WIP Wednesdays

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Comedy on WIP Wednesday

I love to read well-written comedy. Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite writers. In our favourite genre, Sally McKenzie is hilarious, Sophie Barnes can make me giggle, and Lorraine Heath is great at setting two unlikely people at one another’s heads for comedic effect. They’re just a few of the writers I enjoy. I’ve just read Amy Quinton’s latest Umbrella Chronicles story for next year’s Bluestocking Belles’ box set, and chuckled all the way through.

I’m not naturally a comedy writer, though I like to include wry humour in my books, and comedic moments. This week, I’m inviting you to post an excerpt in which you use humour. Mine is from my contemporary novella for Authors of Main Street, The Gingerbread Caper, which is as near as I’ve got to romantic comedy.

Patrick slept for the rest of the afternoon, waking disoriented in the unfamiliar room. He rolled onto his back and lay for a while, reorienting himself. He was in Valentine Bay, in a comfortable bed in a charming upstairs flat that looked out to the sea across the pohutaukawa trees that fringed the beach. He had nothing to do except relax and get well for at least the six weeks’ leave his doctor and manager had both ordered him to take. The time was — he turned his head to check the digital clock on the bedside table — just after six o’clock. The landlady was what he’d heard described as a pintsized Venus, who presence robbed him of sense, language, and—almost—breath.

The last circumstance very nearly cancelled out all the benefits of the accommodation and the location.

He sighed. He would need to grow accustomed, and he had better start by having a quick shower and getting downstairs for his dinner. With Meg Fotheringham.

He came out of the shower to find Mr. Major asleep on his bed, curled up on top of the clean underthings and t-shirt he’d left ready. Surely he had put the cat out before he lay down?

He’d told Meg he liked cats, which was something of an exaggeration. He had little experience of animals, having lived all his adult life in city apartments or boarding houses that didn’t allow them.

“How did you get in, cat?” The cat didn’t acknowledge him by so much as a twitch. Patrick made to tug the clothes out from beneath the beast and felt a sting as Mr. Major shot out a paw and sunk four sharp claws into his hand. One slitted eye glared at him, and the cat emitted a fierce yowl, half-way between a growl and a meow.

Patrick stifled his own yowl, and used one finger of the other hand to carefully detach the claws, whipping both hands out of reach just in time to miss an repeat engagement. Jumping backwards caused the towel he’d wrapped round him to slip, and he caught it before it dropped all the way to the floor. He wasn’t about to evict the cat without at least the semblance of some protection.

“Off my clothes, cat,” he menaced. Mr. Major tucked itself back into a curl, one paw over its nose. Both eyes remained open a slit to watch what Patrick meant to do next.

“Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Patrick stripped back the blanket that covered the bed, tipping cat and clothes onto the floor. The cat swore at him—tone and glare quite unmistakeable—and shot under the bed.

Patrick retrieved his clothes. At least they weren’t covered in cat hair. He picked a few errant hairs off the dark background of the t-shirt and dressed, ignoring the feline under the bed.

Ready to go downstairs, he took a quick look around the place, searching for an opening that might have allowed the cat in, and that would let it out again. The window in the bathroom was over a sheer drop. Two other windows had catches that allowed only an inch or so of opening.

He addressed the cat. “How did you do it?” Twenty past six. He’d better hurry. He stooped, and met the cat’s amber eyes. It was up against the wall at the head of the bed—too far to reach even if he’d been prepared to have his hands shredded.

“If you misbehave while I’m out, I’ll make a hat out of you,” he threatened.

When he opened the door, the cat shot out, almost tripping him over at the top of the stairs. He caught himself, and followed the fiend downstairs.

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Introductions in WIP Wednesday

We want to meet the main characters in the story early on. We want to know a bit about them, and we want to get a sense of whether they’re likeable (the protagonists) or potentially villainous. But we don’t want to be overwhelmed with backstory. Today, I’m asking you to share a few paragraphs from when one of your main characters appears in your story. Mine is my heroine from The Darkness Within, one of my current projects.

Serenity Witness would be Chosen in the next ballot. This was not a matter of faith, it was an inevitable fact, since she was the last of the current crop of brides. Hers would be the only lot in the golden chalice that was used at the ceremony. Even though the girls two years younger had been moved into the bride house after the Winter Solstice, it was only so that the Spring and Summer brides would not be alone, and the Spring bride had been Chosen just over two months ago. Her turn would end four weeks and a day from now.

The younger girls were all tremendously excited about the ballot ceremony tomorrow, but mostly because, in three months, their lots would be added to the chalice, and one of them would be chosen as Autumn bride. They assumed Serenity was even more enthusiastic, and she did nothing to dissuade them.

She should be delighted, of course. She was way past the age when most Witness girls entered adulthood.

