WIP Wednesdays

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Married love in WIP Wednesday

 

This is an excerpt from Twisted Magic, which I have just sent out to the beta readers. Twisted Magic is book 2 of Many Kinds of Magic, my regency romantasy series, and in this excerpt, the hero and heroine of book 1 are seen discussing the heroine of book 2.

***

Delia spent at least part of every day with the magical beasts she had been adopting in the months since her marriage, and it was in the stable block that had been converted to a menagerie that Jasper found her.

He stood for a moment outside of the stall where she was cuddling a kitten that had been born with wings, and so tormented by its brothers and sisters that the farmer’s wife whose cat was its mother had brought it to Delia, “For it’ll need to be hand-raised, my lady, and that I cannot do, what with it being sowing season, and the children being in school each morning, and all.”

That was a dig at the Baradines, for the farmers and their wives had been most indignant at the decree from the manor requiring all children aged between six and twelve to attend three hours of lessons each day. Most of them grumbled about the loss of labor, but none of them dared to openly defy the dragon.

Jasper put his foot down when Delia declared her intention of keeping the kitten in their bed chamber so she could feed it hourly. He deputed the youngest stable-hand to the job, releasing him from all other duties other than keeping the menagerie clean and the animals’ water troughs full.

It had worked wonderfully well. The kitten was healthy and growing, the boy was in heaven, and Delia was considering giving him permanent work as aide to her animal keeper. The poor man was so overworked that last night he failed to latch the cages of the hawk-dogs, and one of them had escaped and wreaked havoc on some of the gardens, digging to hide bones.

Delia had been quite distressed over the extra work that had made for the gardeners, but Jasper had pointed out that they had always intended to give the beasts away once they were old enough, and if they could fly, they were old enough.

“I know you are there,” she said. She always did, though he had been standing still and making no sound. It was the catalyst gift, she had explained. One strand of her power was permanently connected to Jasper, and she had progressed in her control enough that she could follow that one strand to find Jasper wherever he went.

“How is the cat-bird?” he asked.

“Misty is well, thank you,” she replied. The little creature had been sitting purring on her lap, but now stood, stretched, and bounded across the stall to greet Jasper, its wings flapping as it ran.

He bent to scoop it up by a hand around its belly. It had been a mere palmful weeks ago when Delia adopted it, but on a diet of goats’ milk had already grown large enough to hang down both sides of his hand.

Delia had called it Misty for its color—both its fur and the down that covered its wings and the backs of its hind legs were varying shades of gray. He cupped its behind on the palm of one hand, let it lean against his chest, and scratched it behind its ears. It rewarded him with a loud purr.

“At least one of our foundlings shows some gratitude,” he commented.

“Is Persephone sulking again?” Delia asked, sympathetically.

“She is always either sulking or scorning,” Jasper grumbled. “I try hard to sympathize, dear heart. She was, after all, left motherless as a child, neglected by her father and then exiled, and—from what the man who collected her from Shropshire said—alternately ignored and abused by her grandmother. But she has an inflated sense of her own importance and a huge chip on her shoulder.”

“She is not an easy person,” Delia admitted. “I believe she is very unhappy, Jasper. Apart from anything else, it cannot be easy having a traitor for a father. Did her lessons go poorly? I had to leave early, as you know, but she seemed to be working hard.”

Jasper sighed. “Yes and no. She is getting the kinds of result to be expected from a completely untrained and unusual power. She, however, expects perfection, and when her gifts don’t behave exactly as she wishes, she loses her temper. Not with me, I hasten to add. With herself. And then she accuses me of being patronizing when I try to tell her she is doing well.”

The kitten rubbed its head against his hand, clearly indignant he was ignoring it, and he obediently resumed his scratching.

“Our approach to training gifts is not widely accepted,” Delia commented.

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A Pawn in Someone Else’s Game in WIP Wednesday

Unpitied Sacrifice, which is currently on prerelease, includes a very polite kidnapper. Preorder links at: https://books2read.com/u/479JAA

***

Valeria’s worst fear was not realised. Or not immediately, in any case. She was not taken to Delacroix, but to a small anonymous building in the Whitehall district of London, where she was shown to a bedchamber and left alone.

