WIP Wednesdays

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Avowals of love on WIP Wednesday

Isn’t part of the fun of a romance seeing a strong man brought to his knees? Today, hit me with your excerpts where one party or the other speaks of their love. Could be a proposal, as in the following excerpt from Melting Matilda, my novella in the soon to be published Fire & Frost.

“I have been attracted to you since the first time we danced, but that is desire, and desire is a part of love but not the whole. I do desire you, my love, more and more each day, but I also admire you, I like being with you, I enjoy talking to you, I respect you. I want to see you every morning when I wake, to spend my days with you, to have the right to dance the first waltz with you at every ball, and to go home with you every night. I want to see your belly rounded with our child, and watch you as you gently teach them the way I’ve seen you teach your little sister. I want you and only you as my countess and the mother of my children. I want to grow old with you, Matilda Grenford.”

He dropped to one knee. “Miss Grenford, I esteem you with all my heart. Will you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife?”

He waited, his anxiety rising as she said nothing, despair taking over as tears rose and began to leak from her pansy eyes. Then she began to nod as she slipped to her own knees and reached out for him. “Yes. Oh, yes. Charles, I love you, too.”

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Thinking series on WIP Wednesday

I’ve done very little writing over the last two months. I’m not entirely sure why. Christmas. Stuff going on with the family. Heavy lifting on a couple of projects at work. But I’m determined to get To Wed a Proper Lady out to beta readers and up for preorder in the next week, and to finish writing the first draft of To Mend the Broken Hearted before the end of February.

I’m also starting the next two, which need to be written at the same time since the heroines are sisters and the stories are concurrent. This week, I’m posting what might be the start of To Tame the Wild Rake, and I invite you to post anything you wish from a series work in progress.

He could not sense the presence of Lady Charlotte Winderfield in his room. The idea was ridiculous.

For a start, the bluestocking social reformer they called the West Wind would rather die than enter the bed chamber of any man, let alone the notorious Marquess of Aldridge.

For another, he was not in a position to sense anything outside of the plump white thighs of Baroness Thirby, unless it was the expert ministrations of her close friend, Mrs Meesham. Lady Thirby’s thighs blocked both his ears and his line of sight, and — in any case — no-one in the room could hear a thing over the yapping sounds she made as he drove her closer to her release. And he could not possibly smell the delicate mix of herbs and flowers that drove him crazy every time he was in Lady Charlotte’s vicinity; not over the musk of Lady Thirby’s arousal.

Damn it. The thought of the chit was putting Aldridge off his own release, despite Mrs Meesham’s best efforts. It was no use pining after her. With his reputation, her family would not even consider him. And if they could be persuaded, she couldn’t. She had made her opinion perfectly clear.

Above him, Lady Thirby stiffened and let out the keening wail with which she celebrated her arrival at that most delicious of destinations. At any moment, she would collapse bonelessly beside him, and he could maybe bury himself in her or her friend and forget all about the unattainable Saint Charlotte.

Instead, Lady Thirby stiffened still further. “What is she doing here?” She scooted backwards so that she could look him in the eye, still crouched, thank the stars. He didn’t fancy the weight of her sitting on his chest. “It’s one thing to do this with Milly. But you didn’t say you were inviting someone else.”

Standing in his doorway, her lips pressed into a tight line and her face white except for two spots of high colour on her cheekbones, was the woman of his fondest dreams. And she didn’t look happy to be there.

The cold air on his damp member told him that Mrs Meesham had likewise abandoned what she’d been doing to stare at the doorway. “She’s never here for a romp, Margaret. She’s one of the Winderfield twins.”

Aldridge sighed. He couldn’t imagine what sort of a crisis had brought Saint Charlotte here, but clearly he was going to have to deal with it.

“My lady,” he said, “if you would be kind enough to wait in the next room, I’ll find a robe and join you.”

She pulled her fascinated gaze from what had been revealed by Mrs Meecham’s movement, and glared at him. “More than a robe. You have to come with me and we have no time to waste.”

“He can’t go out,” Mrs Meecham objected. “Aldridge,” (when Lady Charlotte said nothing but just retreated into the next room), “you can’t go. You haven’t done me, yet.”

