WIP Wednesdays

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We cannot choose our family, on WIP Wednesday

“Oscar, before you go out, I would like a word,” Pol said after dinner. The ladies had withdrawn and it was just the two of them and a couple of footmen in the room.

“I’ll have a port then,” Oscar said, waving a hand at one of the footmen.

Pol stood. “I’ll get it,” he said to the men. “Leave us, please. I will let you know when you can clear.”

“Uh oh.” Oscar grinned, mockingly. “I detect a Polly scold.”

The topic Pol wanted to broach had nothing amusing about it. “If you wish to see it that way. I am looking out for your interests, cousin. And they won’t be served by alienating the villagers and your tenants.”

He handed Oscar his port, and the heathen tipped back his head and swallowed the lot. Pol doubted if he’d tasted it.

“If you are going to scold me, I’m leaving,” Oscar threatened.

Right. Straight to the point then. “You’ve been trying to talk John Westerley’s daughter into meeting you in private. She had the sense to talk to her father. He asked me to let you know that any man who touches her, whoever he might be, will lose his ballocks.” Margaret Westerley was fifteen. If Oscar seduced her or worse, Pol might just hold his cousin down for the knife.

Oscar snorted. “Westerley is my tenant. He won’t touch me.”

“Westerley runs the biggest and most successful farm in the district. If he is hanged or transported for gelding you, you will lose not only your breeding equipment but also a third of your income. That is, if he gets caught. I tell you now, Oscar. If you turn up minus important body parts, I will deny we had this conversation, and all of your tenants and most of your villagers will make certain that Westerley has an alibi.”

“She’s ripe for it,” Oscar protested. “You can’t blame me if the tarts lead me on.”

There was no point in arguing that a girl’s appearance was not an invitation to molest her. “You’re an adult,” Pol told him. “If you want to stay whole, think with your brain and not your pecker. Leave the tenants’ daughters alone.”

In a whiny singsong, Oscar repeated the last sentence and added to it. “Leave the tenants’ daughters alone. Leave the villagers’ daughters alone. Leave the maids alone.” His sneer broadened. “You might be a eunuch, Polly, but I’m not.”

“Keep on poaching other people’s women and you will be,” Pol promised, ignoring the insult. “That goes for the dressmaker’s girl, too, by the way.”

Nothing in Oscar’s eyes or his expression hinted that he knew anything about what Pol had heard in the village—that the dressmaker was searching for her seamstress, who had not come home last night. So it probably wasn’t anything to do with Oscar. Pol hoped she was somewhere safe, but he greatly feared that she might have fallen afoul of some of the other predators who thrived in this district. Oscar’s example and the negligence of the magistrate saw to that.

“The dressmaker’s girl is my business, not yours.” Oscar was on his feet and pouring himself another port. “As for the tenants, I’m the highest ranked peer in the district. They won’t touch me. Little mice. Everyone is afraid, and they should be. You should be.”

He tipped his glass up again, swallowing several times as the port ran down his throat. “I can destroy them,” he added. “I can destroy you, Polly. So stop trying to tell me what to do.”

He stormed out of the room.

That went about as I expected. Honestly, Pol should let Westerley loose with his gelding knife. Pol couldn’t think of anything else that would stop the viscount from his indiscriminate rutting.

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Eavesdropping on WIP Wednesday

From her position in hiding, Jackie could see Mr. Allegro select a file book from the top of a neat stack of documents.

“Lord Hunnard has increased some of the rents and decreased others,” he told Lady Hunnard, moving out of sight again. “Repaying gambling debts or favours in the later case. At least one of the rents has been doubled because he wishes to force the tenant into allowing him sexual access to her employee.”

A slap sounded, followed by Lady Hunnard’s harsh voice. “It is not your place to ascribe motives to your master, or to criticise his decisions. What happens to the Hunnard tenants is not your concern,” she said.

