WIP Wednesdays

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The marriage mart on WIP Wednesday

This week’s excerpt is from The Husband Gamble, a short novella I am writing for The Wedding Wager.

The Earl of Hythe was already regretting his agreement to attend the party. The room he had been given was perfectly adequate. His valet Pritchard, who had been with him for years, had been busy while Hythe was in his bath. Pritchard knew exactly how Hythe likes things. He had organised the dressing room and the bedside table, and had moved the chairs in the seating area so that they were precisely aligned with the edge of the hearth, with the little table equidistant between the two and on the same ruler-straight line.

After he was dressed again, Hythe set his travelling desk on the desk provided, and checked the desk drawers. Lady Osbourne had provided quality paper and ink. The stack of paper needed to be tidied, as did the rest of the drawer contents. That task finished, Hythe had no further excuse for lingering in his room, getting in Pritchard’s way. Like it or not, he needed to go below and meet the other guests.

He blamed his sister Sophia, entirely. On second thoughts, he had opened himself to the attack. If he had never grumbled to her about the difficulty of finding a wife one could respect and even, perhaps, befriend, she would never have suggested that he put himself in the hands of the acclaimed matchmaker. One who had found matches, furthermore, for people whom Society had judged unmarriageable.

Even so, Hythe would never have agreed if the marriage of his sister Felicity had not left his townhouse appallingly empty. Felicity had followed him from one diplomatic post into another, keeping house for him. His servants were perfectly competent, but they would be horrified to be asked to sit down for a chat over breakfast or of an evening.

And, of course, no servant could be his hostess or be at his side during the social occasions that were so much part of his work.

“Excuse me, my lord,” Pritchard said.

Hythe stepped out of his way, and Pritchard, carrying Hythe’s dinner jacket as if it was the crown jewels, proceeded to lay the garment on the bed and return to the dressing room for the next item. “Dinner is at seven, my lord, with gathering in the drawing room from six thirty.”

It was Pritchard’s way of saying “You have at least two hours before dressing for dinner, so please go away so I can ensure that anything you might choose to wear has been inspected and, if necessary, restored to a standard suitable for the Earl of Hythe.”

Hythe repressed a sigh and bowed to the inevitable, though he only went as far as the passage, where he stood for a moment, his eyes shut, bracing himself to meet all those people.

It was only for a week. He could resist any plots by Lady Osbourne or her protégés for one week. One of them might be the one for you. He rejected the errant thought. Everyone knew that Lady Osbourne had wagered with her cousin that she could find matches for the most awkward, difficult and challenging of wallflowers and hoydens and the most unprepossessing of grooms.

Hythe knew that he had little to recommend him beyond his title and his wealth. Ladies seem to prefer a man of address, who could flatter them with elegant compliments and talk for hours about frivolous matters that bored Hythe witless. Someone at ease meeting strangers and comfortable in crowds of people.

For Hythe, social occasions were an ordeal. He could manage. He had memorised a hundred different meaningless but polite responses, and practiced them in front of a mirror. He had learned which ones to trot out on which occasion.

It was not so bad if he could find a meaningful conversation in which to immerse himself, but the ladies of Society and many of the men had no interest in topics that mattered. Hythe had discovered the trick of finding a quiet corner where he could take a few deep breathes before pasting on a smile and getting back to work.

The right wife would have the skills he lacked, as his sisters did. They were both brilliant political and diplomatic hostesses, and had been happy to give their brother the benefit of their skills. Until they married. Without them, life in Society was even more exhausting than before.

He had not been able to find what he needed as a man. What his title required made it even more difficult.  The Earl of Hythe needed a countess who could burnish the reputation of the earldom and the family. Money was irrelevant. Looks were secondary. Behaviour…

Even in his thoughts, he could not agree that behaviour was everything. Important, yes. Hythe was the head of the Belvoir family, and no stain had ever attached to their family name. His parents had been renowned for their good ton as well as their wealth, their generosity, and their wide circle of friends. His sisters were models of propriety. Felicity, his younger sister, might at times allow her vivacity to bring her to the edge of proper behaviour, but never over.

However, Hythe wanted more from marriage than a countess who could be a good hostess and who knew how to behave. Perhaps, if he had contemplated marriage a few years ago, he might have chosen one of the insipid bird brains that seem to be the primary offering on the marriage mart. And perhaps, if he had been lucky, she might have learned to be an adequate countess.