It was a small room, but pleasantly decorated and furnished, with striped wallpaper in a pleasant pale green, dark green linen curtains, an iron bedstead well provided with linen, blankets, and quilts, a bedside table, a washstand, a small table with a single upright chair, and even an easy chair, upholstered in a print that repeated the colours of the wallpaper and curtains, with pink accents. The room’s one window was too high to offer a view of anything but the upper boughs of a tree and a rectangle of sky

She had been provided with washing water, drinking water, a night rail, a change of linen, and even a book to read—poems by the seventeenth century English cleric John Donne. When the setting sun painted the sky outside her high window, a knock on the door and the rattle of the key in the lock presaged the arrival of her abductor and two other men. The abductor carried a tray, which he put on the table.

“Dinner, Mrs Redepenning. I shall return to collect the tray in one hour. Do you need a woman to assist you with preparing for bed?”

“I shall manage, thank you,” Valeria replied. Her dress laced at the sides and her stays at the front. She did not bother to ask any questions. He had ignored every attempt throughout their trip to London, either not speaking at all or replying on a completely different topic.

The abductor bowed, and began to withdraw. “Wait!” Actually, Valeria did have a question. “How might I address you?”

A quick twitch of his lips instantly suppressed never quite became a smile, but the man’s eyes were amused, only Heaven knew why. “John will do, Mrs Redepenning,” he said.

Valeria inclined her head. “Thank you for my dinner, Mr John,” she said.

It was a pleasant dinner, too. She removed the cover from one plate to disclose slices of tender chicken in a tasty gravy, a variety of root vegetables, peas, and beans. The other revealed a slice of apple pie, presumably to be eaten with the custard in one of the jugs on the tray.

The other jug contained cream, and there was a teapot and a bowl of sugar. Also, a small decanter and a wine glass.

Crockery, glassware, and silverware, too, all of which could be turned into weapons. Did they regard her as such a small threat? Perhaps not. The man John had not, after all, ventured into her room alone.

Perhaps it was that, as John had promised, they were treating her with respect. But what did they want? This was the question that quenched her appetite and kept her from sleeping, although the meal was delicious and bed comfortable. What on earth did they want?

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A funeral and two weddings in WIP Wednesday



I’ve just sent The Lyon, the Lady and a Fine Pair of Boots to the publishers. It’s a book that starts with a funeral and ends with two weddings, and here’s the funeral.

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A village in Oxfordshire, 1816

The old bag was really dead.

Katherine Fivepence had spent the last few days expecting Lady Miller to sit up, grab her favorite cane, and start laying about her while berating them all for actual and imagined deficiencies.

Even after the coffin lid went on. Even during the funeral service in the little church. It was just hard to believe that the menace who had overshadowed Kat’s life for so many years had finally gone the way of all humankind.

Now Kat stood in the graveyard, ignoring the drizzle and the small cluster of menservants and villagers, watching the first clods of earth going into the grave on top of the coffin. None of the other maids. Miss Miller had decreed that females did not attend funerals. She and her sisters were seated in the ladies’ parlor at home saying prayers, and the female servants had all been sent to the servants’ hall or their rooms to also pray for the soul of their dead mistress.

Kat wasn’t with the other maids because they scorned and envied Kat in equal measures. Envied, for Lady Ellen had taken her as her personal attendant. Scorned for several reasons, not least because she was an indentured orphan and because Lady Ellen was the unwanted daughter and sister of the house.

As for praying for Lady Miller’s soul, Kat figured her prayers would not make a blind scrap of difference to Lady Miller’s destination. In fact, if God was a just God, like the vicar always said, then Lady Miller was even now roasting away in the hottest pit of hell.

Anyway, Kat hadn’t wanted to miss the funeral and burial. To her, it was a celebration, and if English maids were permitted to dance on graves, she would have done so, as soon as the grave was filled, a mound of raw earth in the center of a neat row of cemetery plots, each with a carefully tended garden, rails or neat hedges to demarcate its borders, and a tombstone of praises for the dead or pious wishes for their eternity or both.

These were the former dignitaries of the village, whose descendants made it a point of pride to ensure their ancestors could compete with their neighbors in death, as they had in life. Elsewhere in the graveyard, other plots were also devotedly tended, but with less attention to impressing others, living and dead. And the entire graveyard was neat. The sexton made sure that even the graves of those whose descendants had long moved away to the village were regularly scythed, the tombstones weeded.

Kat had a favorite corner, where she lingered after church on Sunday, slipping away from under the housekeeper’s eye while the other maids chattered and flirted. A willow tree hung over a family grave, where six generations of Simpsons had been committed to their final rest—the last more than two centuries ago.