Mr. Allegro’s calm and courteous tones did not change. “I merely advise, my lady. The Hunnard estates depend on the wellbeing of the Hunnard tenants. As might Lord Hunnard’s safety as he rides around the neighbourhood.”

“Are you threatening your master?” Lady Hunnard demanded.

“Not I, my lady. I merely advise. Desperate people do desperate things. Lord Hunnard would do well not to drive people to desperation.”

Lady Hunnard’s laughter was a grim sound, with nothing of humour about it. “Those mice? Those frightened cowering fools? They will mutter into their beer, but none of them will do anything. Besides, my Oscar could fight off a dozen of them and not disturb the set of his coat. And then Lord Barton would send them all to the assizes, to hang or to be transported.” He probably would, too, for the Baron Barton was Lady Hunnard’s lover. “No,” she insisted. “Oscar is in no danger. Give me the rent book.”

He must have complied without speaking, for her voice next came from further away. “Do you have an eye for the dressmaker’s girl, Allegro? Perhaps Oscar will allow you his leavings.” This time, her chuckle did sound amused.

The bitch!

“She has gone,” Mr. Allegro said. “You can come out now, Miss Haricot.”

Jackie discovered that her hands were locked into fists, so tightly that her nails had cut her palms. She relaxed them and used the deck to haul herself to her feet.

“Thank you for not telling Lady Hunnard I was here,” she said.

Mr. Allegro shrugged. “I tell the Hunnards as little as possible,” he said. “You no doubt heard that Lady Hunnard has no sympathy for your plight, and no intention of standing between her son and the victims of his vices. I imagine you are here with a plan. What is it, and how can I help?”

Could he be trusted? Would he really help? She looked into his steady brown eyes. Kind eyes, she thought.

He is not going to leave me to wander about the house on my own, and if he does not help me, I shall have to go home empty handed. And I am running out of time.

“You were there last night when Lord Hunnard cheated me out of my winnings,” she commented. He had helped her then, too, come to think of it, stopping Lord Hunnard from seizing her. She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened had that ogre discovered she was a woman.

“Yes?” Mr. Allegro said.

“I need that money to pay the rent,” she found herself saying. “I came to steal it back, and also to look for evidence of Horrid Hunnard’s crimes so that he can be stopped before he hurts more people.”

Mr. Allegro’s jaw dropped and he stared at her. Jackie glanced toward the window. If he called for help, would she be able to get out that way? What possessed her to blurt out her plan like that? Why didn’t he say anything?

As the silence endured, her discomfort grew. “Right,” she said, taking a step to the side so that she could sidle around the desk and make for the door. “It was too much to ask. I’ll just be off then.”

A war bride’s transport on WIP Wednesday
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A war bride’s transport on WIP Wednesday

I’ve been writing a story for my October newsletter. My heroine is a woman with two children, trying to get home to England and the husband who left her in Spain when the army invaded France.

The ship docked in Portsmouth on the morning tide. The passage from Spain had taken most of the money Maggie had been able to save, and she was determined to be out of town before nightfall so that she would not have spend any more.

In summer, a woman, a toddling infant and a baby could make themselves comfortable for the night in a hedge or under a tree—and had done so many times during their long treks through Portugal, Spain and even the south of France. But towns were not safe places for those without a roof over their head and a stout door between them and the predators who would take even the little that Maggie and her children owned.

It didn’t take her long to discover that passage on a coach would cost more than she could afford, so it would be another long walk.

Two hundred miles, at least, and that was if the first village was the correct one. It was only after several letters had gone unanswered that a kindly army chaplain explained that Parker was a common surname and that many villages were called Ashton. Even in the English Midlands, which was all she knew about where Will’s family lived, there were several Ashtons. She had sent her next letter to them all, proclaiming her intention to leave Spain and come to England. She hoped one of those letters had reached the intended recipient, for the cost had set back her savings and kept her in Spain for another month, even though the chaplain was good enough to send the package in the army mail, to be posted on from London.