The Powers had passed her by the first year she was eligible, when she was just sixteen. Seven females shared her birth year, and three were still unchosen from the year before. In the second year, she was left again. In the third year, the four girls a year younger were added, and that year, Serenity was Chosen, but between the ballot and the wedding, she contracted smallpox and nearly died.

By the time she recovered, another had taken her place, for the vitality of the community depended on the Chosen bride, and the position could not be left vacant.

Her smallpox scars did not matter, the Incarnate One assured her. The Powers saw beyond the surface, to the beautiful soul within. Still, they passed her by in the next ballot, and the next, until here she was, nearly twenty years of age and still a maiden bride.

Sitting in the little chapel of the bride house, she faced the Powers and confessed what they, who knew all, must already see within her. “I am afraid.”

At sixteen, she would have been thrilled. Even at eighteen months ago, had she not contracted the smallpox, she would have been nervous about being the centre of attention, concerned about failing in her duties, but deeply content to step over the threshold that marked the separation between girl and woman.

“I am afraid,” she repeated. “I doubt, even though I know that I should not. Take away my doubt, dear Powers.” Every one said that to be Chosen was the greatest of all privileges, and that the three months the Chosen spent as Goddess Incarnate filled her with a joy that would last the remainder of her life. But ever since her friend Verity was tempted from the path by the acolyte called Paul, Serenity had been unable to keep the questions from her mind.

Paul had moved on a few days before Verity became Goddess Incarnate and Verity had served her appointed term, but Serenity had seen the sadness in her eyes when she stepped down from beside the One after the Goddess moved to the next Chosen. A few weeks after she entered the wives’ house, she had died suddenly—an accident with a knife, the community was told. But Serenity had doubted, and the doubts multiplied as she began to notice other signs of secret distress amongst the wives.

“Take away my doubts,” she prayed, but the calm certainty she sought evaded her.

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Secondary Characters on WIP Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, my lady.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It can wait if you wish to…”

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

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

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

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

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

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Scandal and gossip on WIP Wednesday

 

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

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

“Tell me about the rumours,” Jules commanded.

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

“Tell me,” Jules repeated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pets and other animals on WIP Wednesday

Today, I’m looking for excerpts with animals. I’ve started my contemporary again — or, at least, I am writing a new beginning about a week before the one I already had. I’m starting with my hero being tripped up by a cat right at the moment he meets the heroine and decides he wants to impress her. So I decided to focus on excerpts with animals today. Meet the cat on my cover, who plays a crucial role in the plot as the bringer of chaos. Meet him briefly, that is. He doesn’t stick around.

“Yes. I am Meg Fotheringham.” The deity behind the counter extended her hand for Patrick to shake. Patrick stepped forward, his eyes locked on hers, determinedly not allowing them to slip to the glories outlined by her apron. Don’t stuff it up, Patrick. Smile. Say something normal. And then he was falling, crashing into the baskets and cake stands clustered on the counter.

Patrick, winded by the sharp blow to the chest, was barely conscious of a large tabby cat that shot out from under his feet and through a cat door at the back of the room.

“Are you all right?” Ms Fotheringham asked, as she hurried around the counter to help him back to his feet. “That dratted cat!”

Patrick was trying to draw in enough air to breathe, while surveying the chaos his fall had made — crushed chocolate cake, scattered buns and cupcakes, broken gingerbread cookies.

“I’m sorry,” he managed.

Ms Fotheringham frowned at the mess. “Not your fault,” she assured him. She was still holding his arm and now she nudged him towards the nearest chair. “Please sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea or coffee. You were looking for me? No, never mind. Get your breath back first.”

Tea sounded wonderful. The long bus ride, the shock of his new landlady’s youth and loveliness, the fall — combined, they’d left Patrick limp as a dishrag, no better than he’d been when the glandular fever had been raging full force through his system.

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Tension on WIP Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

“Breakfast?” James suggested.

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

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

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

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

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Someone to talk to on WIP Wednesday

Michael Hauge calls them reflection characters–those people we invent whose role in the story is to listen to the hero or the heroine, and occasionally (by what they do or what they say) point them in the right direction. This saves lots of pages where our protagonists talk to themselves, so the readers can hear what we need them to know while still keeping secrets from their romantic interest. Then the meeting with said romantic interest doesn’t have to devolve into him sitting staring at her thinking about whether to tell her the estate is bankrupt, while she sews studiously away thinking about whether he will turn her out on her ear when he knows that she has been supporting her wicked brother out of the housekeeping. Give them each a reflection character, and they can get these thoughts off their respective chests, and increase the tension when they spend the evening not talking about it.