Kat, who had never had a family, enjoyed reading the tombstones and imaging their lives. Simpsons no longer lived in the village, and Kat sometimes indulged herself in speculations about where they might have gone.

But wait. The committal was over. The vicar was strolling off toward the vicarage, and the sexton was ordering the grave filled in. She had better hustle to return to the manor and join the other servants in the parlor. The solicitor, who was strolling alongside the vicar all dressed in black, was heading to the same destination, and when he arrived, he would be reading Lady Miller’s last will and testament.

Miss Miller had ordered the whole household to be present for that solemn event. Miss Clara Miller was cut from the same cloth as Lady Miller, though she had had limited scope as a dictator while that tyrant was alive. Even so, everyone in the household knew that crossing her was almost as stupid as angering her mother.

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An Arranged Marriage on WIP Wednesday

 

In April, I have a story in the collection “Dukes in Spring“. Here’s an excerpt.

***

Mima’s sister Marge had locked herself in the tower and was refusing to come out. Papa said she would give up when she was hungry, but Mima asked the servants, and had discovered that Marge had given orders. All the cisterns were stocked with fresh spring water, the wine store replenished, and the larder fully stocked.

The artful woman had told the servants she was merely preparing against the possibility that the evil Townswells might break the marriage agreement and attack the Ruthermonds.

Of course, they believed it, for no one thought this proposed marriage was anything except a trick by the wicked inhabitants of Keldwood Cross. So, they had willingly provided the stores their lady could easily live on for months, if she did not mind an almost endless supply of preserved food.

No one had ever said that Lady Margherita Ruthermond was stupid. Spoiled, yes. Willful, certainly. And determined not to, as she put it, sacrifice her happiness on the altar of the family feud. As always, Mama sided with Marge, and when Papa growled that she and her daughter were both selfish termagants, she took to her bed.

After ranting for three days, Papa sent for Mima. “You shall have to go in Margherita’s place, Mima,” he decreed. “Someone has to marry the Townswell cub, or we have broken the agreement.” He shuddered.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Mima asked. “After all, we have been ignoring the Townswells for three hundred years, except for a few broken bones here and there. We can go back to doing so again, can we not?”

Papa shook his head. “It’s more than a few broken bones, though, Mima, isn’t it? Wrecking the Lion and Harp, beating the Ruthermond steward until the doctor feared for his life, blowing up the bridge across Coombe Water.”

He held up both hands, palms out. “You are going to say that was all the Townswells, but for everything they did, our people did something as bad or worse. And if I find the fool who led the attack on a Royal Mail coach because they mistook it for a Ruthermond carriage, I shall have their guts.” He thumped a fist into a hand to emphasize his point.

Mima, who knew perfectly well that the idiots in question were her two youngest brothers, kept her mouth shut.

“The riot in Coombe was the last straw,” said Papa, with a sigh, “and you know as well as I do, it was as much our people’s fault as it was theirs.”

Two packs of young hotheads, both the worse for drink. But property had been damaged and a Coombe innkeeper who had tried to stop the violence had been knocked unconscious.

Even worse, the daughter of another neighbor, the Duke of Norcross, had been caught up in the riot. As far as Mima knew, the lady had not been physically hurt, but she had been shoved, and she had been scared. Since her father had powerful allies in both Houses of Parliament, and the ear of the Prince Regent besides, neither Papa nor Harwood had been able to brush the riot into oblivion.

“I am sorry, Mima,” Papa said. “But now that the Prince Regent is involved, and some of my fellow lords are talking about sending in an outside magistrate… I had no choice but to sign the agreement that his highness demanded. If I do not produce a bride for Harwood’s son, I will be foresworn. Even worse, the agreement says that, if one party defaults, he must pay a fine of ten thousand pounds and surrender the disputed lands in Coombe. Do you want to hand Harwood a win of that magnitude?”

So, Papa had bowed to pressure from the Crown and his peers and had put his pride on the line, Marge had thrown a tantrum, and Mima was to be the human sacrifice to save them all. That is, if Marge did not appear to do her duty.

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Second-chance love in WIP Wednesday

I’m just sending An Unpitied Sacrifice out to beta readers, and thought you might like an excerpt. My hero and heroine are together for the first time in five years. And what do you think of the cover?

The floor of the small room was as hard as Harry expected, and he’d grown used to occupying soft beds in the past couple of years. However, he was warm enough, and if he could not sleep, he had much to think about, both planning for the future and anguishing over his darling’s past.