Aldridge had already left the bed, and was pulling on his pantaloons. “I am sorry to cut our entertainments short. Sadly, the messenger — who, by the way, neither of you saw,” (he gave them the ducal look learned from his father), “brings me word of an appointment I cannot miss. My heartiest regrets. Please, feel free to carry on without me.” He bowed with all the elegance at his command. He could shrug into his waistcoat and coat and pull on his boots while she told him what the problem was. It was a little late to worry about appearing in front of her improperly dressed.

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New Year’s goals on WIP Wednesday

 

So what are your writer goals for 2020? Can you share an excerpt that relates to those goals? One of mine is to publish at least the first four novels in The Children of the Mountain King.

Paradise Regained, the prequel, went out in December. Melting Matilda, an associated novella, is in the Belles’ box set Fire & Frost, published on 4 February. And I hope to have the preorder for To Wed a Proper Lady up by the end of the weekend, with publication early in April.

As always, put your extract in the comments. Mine is from the next Mountain King novel: To Mend the Broken-Hearted.

Ruth roused from a doze in the small dark hours after midnight, though she hadn’t known her eyes had closed until a sound startled her awake.  Something out of place, it must have been, alerting the sentinel in her brain that she’d developed when she and Zyba were out in the field. They had served her father and honed their skills by dressing as boys and riding with the guard squads assigned to escort caravans through bandit country in the mountains and deserts of her homeland.

There it was again. A metallic scrape. Silently, she uncurled from her chair, reaching through the slit in her skirt for the dagger in the sheath strapped to her thigh. Against the gray of the night, a blacker shape climbed onto the window sill, pausing there to whisper. “Lady Ruth?”

Assassins do not usually announce themselves. She could probably acquit the intruder of malicious intent, which meant he was more in danger from the illness than she and her charges where from him.

“Go away,” she told him. “This room is in quarantine. We have four cases of smallpox.”

The man moved, coming fully into the room so she could see hints of detail in the far reaches of the candle light. He was tall, with broad shoulders. A determined chin caught the light as he pulled something from his pocket and sat on a chair by the window. The light also glinted off a head of close-cut fair hair.

“I am aware. Four patients, one of them my responsibility. One exhausted doctor. You need help.” As he spoke, he lifted one bare foot after the other, rolling on a stocking each and then tucking the long elegant foot into a soft indoor shoe.

“I don’t need more patients,” Ruth objected, less forcefully than she might if he had not moved closer so that the light touched half of his face, making the rest seem darker by contrast. What she could see was lean, carved with grief. Dark eyes glinted in the shadows cast by firmly arched brows. His gaze was intent on hers.

“I have had the smallpox, my lady, and I am not leaving, so you might as well make use of me. I’m no doctor, but I can follow instructions. You need sleep if you’re to avoid illness yourself.”

Her tired brain caught up with the comment about his responsibility. “You are Lord Ashbury,” she stated. “You cannot think to nurse the girls.”

“What prevents me?” Ashbury demanded. “My amputation? I have one more hand than you can muster on your own. Their modesty? Leaving aside that you and the maids can manage their bathing and other personal matters, I can free you to look after them by lifting and carrying for you. My dignity? I work my own fields, my lady. I am not too exalted to fetch and carry for the woman who intends to save my niece’s life.” She turned, then, and looked straight at him, and he moved so that the lamp shone directly on his face. A long jagged scar skirted the corner of his eye and bisected his cheek and then one side of his mouth, trailing to nothing on his chin.

“You are not qualified,” she told him.

Ashbury shrugged. “True. I daresay half the world is better qualified than I. But I have done some battlefield nursing and I am here.”

“You cannot stay. I am an unmarried woman. You are a man.” A ridiculous statement. Here, isolated from the foolish scandal-loving world of the ton, who was to know. Besides, she would never put something as ephemeral as ‘reputation’ ahead of the needs of her patients.

He took another meaning from her objection, spreading both hands to show them empty, and saying gravely. “I will do you no harm. I give you my word.”