Hythe also wanted a wife. He had watched his sisters find love matches. So had several of his friends. He was not convinced that a love match was a desirable thing — such an untidy excess of emotions did not appeal to him. In any case, he had never imagined himself in love, even when his friends were falling like flies for opera dances and Society beauties. He was probably not capable of the emotion.

The other kind of love he could manage very well. He held a deep and abiding affection for both of his sisters. He was sure he could be a fond and caring husband and father. All he had to do was find a wife he could talk to. It may be setting the bar too low to say a wife who did not irritate him, but that was precisely what he told Lady Osbourne when she buttonholed him in Town after Sophia had asked her for her help.

Someone who did not irritate him. Someone who was old enough and interesting enough to know her own mind and be prepared to have opinions and defend them. Someone who liked children and would be a good mother, for Hythe would need an heir, and hoped that his son might grow up with brothers and sisters.

Someone who knew how to behave as the wife of a diplomat and a peer — that went without saying, although he said it anyway. Someone who was at ease in social situations and prepared to exercise that mastery on his behalf, though he did not put that into words, unwilling to expose his deficiencies to that extent.

He waved away Lady Osbourne’s questions about appearance. Short or tall. Fair or dark. Plump or slender. What did those matter over a lifetime? “I want someone to grow old with,” he told Lady Osbourne, “should we be so blessed.”

He couldn’t spend the rest of the day leaning against the wall outside his room. He opened his eyes even as he took a stride down the passage, only to find his arms full of a warm fragrant female. Who gasped, and pulled backwards.

 

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Amnesia on WIP Wednesday

Today’s excerpt is from the story I’ve just written for my next newsletter, which I’ll be putting out in the next few days. It uses the amnesia trope, and is set in the same part of the UK, and a few months after, the storm in the Bluestocking Belles collection Storm & Shelter. Indeed, the storm in question sets off the events of the story, and the seaside village of Fenwick-on-Sea comes in for an honourable mention.

All day, Abbey had been following a cart across the field and the rickyard and back, one of three men using pitchforks to lift the hay from the windrows into the cart and then from the cart onto whatever rick was being built. It was one of the skills he had discovered when he was well enough to be put to work. It was exhausting work, but still gave him time — too much time — to think about his dreams.

Were the dreams about his past life? He did not know. He did know he always woke feeling as if he had left something undone and time was running out.

He could no more remember what task he was neglecting than he could remember his own identity.

His ability to build a hay rick was a clue, he supposed. He could plough and scythe, too. And milk a cow. And groom and ride a horse.

He could also read and write. He spoke — or so they told him — like a gentleman. His mind was stuffed with all sorts of knowledge that the farmhands around here found surprising. It was something of a game for them, to ask him a question out of the blue. Name the kings of England. He could do that, yes, and recite the dates, too. He knew the dates of key events in English history. He could finish the verse of popular song if someone called out the first line. He could do it for poetry too, as the local squire discovered.

The squire suggested he might have been the son of a wealthy farmer, sent away to school but still accustomed to helping out on the land.

Abbey wondered why he could access so many facts and skills, but not know who he was, where he was from, or how he arrived on the beach at Dunwich more than half drowned, with a broken arm and a great bleeding wound on his head.

There had been a great storm that had swept all of that coast, cutting Dunwich off from the roads inland and to villages north and south. At a guess, he had been washed overboard from a ship, or had been aboard one of several that had foundered. Nobody knew. The squire made enquiries when he took Abbey into Ipswich to be examined by a doctor. He even sent letters to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

No one had reported losing a man of Abbey’s description and name. If Abbey was his name. It had been the first word on his lips when he recovered consciousness, or so they told him. It didn’t feel as if it fitted, but he had no other name to offer.

The doctor said his memories might come back a few at a time, or all at once, or never. Abbey, still shaky on his legs from his long recovery and with no clues to his own identity, accepted the squire’s offer to return to Dunwich.

He worked on getting fit. He worked on any task he was given as a return for the care and kindness he had been shown. He bludgeoned his mind for the least hint about his past, but all he gained was a headache.

The dreams had started six weeks ago. At first, occasionally but now, every night. They faded as he woke leaving an impression of warm brown eyes, of someone calling for him to come home. Each night, the sense of urgency increased. He had something he needed to do. Quickly, before it was too late.

He had no idea what it was or why it was important.

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First kiss on WIP Wednesday

An excerpt from the book I’m currently preparing for beta reading, One Perfect Dance. Ash has just rescued Ginny.