His determination to stay under the same roof as Valeria was rewarded in the early hours of the morning when she came to see him. He was drowsing when the opening of the door jerked him upright, and the unique smell of his own woman soothed the battle instincts that had roused him. There she was, peering around the door, a candle in her hand.

“Harry, are you awake?” she whispered.

“Yes. Is there a problem, beloved? What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. That is, there is no problem. It is just that I could not sleep. So much to think about.”

“I am the same.” He shifted so he was leaning against the back of the chair and lifted the blankets. “Come and sit beside me, beloved, and share your worries and your hopes with me, and I shall do the same with you.”

The fact she did not hesitate gave him hope for the future. She put the candle on the little table beside the chair, sat on the floor beside him, and even accepted his arm around her and leaned back against his shoulder.

Harry tucked the blankets around her with his other hand.

“Lord Renshaw was nice to my friends,” Valeria said. “They like him.”

“Alex,” he corrected. “He is your brother, so you can call him Alex, as his other sisters do.”

Alex had argued about Harry staying, but not as much as Harry expected. He had left for home without Harry, promising to tell Father Valeria really was whom she claimed to be, and Harry was refusing to be parted from her again.

“Tell Father we shall call to see him tomorrow morning,” Harry had said.

“Your brother is protective of his family,” Valeria said. “When I called in the afternoon, he was suspicious of me, and not very nice. But tonight, he discovered I really am your wife.”

“Therefore,” Harry said, continuing her line of thought, “you are part of his family and he will protect you. And the children. And even your friends and their children. That is how Alex is.”

“I think I like Alex,” said Valeria. “I understand being protective.”

Harry nodded. In that way, Alex and Valeria were very much alike. Both would cheerfully give their life to protect those they regarded as their own, and both could be hostile to any perceived threats.

“My family is now your family,” Harry said. “Father will be delighted to have three new grandchildren. He was already excited when I spoke to him, before Alex and I came over last night. Shall we take them with us when we call on Father in the morning?”

“All of them?” Valeria asked. “Rian too?”

“I think it best if we make no difference between them,” said Harry. “Rian shall be my son as much as Enrique. Kiko, as you call him.”

“I named our son Enrique after you,” Valeria said softly. “It means ‘ruler of the home’. Did you know that?”

“Our eldest son rules the home?” Harry asked, smiling at the thought.

“You do, too, Harry. I saw that with your brother. Yes, he is protective of you, but he also accepts your authority and looks to you for guidance.”

Perhaps she was right. Harry had not thought about it, but then he took it for granted that his brothers and cousins would take his lead. He changed the subject. “What does Zorian mean? It is not a name I am familiar with.”

“It is used among the Basque,” she told him. “But I think elsewhere, too. It means ‘happiness’. That is what I wish for him, Harry. That the disaster of his origins does not touch his life. And in general, he is a happy child. As for Marie, her full name is Marie-Therese. Therese for her own mother, and Marie for the mother of us all.”

She was relaxed and warm at his side. He could not see her face, but she sounded as if she was smiling.

“Tell me about them,” Harry coaxed. “Kiko is the leader. Rian is happy. What else, and what of Marie?”

They sat by the light of Valeria’s candle and talked about their children until Valeria’s head grew heavy on Harry’s shoulder. Then he blew out the candle, lowered them both into the nest of blankets, and slept peacefully with her in his arms.

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Decent men in WIP Wednesday

I like my heroes to be decent men who treat women and children with kindness and respect. And Harry Redepenning in An Unpitied Sacrifice is one of the best. Here he is comforting the wife with whom he has only just been reunited.

***

Harry had become aware that Valeria was steeling herself against the anger she expected from him. The first clue had been her voice when she said, “I need to tell you about Zorian.” Then there was her expression as she poured the wine in the big room where the others were and conducted him through to this little private parlour. She had had that little furrow between her eyebrows that she wore when she was worried about something.

And, as she compressed six months of unimaginable suffering into four bald sentences, it was in the glances she shot at him, and the way she shut her mouth at the end, pressing her lips together and blinking back tears.

He could rage against the devils who had so misused her at another time. Right now, his Valeria needed him to reassure her. “I am here, darling. I have you safe. You are back with me now, and you and the children are safe with me.”

The same words, or variants on the same theme, over and over until she pulled herself together and said, with the passionate anger he remembered, “I hate and loath crying. It does no good. I am sorry, Harry, I have drenched your shoulder twice this evening. Truly, I have not turned into a watering pot while we have been apart, though you have every reason to think so.”