Ah! That was what she needed. Outside a general store was a sturdy wooden wheelbarrow. Maggie went inside to find the price. “Three shillings, ma’am,” said the shopkeeper. After some haggling, she bought it for two shillings, popped Billy inside, and pushed it back to the wharf.

To her relief, the boy she had paid to watch her baggage was still there, and so were her bags, her small trunk and the bag with all the things she needed for the baby. She gave the boy another threepence and an extra penny to help her load the wheelbarrow. Then, with Billy perched on the trunk and Madeleine still in the shawl tied tightly to her back, she set off to walk to Ashton.

“It will take us the rest of June and part of July, I expect,” she told her two children as she walked. Chatting to the children helped to pass the time as the long miles rolled away under the single wheel and her shoulders ached. Her feet, too, for it had been months since their last long trek.

Once she had arrived in San Sebastián, she had found work cleaning floors and making up rooms in an inn, so she could save enough money to buy passage for them all. Between that and the time on the ship, it had been more than three months since she walked that far, and Madeleine had grown heavier—it felt like much heavier.

Eva was happy in her shawl. Soothed by her closeness to Maggie and rocked by the movement, she made no complaint. Maggie supposed she slept some of the time, and for the rest, watched the world pass with those wise eight-month baby eyes.

Billy, who was never still even in his sleep, kept asking to get down from the wheelbarrow to walk and then to get up again a few minutes later, for he was tired of walking.

 

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A mother’s challenge on WIP Wednesday

This is from Jackie’s Climb, novel 9 in A Twist Upon a Regency Tale, which is due to Dragonblade Publishing by the end of November and will be published next year.

“Hmm,” said Madame Haricot again. “Jackie, go and make a pot of tea. I wish to speak with Mr. Allegro in private. Mr. Allegro, come with me into my work room.”

Pol followed, his conscience advising him that she had noticed how he looked at her daughter, and sure enough, as soon as she had closed the door, she said, in a hushed voice, “What is your interest in my daughter?”

Only the truth would do. “Nothing I can act on yet,” Pol said. “I have enough saved to keep us all for perhaps six months, and not in luxury, which is what your daughter deserves. I don’t know whether I will be able to find work, or what even what kind of work I might look for. I think the steward here will give me a good reference, but finding a position without one will be hard. I have no right to any intentions when I cannot guarantee my wife and her mother a home and a measure of comfort for the foreseeable future.”

That was all he could say on the matter. It was, perhaps, more than he should say, given that Jackie had no idea how he felt, but this was her mother. Madame Haricot had a right to concerned for her daughter’s safety.

“You intend marriage, then? On a few days acquaintance?” The lady sounded scornful.

Again, Pol opted for honesty. “I am thinking of marriage, yes. Your daughter is an innocent, if perforce somewhat wiser than most of those in the social rank to which she belongs by birth. It has to be marriage or nothing. But I have not spoken to her of marriage or anything else. You must see, my lady, that I have nothing to offer at the moment. Hopes for the future, yes. But one cannot eat hopes.”

She said nothing, but merely examined him, her expression thoughtful. Pol resisted the increasingly uncomfortable urge to shift under her gaze. It seemed a long time before she nodded and said, “Very well, Mr. Allegro. I accept your position. I will care for your grandmother on the journey and until you can make other arrangements.

“Thank you, Madame,” he replied.

“We shall rejoin my daughter and discuss our plans,” she decreed. “Be aware that I will be watching you, Mr. Allegro. And I will not permit you to hurt my daughter.”

Pol had no intention of hurting Jackie, but he was increasingly aware that Jackie had the power to hurt him.

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First attraction on WIP Wednesday

I just received Thrown to the Lyon back from my lovely editor. I’ll be working on it tomorrow, and you can expect to see it in October or November. Thrown to the Lyon is inspired by The Tinder Box. Here’s a snippet.

Ben took Mrs. Anderson back to the Lyon’s Den. “I beg you to stay with Mrs. Dove Lyon for a few more days, Mrs. Anderson,” he said. “Just until I have done what I can to spike Seward’s guns.”