She was still crying, but the angry storm was gone, fading into heart-wrenching sobs that twisted Ash’s gut even more than the initial outburst. “There now, Ginny” Ash said. “Let it out, dearest. You’re safe now, my love.”

She turned her face up at that, drawing back so that her tear-drenched eyes could meet his. “Am I, Elijah?”

“Yes, of course. He has gone, and I won’t let him near you again.”

She thumped his chest softly, an action so reminiscent of the child Ginny that he had to repress a smile. “Not that,” she scolded. “The other.”

He retraced his words in his mind. “My love?” At her tiny nod, he repeated, “My love.”

She raised her eyebrows in question, the imperious gesture only slightly marred by the shuddering breath of a leftover sob.

“I love you, Ginny. Did you not know?”

She thumped him again, another gentle reprimand. “You never said,” she grumbled. “You never even tried to kiss me.” The last two words were disrupted by a hiccup, but he understood them well enough.

“I am abjectly sorry, Ginny,” Ash told her, managing to keep his voice suitably solemn while his heart was attempting to break out of his chest and into hers. She has been waiting for my kisses! Missing them, even. “I have never courted anyone before. I am clearly not very good at it.”

She hiccupped again as she put up a hand to cradle Ash’s cheek. “I am sorry to be so cross, Elijah. I hate hiccups. I hate crying, and it always give me the hiccups.” She proved it with another shuddering hiccup.

“Have a sip of brandy, beloved,” he suggested, and he picked up one of the glasses and held it to her lips. “It might help. And if it doesn’t, perhaps a kiss will cure them.”

Ash was very aware that she had not returned his declaration of love. However, she wanted his kisses. He would start there and hope for the best.

Ginny took the glass from his hand and had another sip, followed by another hiccup.

“It will have to be the kiss, then,” he suggested. He lowered his head to hers, slowly, giving her plenty of time to turn him away. Instead, she lifted her face to bridge the gap, her mouth reaching inexpertly for his.

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Comfort and kindness on WIP Wednesday

One of the most endearing things a hero can do is comfort his heroine after she has been hurt or frightened. How he does this tells us a lot about his character. Here is my Ash comforting Regina, who is reacting to being assaulted in her own drawing room by a suitor she thought to be harmless. (Ash has punched him, threatened him, and had him thrown out.)

In a moment, she was a warm fragrant bundle on Ash’s lap, her curves draped across his torso, her arms wrapped around him, her face tucked into his shoulder as she cried.

He patted her shoulder, murmuring comfort. “There now. You’re safe now, Ginny. He’s gone. He won’t bother you again. I have you, my darling. I have you.”

He had not seen Regina so discomposed since she was a child, grieving the loss of a kitten. He wished he’d hit Deffew harder. He’d thought he and Charles were in time, but if the swine’s violation had gone beyond what he’d seen, the dog would die for it, Regina’s opinion notwithstanding.

Charles poked his head around the door, his eyes widening in alarm when he saw the state of his mistress. Ash pointed to the brandy decanter he could see on a sideboard. “Two,” he mouthed, ceasing his patting to hold up two fingers then resuming again, barely breaking rhythm.

Charles nodded, and tiptoed to the decanter to pour two glasses of brandy, then tiptoed back across the room to place them on a side table next to Ash’s elbow, setting them down so carefully that they did not clink.

Ash briefly wondered whether the young man wanted to save Regina the embarrassment of knowing her emotional collapse had been witnessed, or whether he feared that she might expect him to do something about it if she knew he was there. Whichever it was, he faded back across the room and out of the door, pulling it shut behind him.

She was still crying, but the angry storm was gone, fading into heart-wrenching sobs that twisted Ash’s gut even more than the initial outburst. “There now, Ginny” Ash said. “Let it out, dearest. You’re safe now, my love.”

She turned her face up at that, drawing back so that her tear-drenched eyes could meet his. “Am I, Elijah?”

“Yes, of course. He has gone, and I won’t let him near you again.”

She thumped his chest softly, an action so reminiscent of the child Ginny that he had to repress a smile. “Not that,” she scolded. “The other.”

He retraced his words in his mind. “My love?” At her tiny nod, he repeated, “Are you my love?”

She raised her eyebrows in question, the imperious gesture only slightly marred by the shuddering breath of a leftover sob.

“I love you, Ginny. Did you not know?”