“I am overcome myself, dearest heart,” he replied, lifting her hand to his cheek so she could verify that they were wet. “I was not there to protect you. I am here now, and if I have my way, we shall never be parted again.”

Her eyes, still watery, gazed up at him. Her jaw had dropped—at his words, or at his tears. Was it wonder in her expression? Astonishment? Disbelief? “Valeria, I thought you were dead, and I did not want to live in a world without you. Yet I was wrong. Here you are before me. We are together again. How could I possibly bear to be parted from you now! Not just that. I find I am the father of three children! Can we please be a family, as we planned so long ago?”

“Truly? You still want me? You want Marie and even Rian, as well as Kiko?” It was all of those things, then. Wonder, astonishment, and disbelief.

“You love them as your own, and so they are mine, too, for you and I are one. The priest told us that at our wedding. Do you remember? And the chaplain, too, at our second wedding. Your sorrows are mine and your joys. Your burdens are mine and your triumphs. As, I hope, mine are yours.”

Was he saying the right things? Apparently he was, for she was smiling, now. “Harry Redepenning, you are the best man I have ever known,” she said.

“Then you agree? We shall not be parted again?” He waited anxiously for her reply.

From any other lady, he would have called her voice shy, as she said, “But Harry. I have promised my friends that I shall help them find their children’s fathers. Or at least their families. I cannot abandon them. I want to be with you if that is what you want, but I cannot leave them.”

She had that furrow between her brows again. On anyone else, he’d call it anxiety. Come to think about it, perhaps he would have to revise his view of Valeria as an indomitable war maiden whom nothing could intimidate nor defeat. Experiences such as hers would change anyone.

Well then, he would have to adapt. “You must help your friends, of course. And yes, I want to be with you.” And immediately. He was suddenly conscious of the abiding fear that, if he went off home to his father’s townhouse, she would disappear as quickly and as mysteriously as she had arrived, melting away like dew in the sun.

Just as well he had packed a satchel with the few things he would need to stay the night. He had almost left it behind, out of a superstitious fear that being prepared to stay would somehow curse the meeting.

Now, he was glad he had ignored that dark belief. He had better stake his claim to living with her. And he’d better do it in a way that did not threaten her. Quite apart from her commitment to her friends, she had been to hell and back.

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Old aquaintances we’d like to forget on WIP Wednesday

Another excerpt from An Unpitied Sacrifice.

Valeria and three of her sisters-in-law were leaving the modiste when it happened. A couple entered the door just as they reached it, and the three of them stepped out of the way, Valeria a little behind the other three.

Mia stiffened as the newly arrived woman stopped and smirked at her. “Mrs Jules Redepenning. How delightful. And how is my dear Jules?”

“Another Redepenning?” said the woman’s male companion. “Do present me, dear Lady Carrington.”

His voice! Not just the French accent, but the tone, the timbre. They were familiar and hated—but she must be imagining things. It could not be Antoine. Not here. Not in a dressmaker’s shop on London. Ella’s bonnet was in the way of Valeria’s view of the speaker, but a slight lean allowed her to catch a glimpse of his hair, the shape of his jaw, his sneer. Her past roared in her ears, and her mind, her sight, her hearing—everything shut down.

Slowly, the roaring ebbed and the rest of the world returned. Harry, first. She became aware that he was holding her hand in both of his, and then she could see him, sitting next to her, his blue eyes full of concern.

They were in an elegant room with a dozen small round tables, each with several chairs, and a pretty woman in an apron and cap was just placing a tray with a teapot and cups on the table where they sat. Susan, Ella and Mia occupied the other seats at the table, and all of them were looking anxiously at Valeria.

She had no idea where they were, how they got there, and how Harry came to be with them. Antoine! He had been at the modiste’s! Valeria gripped Harry’s hand. It could not be true. Was she going mad?

“You shall feel better after a cup of tea,” Susan decreed, and proceeded to pour one.

“What happened?” Mia asked. “Are you able to talk about it?”

Valeria shook her head. How could she explain? Her mind shied away from even thinking about it, even as her common sense reiterated that the man she had seen could not have been Antoine. She had left him grievously wounded. He was almost certainly dead, and even if he had somehow survived, what would he be doing in London?

The reminder of how she had triumphed in the end gave her strength. “That woman,” she said. “Lady Carrington, was it?”

“Baroness Carrington,” said Mia. “A wicked woman whose crimes have been forgiven by the government, for reasons of State. But not by me.”