So, give me a passage of conversation with a reflection character. My excerpt is from my newest draft, and my reflection character is a little different. He doesn’t exist, except as a memory in my hero’s mind.

“Stedham was looking for a home; a purpose,” Max told Sebastian. The lieutenant had tried being a steward on an estate, and moved on. He had worked for a while in a lawyer’s office, and a few months more as secretary to a Member of Parliament. The last address the sister had for him was a vicarage, and Max was heading there now.

“He hasn’t been able to settle since he returned from the wars” she had told Max.

Her husband’s estimation was harsher. “He cannot stick to anything. Some of them are like that. They need the adventure, the thrills, and they’re no use in ordinary life. He should join up again.”

Max didn’t agree. “Stedham was a good soldier, but he wasn’t made for that life. Not really,” he told the man, but he might as well have talked to the wall.

“You don’t know him like we do,” the brother-in-law said.

“That man wants his wife to himself,” Sebastian commented. “I know jealousy when I see it.”

Max thought the ghost might be right. Sebastian usually was right about the darker emotions. “Stedham needs a place to belong, but that isn’t it.” Stedham could hardly have missed the lack of welcome. Was that why he stopped writing to his sister? But he’d only stayed with the pair for the first two months after arriving home from France in 1814. He’d continued to write faithfully, week after week, until a few months ago.

“No one belongs,” Sebastian argued. “Belonging is an illusion, and the ones you love most are the ones who most hurt you.”

Max ignored the oblique reference to Sebastian’s death. “That’s the village.” From this elevation, it and the surrounding fields were spread below like a patchwork made by a thrifty housewife from a hundred different scraps. The church, its steeple foreshortened by his perspective, sat at one end of the cluster of houses, the last building on the village street. At the other end was an inn, strategically placed on the junction with the road he was travelling. He could see glimpses of its curves, snaking down the hill before it straightened, leapt a river, and straightened to run past the village street and on into the distance.

 

 

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Declarations of love on WIP Wednesday

My hero in my current WIP has finally faced up to his feelings, so this week, I’m seeking excerpts where the hero (or, if you prefer, the heroine) declares their love. Mine is from my Fire and Frost novella which is the title of the next Bluestocking Belles’ anthology of new stories.

She invited him to serve himself, while she fixed him the coffee that he asked for. As he filled his plate, he asked, “If we are not to stand on ceremony, I wonder if I might beg you to call me Hamner. Or even, should you wish it, Charles.”

Matilda paused, his cup in her hand, then gathered her scattered wits and passed it to him. “You are very kind, Lo– Hamner.”

He shook his head. “Not kind at all. You called me pompous, Matilda. You had the right of it, but I am trying to amend. May I call you Matilda?”

Matilda cast a glance at the maid, but she had her head bent low over her mending and was did not appear to be taking any notice of them.

“Just when we are alone,” Hamner cajoled. “Or am I being an idiot again? I thought… I hoped that you might be coming to care for me as I do for you.”

“I had no idea.” Matilda lifted her chin, her lips firming as she remembered last year’s tears. “Have we not travelled this path once before, my lord? You made your opinion of me clear at that time, did you not?”

His clear blue eyes met hers. If she did not guard her heart, he would break it all over again, but he sounded sincere. “I was a fool, and worse than a fool. A pompous prig, you said, and that hurt. Because you were right.”

“You kissed me then spurned me and proposed to another woman,” she reminded him.

“Ah.” The colour rose in his face and he looked down at the coffee cup, dwarfed by his large capable hands. “You are Lady Felicity’s friend. Of course, you know about that.”

“What? You hoped to deceive me?”

“Not that!” The cup clattered as his hands shook, and he put it down on the side table. “I hoped I could explain it before you knew what an ass I had been. To burn for one woman and propose to another, as if they were interchangeable? My mother tells me I deserve for you to send me away and never speak to me again, but I hope to convince you that I have learned from my stupidity.”

Almost without her volition, Matilda’s head shook, slowly, more in disbelief than negation. “You despise the circumstances of my birth. You do not believe I would reflect credit to your name. Your words, Lord Hamner.”

Hamner leaned forward as if he would grasp her hands, but stopped short of reaching for them. His voice vibrated with passion. “Do I regret that your birth has barred you from all the respect you deserve? Yes. You are the daughter of a duke, raised by a duchess, and a lady of uncommon intelligence, grace, and ability. You act always with propriety and dignity. You should take precedence with others of your rank, and I am indignant that you cannot. You would grace the name of the highest in the land. I was an ignorant fool to think otherwise, and an uncouth lout to say what I did. Though I hope my actual words were kinder, Matilda.”

“Perhaps.” She pursed her lips. “However, you agree that I took your meaning. As an apology for that kiss—I was humiliated, Charles, and I do not see how you expect me to forget it.”