Of course, he wouldn’t. Even if he were so inclined, he would not get close enough to try. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, because one corner of his mouth kicked up.

“I suppose you are a warrior after the fashion of that fiercesome maiden you have guarding the quarantine. You are three-times safe then, my lady, with my honour backed by your prowess and reinforced by the knowledge that any missteps on my part will anger your champions.”

Her spurt of irritation was prompted by Lord Ashbury’s amusement, not by the unexpected physical effect of his desert anchorite’s face, lightened by that flash of humour. “I was more concerned about the impact on our lives if it is known we’ve been effectively unchaperoned for perhaps several weeks.

He raised his brows at that and the amusement disappeared. “My servants are discreet and yours would die for you. Besides, you have your maid with you at all times, do you not? And I have my—” he hesitated over a word; “my charges,” he finished.

His niece and his daughter, Ruth thought, wondering what story explained his reluctance to say the words. No matter. He was determined. He was also right; she needed someone else to share the nursing, and now she had a volunteer. Her attraction to him was undoubtedly amplified by her tiredness. She would ignore it, and it would go away.

She would sleep. At the realisation she could finally hand her watch over to someone else, her exhaustion crashed in on her, and it was all she could do to draw herself together and say, “Come. I will show you what you need to do, and explain what to watch for.”

 

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New Beginnings on WIP Wednesday

Happy new year, and welcome to my first WIP Wednesday for 2020. It seemed appropriate to post about beginnings. As always, I’d love you to share a start with me from your current WIP – the first paragraphs of a book, or of a chapter. Mine is the first scene from To Mend the Broken Hearted, the second book in The Children of the Mountain King. My goal is to finish this book by the end of the month, and publish it in May or June.

The crows rose in a flock over the tower on the borders of Ashbury land, a cacophony on wings. Val straightened and peered in that direction, shading his eyes to see if he could tell what had spooked them. It was unlikely to be a traveller on the lane that branched towards the manor from the road that passed the tower. After three years of repulsing visitors, the only people he ever saw were his tenant farmers and the few servants he had retained to keep the crumbling monstrosity he lived in marginally fit for human habitation.

He set the team moving again, the plough and seed drill combination creating a row of furrows behind him, but called a halt again when a bird shot up from almost under the horses’ hooves. Sure enough, a lapwing nest lay right in the path of the plough. Val carefully steered around it. He knew his concern for the pretty things set his tenants laughing behind his back, but they didn’t take up much room, and they’d hatch their chicks and be off to better cover.

One more evidence of his madness, the tenants thought, and in his worst moments he thought they were right, when thunder set him shaking or nightmares woke him screaming defiance or approaching anywhere close to that cursed tower froze him in his tracks.

The clouds that had threatened to disgorge all day finally sent a few stray drops his way, portents of more to come, but he had a bare two passes more to make to finish, and Barrow and his son were behind him with hoes, covering in the seed.

Another half hour would see the spring corn planted.

The gig from the inn went by beyond the hedge that bordered the lane. What was so important that it couldn’t wait until the housekeeper made her weekly trip to the nearest village? No matter. If he was needed, his manservant knew where to find him. He guided the team into the tight turn that would begin the second-to-last pass.

The rain thickened by the time he turned into the last row, and by half way down the field it’d soaked into the ground enough to make heavy going.

“Just a bit more,” he coaxed the horses, “just a bit more.”

He was half aware of the inn’s gig passing back along the lane in the direction of the village. Had it been making a delivery? His housekeeper had not mentioned any lack. His mind on the ploughing, he’d almost forgotten the gig by the time they at last reached the end.

“That’s it done, then, milord, “Barrow said, wiping his face which was as wet again a moment later.

Val agreed, habituation allowing him to hide his wince at being addressed with his brother’s title. Three years had not been enough to stop his reaction, but at least no one needed to know. “Get these boys home and give them a good feed,” he said, giving the lead horse a firm pat. “They’ve done well, and just in time.”

“That I will, milord. And you get yourself indoors, sir. Thankee,” Barrow said.