“Mia gave her the cut direct,” said Susan, her voice a purr of satisfaction. “Then I noticed you seemed about to faint, and I helped you to follow Mia out of the shop. We met Harry on the footpath outside, and came here to Fournier’s Tea Shop to allow you time to recover. Now sip your tea, dear one, and explain what Lydia Carrington has done to you.”

“Not her. The man with her. Who was he?”

The ladies looked at one another and shook their heads, but Harry said, “You mean Delacroix?”

The roaring returned, but Valeria pushed it back. Someone had whimpered. It was, Valeria realised, herself. Harry had his arm around her shoulders and was saying, “Take a deep breath, darling. That’s it. Now breathe out. And again.”

“Who is this Delacroix?” Susan asked.

“He is something at the French embassy. An aide to the ambassador. A agent for the French government, I imagine. Or at least our own people think so, I imagine, since Lady Carrington is taking him around town, and she works for our side.”

“Lady Carrington is a spy?” Mia asked. “But she was working for the French when she…”

“Never mind that now,” Ella interjected. “Harry, should we send for the carriage and take Valeria home?”

“I shall just drink my tea,” Valeria said. “You do not need to be concerned about me.”

“Lady Carrington does not go into Society,” said Susan. “And if we encounter this Delacroix person at a ball or dinner, we shall not accept an introduction, Valeria. What else do you know about him, Harry?”

“Nothing much. Just that he and Lady Carrington must have been discussing the Redepennings, because when Lady Carrington introduced us, she said… let me think. ‘Colonel Redepenning is the one of whom we have spoken.’ That was it, as nearly as I can remember.”

Valeria was not going to pass out again. Delacroix was here. He was her enemy, and Harry’s because of her. They would have to fight it, and they would. She would tell Harry, and perhaps she could even disclose a little to Harry’s sisters. Yes. They needed to be forewarned.

She took the last sip of her tea, and Susan slipped a little cake, ornately iced with sugar paste, onto her plate. Valeria bit into it and realised it was exactly what she craved. “You know I was captured by the French,” she said to her sisters-in-law. “The captain of the patrol that captured me was Antoine Delacroix.”

Harry pursed his lips, frowning thoughtfully. “This man is Pierre Delacroix. From his interest in me, we must suppose he is a brother or cousin.”

Not Antoine, then. It was a relief, and yet, in a peculiar sort of a way, a disappointment. She had long regretted leaving the man alive, for the possibility that he still breathed in the same world as her nagged at her like a rotten tooth. “He may be looking for revenge,” Valeria said. “That is, if he knows what I did to his brother.”

Susan raised her eyebrows. “Valeria, darling, what did you do to his brother?”

Harry answered for her, growling, “Left him alive, which was more mercy than he deserved. We have to assume, I think, that he lived long enough to tell his brother. Did the fiend know my name?”

“Yes. It was he who took my marriage certificate and burned it. He laughed, Harry. He said that the rules of war did not apply to a Spanish guerrilos, nor to an English fool who married one.” Lost in memory, she had forgotten everyone except Harry, and was surprised when Susan passed her another cup of tea.

“With your permission, beloved,” said Harry, “I shall warn the whole family to be on the watch against Delacroix. Yes, and the Carrington female, too.”

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Awkward situation on WIP Wednesday

In An Unpitied Sacrifice, Harry’s joy at his reunion with his wife causes him to forget something important.

“I am looking for a house,” Harry told his father, brothers, and cousin, while Valeria was busy getting to know the ladies of his family. “Valeria is commited to finding the English families of the women and children she brought to England with her, and London is the best place for us to be while we’re busy with that. But I do not like the area where they are currently lodged, and besides, it is not big enough now that I have joined them. If you hear of anything, would you let me know?”

“It will be hard to find anything decent at this time of year,” Gil warned. “The Season is just getting started.”

“You can all move in here,” Father offered.

“Thank you, Father. I shall keep that as an option,” Harry said. “If possible, I would rather get to know my wife and children under a roof that, if not my own, is at least paid for by me. Does that make sense? But more space would be nice. And also servants to do the heavy work.”

The men all nodded, even Father. “I shall ask around,” Alex said, and the others said they would also enquire among their friends and other contacts.

“The priority is to find the information that Valeria’s friends need,” Alex pointed out. “Once they are settled, Harry, you can find something smaller for yourself and your own family.”

“You are right,” Harry agreed. “Father, will you go with me to the War Department this afternoon?”