He frowned as another thought struck him. “I will make sure to sort things out before the end of the week. Mrs. Dove Lyon is having another of her masked balls, and you will not want to be in residence at that time.”

After that, he carried Grummidge off to the nearest tavern for a well-deserved drink.

Now the immediate danger of incarceration was over, Ben decided to go straight to the duke with his questions about Seward’s possible motives. So once he arrived home, he settled to writing a letter to the illustrious gentleman.

He franked the letter and gave it to one of his footmen to take to the mail. Kempbury had his seat in Essex, so he would receive the letter on the  morrow. Ben could hope to have a response in two or three days, and Mrs. Anderson would be out of the gambling den well before the infamous Mystère Masque.

His satisfaction was somewhat blunted by the knowledge that she would be leaving the luxurious surroundings of the Den for those pathetic two rooms in a back alley nearby. But she was an army wife. She was accustomed to difficult circumstances.

And what could he do about it, after all? He barely knew the lady, although he had always admired her courage in adverse circumstances. That said, they had certainly become much better acquainted in the past couple of days. His initial impressions from four years ago had been more than confirmed.

She was brave, yes. She also kept her head in a crisis, was polite to everyone she met, and retained a sense of humor no matter what was happening. She might not be able, on her own, to thwart a lord bent on mischief, but she was able to call allies to her aid.

Admiration was a pale word for how he felt about her now. It didn’t hurt, either, that she was appealingly feminine, though he had been careful to keep his physical response to her hidden. She was, after all, a lady.

 

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Not fitting in, in WIP Wednesday

 

The Worth of an Earl is out in Hot Duke Summer on 24th August, and I don’t think I’ve given you a lot of excerpts from the story. So here is one.

In London, Lady Eloise soon realized that Jen had been raised to be a lady. Then the stones she had brought away in the lamp proved to be uncut gems. “You are a lady and wealthy,” Lady Eloise declared. “We shall find you a chaperone, and you shall enter Society. Why not?”

Jen had grown up on her mother’s stories of Society balls, and something in her must have believed them, even as she doubted, for she was thrilled to attend her first. It looked to an observer exactly like Mammi’s stories. And an observer was what Jen was, at the first ball and each that followed.

No one asked her to dance. No one spoke to her except for Mrs. Bartley, the distant cousin of Aunt Eloise hired to be her chaperone. No one acknowledged her when she spoke, or in any way indicated they were aware she existed and was present.

One night, unable to sleep after yet another dismal and disappointing evening, she stomped downstairs. The library might have a book to distract her, and better yet, she knew there was brandy in a decanter on the sideboard.

It wasn’t fair. Jen could have bought most of the other guests a dozen times over with the money from the stones she’d bundled into the lamp—they turned out to be uncut gems of a very high quality. But because —or any discernable family at all—she was invisible, except to men who were so obviously fortune hunters that she did not need Mrs. Bartley to warn her not to encourage them.

Frome was at the ball again tonight, which was somehow worse than all the rest. Repellent, miserable, squint-nosed worm!

Except only one of those words was true. Frome was even more handsome in evening dress than he was dressed for riding, and when he smiled—as he did to everyone, except Jen—he was utterly compelling.

He had charm, too. Jen had seen him applying it with a ladle to men and women alike, and they all adored him, from the newest debutante to the oldest dowager—from the youngest cub fresh on the town to the elderly uncles. Again, everyone except Jen.

Miserable numb-brain.

The library was in darkness except for a glow from behind the fire-guard and a shielded candle almost guttering inside its protective cover. Jen used the flame from her lamp to light the candles on the mantlepiece and then on the sideboard. She turned one of the waiting glasses up the right way and poured a finger of brandy. Then, with the lamp in one hand and the brandy in the other, she turned to the bookshelves.

She jumped when a voice spoke from the corner near the guttering candle. “Be careful with that lamp near the books.”