Did the man think Val too stupid or too far gone to go inside out of the rain? Well. No point in staying wet just to prove he was his own master. Val left Barrow to his son and horses, and set off to trudge back through the fields to the house, running the last few hundred yards through blinding hail.

Crick, his manservant, fussed over his towel and his bath and his dry clothes, and Val allowed it. This kind of weather was too much like Albuera for Crick’s demons, immersing him back into the confusion and the pain. Val told himself that he kept the old soldier out of compassion. During his worst moments, he feared his motivation was more of a sick desire to have someone around who was worse than him.

By the time Val was warm and dry again, the thunder had started. He sent Crick off to bed. There’d be no more sense out of the poor man tonight, nor much from Val, either. He refused the offer of dinner and shut himself up in his room so no one would see him whimpering like a child.

It was not until the following day, after the thunderstorm had passed, that he remembered the gig. Mrs Minnich, the housekeeper, remembered that it had delivered mail, and thought Crick had taken it, but what happened after that no one knew, least of all Crick. He had got roaring drunk and surfaced late in the day with a bad headache, a worse conscience, and no memory of the previous day at all.

The inn might know who it was from; even what it was about, since they’d sent someone out with it despite the weather. Val sent a note with Mrs Minnich on Friday, her regular day for shopping. She came back with the message that the gig had brought several letters, one of them marked urgent. It was from the school to which his sister-in-law had sent the girls before she absconded with the contents of the jewel safe shortly after she was made a widow, weeks before Val got word that he was now earl, and months before he got home.

The girls. He thought of them that way to avoid calling one of them his daughter, though the elder possibly was. The younger had been claimed by his brother, but not, in the end, by his brother’s wife. If the countess were to be believed, Val’s own lying wife was mother to the second child as well as the first. Perhaps even she had not known whether his brother had been father of both.

Whoever engendered them, the situation wasn’t the girls’ fault, but he still didn’t want to see either of them. He put the girls and the identity of their parents out of his head with the ease of long practice, along with any curiosity about the message. There were fields to plough, repairs to be made, and animal breeding to plan. If what the school wanted was important, no doubt they would write again.

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Escalating stakes on WIP Wednesday

A good story raises the stakes, chapter by chapter. In my favourite stories, the stakes are high to start with and keep getting higher. I’ve enjoyed books where the stakes are as simple as the happy outcome of a love story. Even in those, the story requires raising the stakes: rumours or misunderstandings that threaten the outcome, family disagreements, incompatible life goals. Add a suspense thread, and the stakes can include the fates of dependents, even lives. Different genres, different stakes. Failure must always be a viable option, even if we, the reader, know the author won’t let that happen.

Today, I’d welcome you to share an excerpt where the stakes are rising. Mine is from The Darkness Within. My hero is trying to gain entry to the community. Sebastian, by the way, is a memory. He has been dead for 10 years, but he won’t stop talking inside Max’s head.

Finally, Faversham looked in Max’s direction. When he caught Max’s gaze, he tipped his head to one side, his eyebrows lifting in question. Max pushed off from the cart. Time to discover whether he could pass the prophet’s test.

The first questions were about his name and history. He gave an edited version of the truth. He was Zeb Force, a workhouse brat turned apprentice turned soldier turned wandering handyman.

Faversham was sympathetic. “Many soldiers have found jobs hard to come by,” he condoled. “You have no family to help you? Your old master? Comrades in arms or friends from your workhouse days?”

Sebastian, cynical as ever, perked up at that. “He likes that you are alone,” he observed.

Sebastian thought the worst of everyone. Still, Max told Faversham, “No, sir. No one.” In his mind’s eye, he saw Lion, anxious to get home to his beloved countess. “I haven’t seen anyone from the workhouse since I was eight. My old master—it was his death that sent me into the army. Those I fought with—the ones who survived—have their own lives.”

Faversham nodded, his face grave. “You have suffered many losses, Zeb.”

“I want a place to belong,” Max said, the fervent intensity of the words surprising him.

“What sort of work have you been doing?” Faversham asked, then held up a hand to stop Max’s answer. “No. What I really want to ask is what could you do in the community, Zeb? What are your skills?”