She thumped him again, another gentle reprimand. “You never said,” she grumbled. “You never even tried to kiss me.” The last two words were disrupted by a hiccup, but he understood them well enough.

“I am abjectly sorry, Ginny,” Ash told her, managing to keep his voice suitably solemn while his heart was attempting to break out of his chest and into hers. She has been waiting for my kisses! Missing them, even. “I have never courted anyone before. I am clearly not very good at it.”

She hiccupped again as she put up a hand to cradle Ash’s cheek. “I am sorry to be so cross, Elijah. I hate hiccups. I hate crying, and it always give me the hiccups.” She proved it with another hiccup.

“Have a sip of brandy, beloved,” he suggested, and he picked up one of the glasses and held it to her lips. “It might help. And if it doesn’t, perhaps a kiss will cure them.”

Ash was very aware that she had not returned his declaration of love. However, she wanted his kisses. He would start there and hope for the best.

Ginny took the glass from his hand and had another sip, followed by another hiccup.

“It will have to be the kiss, then,” he suggested.

 

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Men in love on WIP Wednesday

My hero wanders in the rain, thinking about his beloved.

Ash walked through the streets of London in something of a daze. Hackman followed along in the curricle, shaking his head at his employer’s unaccountable decision to walk through the drizzling rain, but making no comment.

All of his intimate encounters had been, at root, transactional, though he had been fond of each of his mistresses and, he hoped, they with him. They said so, in any case. Being with Regina was so different that he was utterly at sea.

Their first kiss had rocked his world. It had begun as a yearning caress and become a carnal meeting of lips, teeth, and tongue. He had kissed before, and with women who were far more experienced in receiving and giving pleasure. This was Ginny and that made all the difference.

He had, somehow, managed to keep that encounter to a meeting of mouths. Her innocence helped. She followed his lead, but she initiated nothing. It was, as he’d thought at the time, as if she had never been kissed as a lover kissed.

Unlikely as it seemed, he was even more certain now that his first impression was right. She was a quick learner, though. As soon as their lips met tonight, his self-control almost escaped its leash. He managed to retain enough consciousness to keep his caresses within bounds; to slowly introduce her to the feel of his hand on her breasts, to kisses that crept every closer before he had one of her lovely nipples in his mouth.

Her fragrance, her soft skin, her moans of pleasure, the arch of her back as she lifted towards him, all tempted him to take it further, but he managed to resist. When she gave herself to him, and he was almost sure that she would, it would be a free choice, not one coerced through seduction.

A choice of forever, for he could bear no less. To bed her without promises was to risk destruction. Already, it was too late for him to walk away without a broken heart, but he still did not know if she wanted him for a lover or for a husband.

You may tell William you are courting me, she had said. But did she mean to accept him when he asked her to marry him? If she allowed him the honour of full intimacy and then refused his proposal, he did not know if he could survive it.

Holding to his honour by a thread, he had reversed his progress, gentling his caresses, kissing back up to her lips, invading her mouth one more time with the rhythm of coitus, and then retreating to closed mouth kisses and a final hug.

Hackman drew up beside him. “Sir, you are walking the wrong way.”

Ash realised that the drizzle had turned to a serious downpour. Hackman must have decided he had had enough, and he was right about Ash’s direction, too. He was further away from Artie’s townhouse than he had been when he started.

“Let me drive,” he said, and leapt up into the driver’s seat of the curricle, taking the reins from the servant.

The wise thing would have been to take the fastest route home, but he could not resist driving back past Ginny’s townhouse.

Hackman cast him a worried look when he made the turn. Ash couldn’t possibly subject the poor man a prolonged loiter outside the building while he mooned beneath his love’s lit window. But he wanted to.

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Danger on WIP Wednesday

Elegant young gentleman dandy dressed in Regency fashion holding a hat and walking cane on the footsteps to a impressive mansion, 3d render.

In this excerpt, my hero sees a silver lining in the fact he has just been shot at.

They said their goodbyes and made their way out of the club.

Ash was still thinking about his courtship of Regina. The difficulties depressed his optimism. Regina had accepted several of his invitations, yes. But she had other suitors. More handsome, wealthier, better connected. Why should she choose an orphan of no particular family who had to work for his living?

She found him attractive; he couldn’t doubt the purely feminine interest with which she regarded him. But she didn’t flirt. She did not employ any of the many ways a woman indicated that a man’s attentions would be welcomed.