Frome.

Her simmering anger at the man made her voice sharp. “See to your own candle, Lord Frome, and I shall see to my lamp.”

Frome moved into the candlelight to glare at her. Why did the man have to be so Dag bland gorgeous? Even when frowning? Even when she was furious with him? Even when he had removed his coat and waistcoat so the neat darns on his shirt showed how hard he was trying to fool the ton into thinking that all was well with his estates?

Which wasn’t the point, and Jen tried hard never to lie to herself. It wasn’t the darns that had her attention, but all the hard muscle shifting under the shirt. To give the devil his due, Frome had apparently been working alongside his tenants ever since his brother died and left a reeking pottle of mess for Frome to inherit. Or so Lady Eloise claimed.

He spread his arms, his own brandy glass dangling from one hand. “Like what you see, do you, Miss Ward?”

She did, but she wasn’t going to tell Frome that. “You think a lot of yourself, do you not, Lord Frome?” she asked.

“Not particularly. But I do think I belong here and you do not.”

“You have made that perfectly clear,” Jen agreed. “However, in this house, your grandmother’s is the opinion that counts.” But not outside this house. Lady Eloise Ainsworth was Frome’s mother’s mother and the daughter of an earl. But she was also the widow of Henry Ainsworth the merchant. In the wider world, she was not nearly as important as a dozen twit-brained crows who happened to have married people with titles.

Frome, who possessed a title and plenty of charm besides, had more influence than any of them. Jen’s indignation frothed up and overflowed. “Outside of this house, you have made certain I will not be accepted. Can you not be satisfied with that, instead of attacking me at every turn?”

By the look of affront on Frome’s face, he had not expected the attack. “I have never said a word against you.”

“Hah!” As if he did not know perfectly well what he had done. Jen would spell it out so he would see that she knew, too. “What conclusion did you expect people to draw when you, the darling of the ton, refuse to dance or even talk with the girl your grandmother is sponsoring? When you stay away from the few entertainments to which I am invited? When, if you cannot avoid being in the same room with me, you ignore me as if I do not exist? I never stood a chance.”

She couldn’t say anything else, for the hurt had bubbled up and was leaking from her eyes. She turned her back on him, facing the bookshelves, though she could not see them through the tears.

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Kissing on WIP Wednesday

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

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

They had arrived at the drawing room door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Courting on WIP Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Roses ’neath moon’s silver light

Golden stars behold the sight

The flower climbs the mansion wall

For fleeting joy before the fall.”

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

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

“But which words?” Bea wondered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Courtship questions on WIP Wednesday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He’s rather old,” Viv observed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Earning a bride on WIP Wednesday

Painting by Joseph Appleyard -1947

I’m having fun with the trials my heroine’s father has set up. In The Trials of Aleric, my hero is one of seven men competing to win the hand of a considerable heiress, and a place at her side as consort when she ascends to the title of Lady of Claddach. One of the trials is to co-ordinate and supervise the yearly fete. Here’s my hero, whose job it has been to supervise the contests. One of the other suitors has changed the schedule without telling anyone, and Alaric must persuade the chief judge to change it back:

One hiccup followed another all morning. Alaric and Luke found themselves solving problems in every corner. Howard, who was managing the parish stalls and those raising money for other charitable purposes, complained that several visiting merchants had taken over more than their allocated space, squeezing into the space taken by the charities.

Meadowsweet, who was meant to be managing the merchants, instead wilted under their complaints and abuse, and the pair of them came looking for help.

Alaric borrowed a measuring stick from the estate carpenter and he and Luke went and remeasured each disputed space. The encroaching stall holders grumbled, but Luke glared at them and Alaric joked with them until the stalls were in their correct position.

A farmer bringing his prize rams into the animal pens managed to lose one between his cart and the pens. While he was searching for it, it found itself in a pen with another farmer’s ewes, and had covered two of them before the two owners chanced upon the activity.

The ram’s owner cried theft and the ewes’ owner cried assault.