“I can turn my hands to most things,” Max replied. “I have shod horses, dug ditches, built walls, ploughed fields, stitched wounds, taken dictation to write letters, kept accounts. I can teach, too, if that is of use.”

Faversham’s eyes widened. “An unusual set of skills for a workhouse brat. You learned to read and write in the army?”

Max shook his head. “My master had me taught. He was a steward.” That was what Sebastian always said: ‘I hold the wealth created by those who came before me as steward for those who will follow.’ “He planned for me to replace his secretary,” Max explained.

“You outstripped your first tutor in less than a year,” Sebastian reminded him. “I was so proud. I gave you a holiday while I found a new one; do you remember? I took you with me to my hunting lodge.”

“His successor did not wish to keep you on? I’m sorry to hear that. Still, you found a place in the army. What rank?”

Max had prepared an answer for this. If he passed this test, he would be living at close quarters with Faversham and his people, so he was keeping as close to the truth as he could.

“Someone who knew my master  bought me a commission as a cornet. I made lieutenant by the end of the war. My commander put me up for captain, but they wouldn’t give the rank to a workhouse brat.”

“And your regiment?” Faversham asked.

Max named the regiment he had nominally been part of, though he’d gone straight from signing his papers to a hidden training camp that taught and tested the skills they’d recruited him for. The regiment was based far enough north that it was unlikely in the extreme that he’d meet any ex-soldiers who might be supposed to know him.

Faversham fell silent. Max waited, his body relaxed though his mind was on high alert. The disciples talked among themselves, a low murmur of voices a few yards away. The fair made more racket—squeals of excitement, gleeful shouting and angry yelling, vendors’ calls, babies crying, half a dozen different tunes from a score of instruments.

Finally, Faversham seemed to make up his mind. “Very well. I will take you, I must first tell you what you are choosing. You must turn your back on every one and every place you know. People enter heaven with nothing. What you see there; what you experience—you will love it, I am sure, but I invite you in for a trial period only. If we accept you and you accept us, you will be initiated and become one of us forever. If not, we will part ways with no hard feelings.”

He held out a hand. “Are you in?”

Max took it, and accepted the firm handshake. “I am, sir.”

“In Heaven,” Faversham explained, “I am called the One, and addressed as Lord or Father.” He beckoned to the three disciples, ignoring the bodyguards. “Courage? Justice? Peace? Meet Zebediah. He wishes to enter Heaven, and I have agreed.”

Max accepted handshakes and broad smiles from each of the three men. He was in. Now to see if Paul Stedham was still with the community. Briefly, he wondered if Paul was now named for a virtue. “I’d love to know what virtue they’d name you after,” Sebastian commented. “Vengeance, perhaps?”

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The romance that broke their heart on WIP Wednesday

A common trope in most genres is the relationship in the past that failed–the man or woman who broke our protagonist’s heart (or, at least, they thought so at the time). It’s particularly common in romance, and this week I’m inviting you to share an excerpt when this past relationship is mentioned.

I’ve got an excerpt from The Gingerbread Caper, which I’ve just finished. Woohoo! In my excerpt, my heroine actually finds an old boyfriend… well, you’ll see.

What Meg saw when she opened the kitchen door brought her to a halt. For a moment, she thought of screaming for Patrick’s help, but then she recognized the man searching through the drawer of the desk where Aunt Margaret planned menus, recipes, and cake decorations.

“Sam Thurston, as I live and breathe. Put those down and step away from the desk.”

The invader turned, the boyish grin already in place, the grey-green eyes calculating behind the dark-rimmed glasses. “Meg Fotheringham. How delightful to see you. How have you been keeping? I follow your career, you know. Have you sold your first million yet?”

Meg ignored the provocation. “What are you doing here, Sam?”

“Looking up an old friend. We had some good times, Meg, didn’t we?”

Yes, until Meg discovered that he was seeing their manager on the side. They’d both been under a six month contract to the same newspaper, new graduates with shiny new journalism degrees. When she challenged him, he’d told her that sleeping with the boss was business, and didn’t affect how he felt about Meg. He was just making sure he was front runner for a permanent position.

He’d got it, too, but he’d lost Meg.