“Of course, my son. We shall pay a visit to my old friend Arthur, and ask for his authority to wave at various underlings. Do you have the ladies’ names and those of their spouses?”

Harry nodded. And yes, Father’s strategy was sound. If they started with a call on the Duke of Wellington and were able to proceed with his blessing, everyone would fall over themselves to be helpful. Otherwise, five Spanish women of dubious marital status, whether they regarded themselves as married or not, were likely to be brushed off as irrelevant to the mission of the mighty British army.

“What are you going to do about Miss Bretherton?” Alex asked. “You’ll need to tell her before someone else does.”

Before Harry could answer, Valeria’s voice came from immediately behind him. “Who is Miss Bretherton?”

Ariadne Bretherton! In the excitement of his wife returning from the dead with three children, Harry had not given the woman he’d been courting a single thought. He turned to face Valeria, and nearly flinched at the hurt she was trying to hide behind an impassive expression.

The only way out of this mess was through it. Charge ahead, Harry, and pray you are not seriously wounded on the way. “She is a lady I completely forgot about the moment I saw you. She is a pleasant person whom I thought might make me a comfortable wife. I could not love again, you see, after losing you. I was looking for companionship and a partner in my endeavours. Also someone to run my house.”

“Oh,” said Valeria, the mask of her expression now so impenetrable that he had no idea what she was thinking and feeling.

He rushed on, trying to elicit a response. “I need to write to her, my love. She is coming to London next week, and Alex is right. I need to tell her before someone else does that my wife is alive, and that I shall not be pursuing a courtship with her.”

“Poor lady. My happiness has been purchased at the cost of hers. Yes, you must let her know. I am sorry, Harry. I changed your plans.”

“I thank God for it,” Harry assured her. “And imagine how much more dreadful it would have been for her had you arrived after the proposal. Or after the wedding!”

“I never imagined you marrying someone else,” Valeria said, in a low murmur that seemed to be intended for her own ears and no one else’s. “How foolish of me.”

“It was a business arrangement,” Harry assured her. “No feelings were involved.”

The look she gave him was scathing. “I doubt that, Harry. I doubt that very much. She would not have accepted your courtship if she did not at least like you, and I gather that things have gone far enough that her family and probably her friends are in imminent expectation of a proposal. Her pride is going to be hurt, if nothing else.”

She was correct, of course, but what could Harry do about it? His wife was the only woman he wanted, and even if that wasn’t the case, he was married. His wife was alive, and he had a family, furthermore. He could not marry Miss Bretherton even if he still wanted to do so.

In fact, he had never wanted to do so, he realised. He had made a plan and carried it out step by step, but his heart—not the organ that continued to pump blood around his body, but the centre of his emotions that he had wrongly believed to be frozen and atrophied—his heart had never been convinced it was a good idea.

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Deception on WIP Wednesday

I’ve just sent The Night Dancers back to the editor. One final proofread, and its done. Here’s a snippet to be going on with. Mel, dressed as a man, had infiltrated the tower from which her employers’ sons have apparently been escaping at will:

***

The evening meal was delivered at seven o’clock—merely bread and water, as the previous investigators had told her. But, as they had also said, the brothers produced wine from somewhere. The pot of soup, too. It had been simmering on the stove all afternoon, but disappeared when the bell rang to announce the arrival of the bread, leaving nothing behind but its enticing smell.

It was magic, two of the agents had claimed. It was collusion with the servants, another hypothesized. The fourth had been too badly beaten to express an opinion, and it would only have been an opinion, for none of the investigators had discovered any evidence.

The marquess had found no wine nor any food when he had had the tower searched after each investigator reported. Indeed, many of the items she had seen in the bedchambers had apparently disappeared between when the other investigators saw them, and when the searches were made.

Magic was unlikely, in Mel’s opinion. She’d certainly never seen objects appear and disappear in a way that defied nature. The tower must have hiding places that the marquess knew nothing about, and if it had hiding places, it might also have hidden ways in and out.

Though if that is the case, why do the marquess’s sons stay? Why do they not just leave? Almost all of them are of age.

Mel accepted a glass of the wine, but made certain to spill it discreetly, for the other investigators must have been drugged somehow, no matter how they denied it. The soup was served from a common pot, so should be safe enough.

Mel returned to her room after dinner, and drank sparingly from the water she had brought with her. She then sat in the chair by the room’s little fireplace, for her intention was to remain awake and thoroughly search at least the public rooms once the brothers had all gone to bed.