He descended the steps to the street lost in thought. Artie’s body crashed against his and they tumbled to the footpath. Even as he fell, his mind replayed the sharp bark of a rifle, heard through the din of the busy street. As Artie rolled off him and he clambered to his feet, he was already scanning the rooftops on the other side of the road.

Artie had hurried back up the steps, and was exploring the fresh hole in one of the stone pillars that held up the portico. “The bullet came from above and to the right,” he reported, before coming back down, scanning the ground. “And dropped here.” He stooped, and came up again with a lump of misshapen lead.

“Good reactions,” Ash told him.

Artie shrugged. “I saw a glint off the barrel. On the way down, I thought—it couldn’t be a rifle. Not in London!”

Ash was still scanning the rooftops. “I cannot see any movement.” He grinned at his friend. “I’m glad you didn’t stop for second thoughts. Was that for you or for me?”

Artie shrugged. “Or a case of mistaken identity. I can’t think of anyone who is that annoyed at me.”

Ash thought about his own possible enemies. “I can’t see Daffy Deffew being good enough with a rifle to make that shot.”

Artie examined him, head tipped to one side. “Because he thinks Mrs Paddimore favour you?” he asked.

It was a cheering thought. If Daffy was desperate enough to attempt murder, perhaps Ash really did have a chance with Regina.

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Male and female persepectives on WIP Wednesday

In this week’s excerpt, my heroine’s son has been sent down from Cambridge for fighting, after a classmate shared some old gossip that insulted Regina. Her brother, the boy’s guardian, has received a letter from the chancellor and comes to growl, but changes his mind when he hears what provoked the fight.

William opened his mouth and then shut it again, finally saying, “Oh.” He then, the cad, turned to Regina and said, “I thought you were going to tell him?”

Regina glared. “We had that discussion three weeks ago, William. Did you expect me to tell him by letter? If Matthew Deffew had not seen fit to share his scurrilous version of the story with his son, we would have been having this discussion when I next visited Cambridge, and Geoffrey would not have an injured hand.”

“Hmm,” William said. “Broke your hand, did you?” He raised an eyebrow and attempted to remain stern, but a smile twitched the corners of his lips. “Broke young Deffew’s jaw with it, I gather. Must have been a good blow!”

“William!” Regina would never understand men. “I thought you agreed with me that this was not the way to quell gossip.”

William had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, I suppose. But you have to admit that our boy was provoked.” Then he compounded his crime by adding, “Pity we can’t do the same for the little rat’s lying father.”

Regina threw her hands up in the air. “Men! Thinking that a fight solves anything. I am going up to get changed for an afternoon drive with a friend.”

“Anyone we know?” William asked.

Regina wanted to keep her escort’s identity from her menfolk. Which was silly. It was not as if Elijah was courting her. And even if he was, William and Geoffrey had no reason to object. And even if they did… What a ridiculous train of thought. “Elijah Ashby.”

“The travel writer that you and Father used to correspond with?” Geoffrey asked. He turned to William. “I have read all of his books, Unc… um…” He blushed over his own hesitation and then rushed on. “His and Lord Arthur Versey’s, that is.”

In a moment, the two men were exchanging views on the adventures recorded in Elijah’s books. Perfect amity was restored. Regina rolled her eyes and went up to change.

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Scandalous gossip on WIP Wednesday

In today’s excerpt, my heroine’s step-son gets into a fight at university, and is sent down.

In the drawing room, Geoffrey prowled while the tea makings were brought in. When the maids had left the room, Regina patted the seat beside the couch.

“Come and sit down, my darling.”

Geoffrey straightened. “I would prefer to stand, Mother.”

Regina inclined her head. “As you wish.”

“The short story is that I was sent down for fighting. I – Ah – broke someone’s jaw. That’s why I have no money. I gave it all to pay for the doctor and for the nurse who was going to look after him while he recovers.” Geoffrey swallowed, and shuffled from one foot to the other.

Regina waited. Let him tell his story in his own words, and then ask questions.

After a moment or two, Geoffrey took a deep breath and continued. “The Chancellor said that was part of my punishment for resorting to brute violence instead of using my brain. He told me to go home until my hand healed, and to talk to you about what Richard Deffew said.” He sat down like a puppet with its strings cut, flopping any old how into a chair.

“Richard Deffew?” Regina commented. “That would be the gentleman whose jaw you broke, I take it.” Mr David Deffew had mentioned having a nephew at Cambridge.