Had there ever been a time that she’d enjoyed his refusal to take anything seriously? “You’ve seen me. You know where the door is. Close it on your way out.”

Instead, he hooked his foot around a stool leg and dragged it close enough to sit on. “Harsh,” he commented. “I’ve driven all this way. Surely you can grant me a few minutes?”

Meg probed the once tender place that his betrayal had left and found nothing but irritation. Had she truly once fallen for this git? “Then you no doubt came with a purpose. Get on with what you want, Sam. The sooner I say no, the sooner you get out of here. I’ve a lot to do this evening.”

She pulled a pot from the stack under the workbench and measured the butter into it, then added the brown sugar and the molasses. She set the spices ready next to the stove, turned on an element, and measured the dry ingredients into bowl.

“I wouldn’t say no to a coffee,” Sam suggested.

“The pub down the road serves a good brew. I’m busy, Sam.” She moved the pot to the element, and began to stir, clattered the spoon with more force than needed, enjoying the way he winced at the noise. If he thought their personal history meant he was a frontrunner for interviewing her, he had another think coming.

Not that she had would-be interviewers coming out of her ears. She sighed. Maybe she should be nicer to him. “Who are you working for now, anyway?”

“Myself, darling. I’m freelancing for a number of publications, and I think you’re sitting on a story we could sell at the highest level. Maybe The Listener or Metro. Maybe even one of the English dailies. Come on! You know you could do with the exposure.”

There went any inclination to be nice. “Sam, get to the point or get out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know what’s going on with your Aunt Margaret. I know where she is, and I know what she’s been doing.”

That’s what this was about? Aunt Margaret? “Good for you.” Which explained why he was ratting around Aunt Margaret’s desk, though what he thought was newsworthy about the contents remained a mystery.

“So which was it? MI5? MI6? NID? I know she’s in London doing a television expose of her life undercover, Meg.”

Meg, who had just added the spices to the pot on the stove, stopped mid-stir. He thought Aunt Margaret was a spy? She forced her voice to sound calm and indifferent, though tinged with real amusement. “Really, Sam? You are letting your imagination run away with you.”

Sam pounced. “Where is she, then?”

In her profession, they called the transition from journalist to public relations crossing to the dark side. An experienced journalist took with them into their new career all the techniques honed during hundreds of interviews and used them to answer the questions they wished the journalist had asked while ignoring the ones actually used.

For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to answer with the truth: In London with a television crew. But that would just confirm him in his mistake.

Meg stirred the dry ingredients into the melted mix in the pot, focusing on that while she thought about an answer that would deflect Sam. No point in telling any part of the truth. For one thing, Sam wouldn’t believe her. For another, she had promised to keep Aunt Margaret’s errand a secret until it was announced, just before Christmas. If she gave Sam half an inch of the truth, he’d keep pulling till he had the whole yard.

A straight refusal is best. One he can’t make anything of.

“Sam, I’m going to tell you one fact, and nothing more. You’re wrong. I’ll say no more than that. Aunt Margaret’s reasons for going away are her own, and nobody else’s business. Now go away and let me get on with the work.”

He cajoled, coaxed, claimed ‘the public have a right to know’, became horridly insulting about her past and present career. Meg let it wash over her as she rolled gingerbread out on baking paper, laid her pattern pieces on it, cut around them with a sharp knife, and slid the baking paper onto an oven slide. And repeat. She was making small squares, about 3 inches a side, which she would turn into miniature houses as a test of her favurite recipe in this oven, before she made the main piece. The houses would become a village clustered below her planned castle.

Ignoring Sam wasn’t working, so she repeated her last few words over and again, like a broken record. “I’ll say no more, Sam. Go away and let me get on with the work.”

In the end, he left. That wouldn’t be the last of it, of course. He smelled a story and would keep chasing it. He’d interview anyone who would speak to him. But Aunt Margaret had told no one but Meg why she was heading to England, so all he’d get was the story Aunt Margaret had told—of an urgent request from an old friend—and their speculations.

Meanwhile, with the gingerbread in the oven, Meg had a lodger to feed and more baking to do.

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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.