She only realised that she had slipped into calling him by his given name when his eyes lit up, but he did not capitalise on the error. “Not forget. But may I hope for forgiveness? In time? Give me leave to prove my sincerity by my devotion? I mean marriage, Matilda, in case you are in doubt. Yesterday, I saw you in danger, and I knew I could not be happy without you. I spoke to your brother, but he said some of what you have said, and told me that I would need to make my own petition to you. The choice of whether I am permitted to be your friend and your suitor is entirely yours.”

“I do not know how to answer you.” Hamner opened his mouth again, but Matilda held up her hand. “Enough. Lord Hamner, I shall think on what you have said, but we shall not speak of it again today.”

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Combat on WIP Wednesday

In today’s WIP Wednesday, I’m looking at fights and other physical action of that nature. Please post your excerpt in the comments. Mine is from my latest work-in-progress. Driscoll has lured the sister of the lady that Hamner wishes to court away from the group with whom she is skating so he can accost her. Hamner arrives in time.

“Leave Miss Grenford alone, or I’ll rearrange your face for you, and then leave you to Lord Aldridge’s mercies,” Hamner warned Driscoll.

“What business is it of yours” Driscoll snarled. “The bitch was just playing coy, but she wanted me. Why else would she come to meet me?”

Hamner glared. “Good question. How did you inveigle her? She was not welcoming your attentions, that is certain.” He had seen blind panic on Miss Jessica’s face at the moment she realised Driscoll was not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

“She wanted it,” Driscoll insisted, but his eyes shifted away from Hamner’s. “She was pretending to protest. Women do that.”

“Leave her alone,” Hamner repeated.

“Come on!” Driscoll pasted on a smile. “All this fuss over a woman like her?” The smile slipped to a leer. “This is what they’re born to, Hamner, and every one knows it. Even the duchess will have to face facts in time. Aldridge is a man of the world. He indulges his mother, but he certainly doesn’t expect men to leave two such honey-pots alone.”

“You are mistaken, Driscoll. He expects it, and so do I.” Hamner grabbed the stupid man by the capes that adorned the shoulders of his heavy overcoat and pulled him closer, so he could hiss his final warning straight into the man’s face. “Leave. The. Grenford. Ladies. Alone.”

Driscoll struggled ineffectually, his face reddening in his anger. Still, he continued to sneer. “Want both of them, do you? What’s it like, tupping the Ice Princess? Does she freeze your d—”

Hamner dropped the man’s coat and stopped his foul mouth with a punch that sent him reeling backwards. Driscoll landed splayed in a snow bank, flecks of blood spattering the white beside his head. He opened his eyes and glared at Hamner, but made no effort to more.

Itching to haul the villain to his feet and repeat the blow, Hamner forced himself to remember the Grenford sisters. He should make sure they were unharmed. He should escort them home. “Remember what I said,” he ordered, and turned away, allowing himself a wince and a certain satisfaction. The bruising his gloved hand had suffered was a rather nice indication of the damage to Driscoll’s face.

When he looked back before rounding the corner of the path, Driscoll was gone.

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Attraction on Work-in-progress Wednesday

Every romance writer needs to build in enough emotion that readers will believe in the attraction between the main characters. This week, I’m asking you to post excerpts in which that attraction is just beginning. Mine is from the next Bluestocking Belles’ box set, and neither party want to acknowledge it.

Hamner escorted his mother through the rooms until they found her friends.

“Now run along, dear, and find someone to dance with.”

Did he ever used to enjoy this kind of event? It wasn’t fashionable for men to admit to any kind of pleasure in a ballroom, but two years ago, an event like this would have been a treat. He would not have sat out a dance, though nor would he have danced twice with the same female.

He loved the company of women, from the innocent pleasures of dancing and conversation with Society’s maidens to the more robust and earthy delights to be enjoyed savored with discreet widows.

A wealthy earl needed to be cautious. But if he went nowhere alone, and paid attention to them all and none to anyone in particular, he raised no expectations and could simply enjoy himself. He had. Until he had set his sights on Lady Felicity.

There she was now, in conversation with the duchess’s two wards. For the last two seasons, Miss Grenford, Miss Jessica, and Lady Felicity had been close friends. Before last season, her older sister had married and almost immediately gone into mourning for a relative of her husband’s. Rather than miss the Season, Lady Felicity had been taken under the wing of the duchess; the three young ladies clearly intended to spend this Season together, as they had the last.

It was intolerable that he wanted to yearn after Lady Felicity, who would have made him a perfectly unobjectionable wife: an ornament to the Hamner name. Instead, he could barely look at her. Not when she stood next to Miss Grenford.

As he continued around the room, he fought to control his reaction to the pernicious female’s presence.