Although I am feeling remarkably sleepy. That was her last conscious thought.

When she woke up, her head ached and her thoughts moved sluggishly, as if through a fog. Light was filtering in around the edges of her drapes, and she could hear the muffled hum of conversation.

She forced herself to sit up, hoping it would help. Pain stabbed at her temples, and the room seemed to reel around her for a dizzying moment, but then stabilized. In the dim light, she could see this was not the room at her sister’s house where she lived between assignments.

Oh yes. The tower. The marquess’s sons. They must have managed to drug her, despite her precautions! Well, then. From now on, she’d eat only what she had managed to bring with her in the hidden compartment of her bag, and drink only water.

She pulled back the curtain nearest the bed. From the light, it was early morning. What were the brothers doing out of bed?

Mel wasn’t at all certain she could walk across the room, so she crawled, and opened the door just a crack. Not enough to see, but enough that the voices from below floated up to her ears.

“Ought you to check on Black?” That was Lord Kemble.

“I won’t disturb him. I gave him enough of the drug to knock him out for the night, but he could be stirring about now.” That was Lord Baldwin—the one with medical text books and herbals on his bookshelf. “If we leave him alone, he might sleep as late as we do.”

“Then let’s all go to bed,” Kemble said. “A good night’s work, brothers.”

A night’s work doing what?

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Wedding day on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from my novella for a Dragonblade anthology that will publish next year. My hero and heroine are substitutes for their older siblings in an arranged marriage. Here’s my bride.

When Mima woke on her wedding day, she was not miserable.

She had met her groom. Pel was someone she thought she might have liked, had their families not been at war, and had they met under different circumstances. Their marriage, she cautiously hoped, might not be as terrible as she feared.

Then her best friend Isabelle, one of her female cousins, arrived with the maid carrying the breakfast tray. “You are not getting married without me, Mimmie,” said Bella, “even if you are marrying an ogre.”

“He is not an ogre,” Mima protested, and found herself telling her friend about the night-time visit.

Bella took a predictably romantic view of the encounter. “Oh, I could swoon,” she declared. “He climbed to your balcony, Mimmie! How delicious! Is he handsome? Of course, he must be. It would be a travesty were he not, after he braved all those guards so he could meet you.”

“Do not tell the others,” Mima warned her, as giggles from outside of the door heralded the arrival of the rest of her cousins.

Moments later, she was engulfed in a feminine avalanche, and the next two hours were filled with pampering, primping, praise, and lots of laughter. Almost everything she wore, from the skin out, was new—most of it given by or borrowed from her cousins.

The cream silk gown had been intended for special occasions, and she supposed there were few occasions more special than one’s own wedding. Even so, Bella had declared it needed a little more, and had spent the past two days adding little embroidered flowers to the bodice and hem, each of them a tiny work of art, each chosen to express a suitable sentiment—asters, white carnations, and forget-me-nots for love, myrtle for luck, peonies for a happy life, violets for faithfulness.

One of the other cousins had taken scraps of the fabric and the lace that trimmed it, and made a bonnet to match, decorated with left-over ribbon from the gown and silk flowers that matched those Bella had embroidered.

A third cousin, nearly as deft with her needle as Bella, had embroidered matching slippers for Mima to wear on her feet, and others had searched through their drawers or the local drapery shops for stockings, garters, petticoats, and all the other items Mima needed to do the Ruthermonds proud at the wedding.

Even without her sister’s presence, Mima felt buoyed up on a tide of family love. In fact, if she were to be honest with herself, this way was better. She and Marge had never had more than a cordial relationship, and it had frequently been much less.

Marge seemed to believe Mima was her rival for everything—possessions, talents, parents’ affection and attention. What Marge had, she would not share. What Mima had, Marge wanted.

Marge was the older by three years. Marge was also—at least according to Mama and Marge—cleverer, prettier, and more talented. Mima had to concede the “prettier.” Marge was an English rose—a peaches and cream complexion, golden hair, blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, and a figure that displayed to advantage in everything she wore.

Mima had dark brown hair. Her blue eyes were closer to a faded grey. And she was undeniably… curvy, a charitable aunt put it. Plump, said Mama and Marge.

Today, though, as she examined herself in the mirror, she felt almost beautiful, and the compliments from her cousins lifted her confidence still further. Let Marge sulk in her tower while Mima married Lord Pelham Townswell! Never had Mima been happier to be the recipient of something—or in this case someone—rejected by Marge.