“How did he get in the pen?” demanded the ram’s owner? “This blaggard opened the gate, that’s how!”

“He can’t keep track of his own ram, and now he accuses me of letting it into my ewes? Why would I want lambs from that old wreck?” The ewes’ owner enquired, plaintively.

“Old wreck? I’ll have you know that’s the finest ram on Claddach. The old blaggard is too mean to pay my fee, and that’s a fact. Why else would he bring ewes in heat to the fete?”

It took Alaric and Luke a while to calm the pair down and the incident wasn’t done until the ram had been dragged out of the pen and herded to its proper place. Neither Alaric nor Luke felt qualified to handle any repercussions from the stolen mating, so they told the men to put their dispute to one side in front of foreigners from the mainland, and, if they must, bring it up with Claddach’s steward after the fete.

The morning flew by, and Alaric was yearning for a pie, an ale, and a rest when the stable clock struck twelve. He was meeting Bea in half an hour. In fact, if he was to wash and tidy before he met Lady Stowell, he had better hurry.

He arrived still damp but clean, and Bea was already waiting for him in the courtyard. She didn’t make any more sense of it than Alaric, but at least they would both be thinking of it. And watching out for a tapestry or a painting with water in it.

“How are preparations going?” Bea asked, so Alaric told her about the ram. She immediately named the two farmers. “Those two are always trying steal a march on one another,” she explained. They will curse and call names and insist that they are going to see the magistrate, but next week they’ll be at it again. The advantage goes back and forth, and they entertain the entire island.”

Alaric laughed. “I wish I’d known that. Luke and I thought we might have a murder on our hands. How Luke will laugh when I tell him. And you, Bea? I suppose you have been as busy as we are, preparing for the guests tonight.”

Bea’s mother, Alaric had noticed, spent most of her time with the ladies her own age, and otherwise in retreat in her room. It was Bea who hurried from housekeeper to cook to butler to keep the castle running, and organising the dinner and the ball appeared to have largely fallen onto Bea, though she had some help from her aunt—her father’s sister, Lady Joan. Not her mother’s sister, who was Viscount Beverley’s mother.

“You seem to be doing it all yourself,” he observed.

“Reina and Christina have been a great help,” she assured him naming her two friends from the town. “So have Sarah and Ellie.” She chuckled. “And today we persuaded Dorrie and Lucy, my cousins, that it would be fun to make garlands to hang in the ballroom. The other girls are all there now, either making garlands or arranging flowers. Look, Alaric, I think that is the Stowell carriage now.”

Alaric could see it, just coming up the hill from the outer wall.

They had been strolling away from the carriageway along the wall, but they turned back to the gatehouse and hastened their steps so that they could go through the arch into the inner courtyard before the carriage arrived.

They were in place before the footman opened the door and put down the steps.

“Good day, Lady Stowell,” Bea greeted the lady. She was a little plump woman richly dressed in a silk afternoon gown, fussy with flounces. She wore a spencer despite the warmth of the day, and her face glowed with the heat, but she had not removed her bonnet, which, Alaric thought, must weigh a ton, given all the decoration that covered it.

“Who is that? Ah, it is Lady Beatrice. Good day, Lady Beatrice. I have come to have lunch with your dear mother. Are you here to take me to her? How sweet of you, dear.”

“Lady Stowell, may I present Alaric Redhaven? He is a guest in the castle, and is helping to organise the fete.”

Lady Stowell fixed Alaric with a shrewd eye. “One of the suitors, are you? Who is your father, boy?”

Alaric bowed. “The Earl of Elsmouth, ma’am.”

“You  must be the scapegrace who was sent to Brazil because of a fight with his brother. Over a woman, wasn’t it? One hopes you have learned your lesson if you are competing for the hand of our Lady Beatrice. So odd of Lord Claddach. A competition! But I suppose, since you refused to go to let your mother and aunt present you, Lady Beatrice, you need to find a husband somehow.”