Geoffrey nodded. “Although he is no gentleman, Mother. I did not mean to hurt him so hard, although he deserved it.”

Regina remembered the threats David Deffew made when he tried to coerce her into an elopement all those years ago. She had a good idea of what he might have said to spark Geoffrey’s temper. Her boy was generally easy-going and slow to anger, but his wrath burned hot when it did erupt. She took a deep breath. Best to know what was said, before she at last told Geoffrey the truth of his origins.

“What exactly did Deffew say?”

Geoffrey blushed. “I won’t repeat his foul words, Mother. But in essence, he said you are my mother in truth, and you were married off to Father — Gideon Paddimore — because you were ruined beyond recovery, and he was your father’s…” He hesitated, looking for a word. “Your father’s intimate friend.” His blush burned deeper.

Regina raised her eyebrows. She had expected Gideon’s reputation to be called into question, but not her own. “I had just turned fifteen when you were born,” she pointed out. “Rather young to be steeped in sin.”

“Yes,” Geoffrey said, but the relief in his tone indicated that the accusation had bothered him. “I knew he was lying, especially when he said Uncle William must be my father because I look so much like him.”

Regina’s eyebrows shot up further. “That would have made him a very precocious twelve-year-old,” she said. “To set the record straight, Geoffrey, I did not give birth to you, and William is not your father.” She paused, wondering how to broach the truth.

Geoffrey gave her an opening. “Do you know, Mother? Who my real mother and father were, I mean. Only, I do look like Uncle William.”

Regina took a deep breath. Gideon, I wish you were here. “You know that we always told you that your father took you into his arms, his heart, and his life when you were a few hours old.” She held out a hand that trembled rather more than she wished.

Geoffrey took it. “Yes, and you did the same when I was two years old and you married Father.”

“I did,” Regina agreed, and continued with what she needed to say. “Gideon was there that day because, when the mother who gave birth to you died shortly afterwards, the midwife sent for her lover.”

Geoffrey’s hand gripped hers and his eyes burned. “My father.”

Regina nodded. “Your father. Gideon was with him when he got the message. Your father was married, Geoffrey. He could not take you home, he refused to put you into an asylum, and he was reluctant to leave you to paid care. But Gideon had already, as he told you, taken you into his heart. He claimed you as his ward, and from that moment on, you were his son and everything but blood.”

Geoffrey’s focus was on the man who had given him up rather than the one who had taken him in. “Did my real father want nothing more to do with me?” he asked, a tremble in his voice.

“He visited you often, my darling, until the day he died when you were only two years old.” Regina had given Geoffrey a handful of clues, but he still didn’t put them together.

“Father told you all of this.” It was a statement, not a question.

Regina nodded again. “Certainly. Once we had agreed to marry.”

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Random bits of knowledge on WIP Wednesday

One of the things I love about writing historical romances is the research. Not just the big important stuff, but the odd bits of knowledge that I come across or look up for a particular story. Do you have an example in one of your books? I’d love you to share in the comments. Mine is the opening to my next story for newsletter subscribers. My newsletter is going out next week, and the story is called The Easter Bonnet.

“Come on, Millie. Put that away and join us,” Sadie tempted.

Millie shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I have to finish this.” She held up the bonnet she was trimming.

“You can do it in the morning,” Sadie insisted. “We’re going to drop into the pub for a tot of gin and a bit of a chin wag.”

“I have to deliver it on my way home,” Millie countered. “Madam said the lady is leaving for the country in the morning, and wants to take it with her.”

“Madam should do it herself then.”

Madam was with child, but Millie had been told that in confidence. “I don’t mind,” she told Sarah. “It is going to be very pretty when it is finished.”

Sadie stared at her for a moment then shrugged. “Another time, then.” She whirled around and in moments the door shut behind her and Millie was alone.

She finished attaching the edging. The bonnet was formed in twisted straw, edged in a ribbon that apparently matched Lady Paula Temple’s favourite walking dress. Lady Paula planned to wear them both to Easter services in her home village, for the delight—to hear the lady tell the tale—of the entire community.

Millie picked out another length of ribbon of the same colour but much wider, and began to pleat and pin it around the base of the bonnet, so that the straw would not catch in the lady’s coiffure. Coiffure. Millie said the word out loud, shaping it with lips and tongue. Coiffure was what the upper classes called their hair dos. It must be nice to be a wealthy beauty with an indulgent father and a whole battalion of suitors.

