrs. Dove Lyon’s matches are good ones,” one of the girls said, somewhat wistfully.

“Lord Somerford bought drinks for the whole house to celebrate the birth of their baby, his nephew,” Scarlett commented. “And I heard him tell someone that Angel—that is, Lord Findlater, is now able to walk with only a pair of walking sticks, and not crutches.”

“But he was not happy about his sister using Mrs. Dove Lyon, for all that it turned out so well,” another concluded.

“The Mystere Masque happens once a year,” Scarlett, returning to the point. “It is to celebrate Mrs. Dove Lyon’s birthday, and the tickets are very sought after, and very expensive. Anything might happen on the night, and usually does. But nothing that a person does not want. Our lady’s wolves make sure of that.”

“It is a grand night out for all of us,” said another. “Even though we are working, we all wear masks and consumes and we can pretend to be whoever we want to be.” She giggled. “Last year, I was a Prussian princess in exile.”

“Every year, Mrs. Dove Lyon gives away golden tickets. No one knows how she chooses who will get them, but everyone who gets them has a wonderful time, and some find love.” Scarlett sighed.

The sigh was repeated around the table. “It is a magical night.”

The Mystere Masque sounded wonderful. Dorcas hoped she would be allowed to see it. That was, if she was still here. Which she would not be, if Lord Somerford had his way. “Does Lord Somerford go?” she asked.

The girls did not know. Only those who dealt with the tickets would know—perhaps only Mrs. Dove Lyon herself. “Probably not,” Scarlett thought. “He sits and he watches. He nurses a drink or two all night and plays a friendly game of cards or two with friends, but he does not know how to enjoy himself, that one. What would he do at the Masque?”

The event caught Dorcas’s imagination. When the girls showed her their costumes, she could not help but imagine herself in one. As she embroidered the last of the current pile of linens, her mind was designing a costume for herself.

She had never been to—had never even seen such an event. She had been too young even for village assemblies before Michael met her in the village street. He’d run away with her after just three weeks of stolen meetings—how wicked she had been! But to be fair to her seventeen year old self, Michael had been seven years older, so should have had the wisdom that she lacked.

She had attended two assemblies with him as his wife, wonderful affairs to her young eyes, but even then she understood that the venues and even the gowns were the best that could be managed in a hostile country in the middle of a war, even behind English lines, as they were.

And the impromptu dances she and Noah had enjoyed during their marriage would have horrified her clergyman uncle and his wife, who had raised her.

Stephen jerked her out of her reverie, asking for help with a castle he was building, for the highest tower would not stay up.

Still, when she was settled back in her chair again, her needle flew all the faster for thoughts of a stunning costume that would fascinate and capture Lord Somerford.

There. She had put her yearnings into concrete thoughts. Very silly thoughts. If she was not well enough born, as a gentleman’s niece, for a duke’s third son, she was far more unsuitable, as a sergeant’s widow, for an earl.

The only role available for such as her in Lord Somerford’s life was not one she could possibly accept. For Stephen’s sake, if for no other reason. Scarlett would say it did not hurt to dream, but Dorcas thought Scarlett was wrong.

The kinds of dream that Dorcas was tempted to have about Lord Somerford would far too readily lead her into more temptation than she could resist. Then she would either be rejected or accepted. She didn’t know which would be worse.

No. Temptation was not something to be encouraged. Except perhaps for that one single night.

And there. She had knotted off the last thread and woven it back into the pattern until it disappeared from view entirely. She had better see whether Cook would mind watching Stephen while she took this lot to her employer.

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Cornwall and Cornish in Hold Me Fast

The story I’ve just sent to the publisher is at least partially set in Cornwall, so I needed to do some research to make sure I did justice to the county. Tin has been mined in Cornwall for four thousand years, right to the end of the twentieth century. Other metals, too. By the mid-nineteenth century, overseas competition made the Cornish mines less profitable, and so many miners and their families emigrated that the Cornish have a saying. “A mine is a hole in the ground with a Cornishman at the bottom”.

In my research I discovered that Cornish (Kernewek) is one of those languages that has been brought back from extinction in the past fifty years. It is still classified as critically endangered. In the sixteenth century, many people in Cornwall spoke only Kernewek, and objected strongly to the English Book of Common Prayer becoming the sole legal form of worship in England.

The so-called Prayer Book Rebellion was harshly put down. The language declined in the next two centuries, for several reasons, but at least in part because the local gentry adopted English so that they would not be considered disloyal and rebellious.

By the end of the eighteenth century, very few people (and perhaps no young people) spoke Kernewek.

Names are a different matter. Both first names and surnames are passed down through the generations. My hero and heroine have Cornish first names, as do several of the other Cornish characters.

As to the bogs and mires that play an important part in the story, Bodmin Moor has numerous peat deposits, as well as spectacular granite outcrops. Blanket bogs are peatlands that cover crests, slopes, flats, and hollows of a gently undulating terrain. Valley mires are areas of water-logged deep peat in valley bottoms or channels.

Good advice to walkers is to test the depth of any wet or shaky ground before you step on it.

I hope readers who live in Cornwall will enjoy what they recognise and forgive any errors.