A further length of ribbon, this one in a slightly darker shade. It would go over the join between brim and bonnet, then be gathered into a rosette on each side where it met the base. Two more lengths from the same roll would form the ties to hold the bonnet on.

Quick but careful stitches soon had those in place.

Millie had made herself a bonnet in a similar design, though of much cheaper materials and in different colours. Madam would not object to Millie copying the design, as long as there was no chance of a customer recognising the copy.

Millie snorted. Fat chance of that. The customers who could afford Madam’s creations did not see such lowly beings as a milliner’s assistant.

The silk flowers came next. Pink moss roses, symbolizing perfect happiness and also the confession of love. Daisies for innocence. Blue cornflowers for hope. Myrtle for good luck. Lady Paula had specified these particular flowers. Millie wondered what message she was trying to send and to whom. But perhaps Lady Paula just liked the colours.

Millie secured a single rose, three daisies, and two cornflowers inside the brim, where they would draw attention to Lady Paula’s eyes. The rest would form—soon did form, thanks to Millie’s clever needle—a cascade over the other side, covering the join between brim and crown.

There. Done. Millie set the bonnet back on the hat block and stood back. She walked all the way around where it sat on the table. Yes. It would do.

Her own version of the hat was trimmed with violets. Innocence, modesty, remembrance. The violets were the least damaged of all the silk flowers being sold at half-price, because they had been damaged by an accident with a bucket of water. She had parted with a hard-earned a sprig of myrtle at full price, because good luck was worth it.

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Journeys on WIP Wednesday

Barge haulers on the Volga River

I seem to get a lot of travel into my books, one way and another. My hero in the book I’m writing at the moment has been overseas since his twenty-first birthday. He is now a week shy of his thirty-seventh. My excerpt is part of his journey home (They departed from Ceylon — today’s Sri Lanka — by ship to what we today call Pakistan, then went up through Kashmire to Afghanistan and from there to Kazakhstan. I had to work out the timings, allowing for the monsoons and the northern winter. I think I’ve got it. If you have a journey in a book of yours, please share in the comments.

Nowhere smelled like England. It was raining, but Ash rode anyway, the better to enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds of his homeland. His childhood memories were created in the tame and gentle lands of South East England, the lands their little line of carriages and horsemen were currently traversing on their way from Dover to London.

Artie had put his riding horse on a lead rope when the rain first began, retiring to the family carriage where Rithya, Caroline, and little Gareth travelled in as much comfort as Artie could procure at short notice.

Caroline had been born in March of 1817. Artie had taken a house in a small village in Kazakhstan when Rithya adamantly refused to travel any further while she was, as she complained, larger than an elephant and far less useful. Besotted with his baby daughter, Artie had quelled his restlessness until Rithya pronounced herself well enough to travel. They set off again, with a wet nurse, he is a train of pack animals and a small army of local guards.

After that, Artie travelled as if possessed. No more stopping for weeks or even months at a time, to see the sights and get to know the locals. “I want to leave St Petersburg before the Baltic ices over,” he explained.

In Turkmenistan, they heard about an Englishman who ran shipping on the Caspian Sea, paradoxically known as the King of the Mountains. The man they found in a small port on the eastern shores proved to be the son of the rumoured king, though from his looks, his mother had been a local. He was able to supply space for their party on a ship sailing for the mouth of the Volga River, and also advice on dealing with Russian officials as they travelled up through the waterways of that enormous empire.

The river travel took longer than expected, and they spent Christmas at the Winter Palace of the Tsar in St Petersburg.

Tsar Alexander was delighted with his visitors, whom he proclaimed he knew well, for he had read all of their books. Artie, in particular, was a favourite, his birth making him, in the Tsar’s eyes,’his British cousin’.

The nearby port was frozen over. Indeed, the ice blocked much of the sea for hundreds of miles. The Tsar assured them they could stay as long as they wished, but Artie insisted on taking an overland route, by troika, to Klaipeda, which was ice free. Somehow, he managed to charm the vehicles and their teams, an escort, and a ship out of the Tsar.

Perhaps it was because Rithya was with child again, and the childless Tsar and Tsarina were enchanted with Caroline, and anxious to do all they could to make sure Artie was back in England “for the birth of your heir, my cousin.”

So, at last, in the middle of February, after being storm-diverted to Calais where Rithya gave birth to Gareth, they arrived in Dover.

Travelling by gentle stages, they spent two nights on the road and were now approaching London. Their sixteen-year journey was all but over.