WIP Wednesdays

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The weather on WIP Wednesday

My current first draft WIP is set in 1816, the year without a summer, and the weather is almost another character in the book. So I figured this week I’d seek extracts from my author friends where weather becomes a plot device. Or any other natural phenomenon. If you don’t have a storm or a heat-wave, how about a volcano or a plague of locusts?

Here’s mine, from House of Thorns.

Bear walked down to the village, seeing evidence of the night’s storm on either side of him, in deeper puddles and streams, downed branches from trees, and flattened crops in the fields.

At Rose Cottage, Miss Neatham was fretting herself to flinders, though she tried not to show it. He’d seen her bite back words all morning, since he carried her downstairs and set her up in the parlour, with a book to read and strict instructions not to move. Each time he went in to ask her where to find something, or to bring her something to eat or drink, or just to check that she was following instructions, he could read the anxiety about her father on her open face. “When will you go to the village?” she did not say, but it was written clearly for him to see — a supposition she confirmed with her deep sigh of relief when he said, “The rain looks as if it is clearing. I’ll go down to the village now, Miss Neatham. I have a few things to buy, and I will check on your father.”

Miss Neatham had clearly been a provident housekeeper, for the house was fully stocked with all the staples, but they could do with some fresh bread and he’d buy more meat, too. He could not help but draw the conclusion that her financial situation took a dire turn for the worse thanks to Pelman’s intervention on his behalf.

He would have to see how the situation could be corrected. And he needed to see if Mrs Able was available for another week or so. Otherwise, Miss Neatham would go home to that horrid little hovel and put her ankle at risk by looking after the old man herself.

In the main streeet, straw had been laid on the worst mud patches, but the steep alley to Miss Neatham’s abode was scoured into deep treacherous ruts, and he kept to the sides where a few inches of relatively dry ground gave him better purchase for his boots.

The quavering voice of the old man raised in a shriek distracted him from his focus on his footing. “Help! Murder! Help!” Neatham was shouting.

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Stubbornness, pride and other gagging devices in WIP Wednesday

Why doesn’t she (or he) just tell him (or her), we yell at the page, when a few words would solve the misunderstandings and end the book in a fraction of the time. And that’s why, of course. Without the hero and the heroine at cross purposes, at least in some respects, the story would be over, and where is the fun in that?

Our challenge as authors is to make the communication blockages realistic. We don’t want our heroes or our heroines too dumb to live or too prideful to bear. They need strong, sympathetic, and realistic motivation to avoid giving the person they love the information they need to hear. And oh, how we can torture them in the meantime!

So this week, I’m inviting you to give me a scene where two of your characters are talking past each other, and not saying what they mean. Mine is a scene from quite near the end of The Realm of Silence, the title of which comes from a quote about this very issue. ““I like not only to be loved, but also to be told I am loved… the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.” George Eliot

“Gil, David wishes me to go to London to describe what I saw at the tower.”

Gil sucked his upper lip between his teeth, his face otherwise expressionless. “You will want to get home to your children. You should go.”

“I do not wish to leave you.” Ever. I do not want to leave you ever, you stupid man. You wonderful, confusing, stubborn, stupid man.

“I am in good hands. Chloe and Flora — yes, and Nanna and the girls — are martinets in the sick room, and I shall be back in top form in no time.”

He wasn’t hearing her deeper messages. She should take her dismissal in good part. Their idyll was over before it had begun, and she had promised herself that whatever he could offer would be enough.

“You think I should go, then.”

“I wish you could stay, goddess.” For a moment, his eyes flooded with something that spoke to the longing in hers, but then he shuttered them. “But it is best that you go.”

The following morning, Susan came to Gil’s new quarters to bid him goodbye. The sisters had transformed a screened porch into a comfortable half-bedroom half-sitting room for an invalid. He was sitting up in a chair set in a flood of sunbeams, and the heat would soon have him pushing the rug Moffatt had insisted on off his knees.

Damnable weakness. He yearned to be well enough to go with her — to string their time of closeness out by a few more days. Instead, he set himself to make a clean break of it, for her sake as well as his.

“I’ve come to say goodbye, Gil,” she said. “Or farewell, I hope. Goodbye sounds so final.”

It did. It sank like iron into his soul, tying his half-formed hopes in chains and sinking them fathoms deep. “We will always be friends, goddess,” he said, some of the ice in his heart leaking into his voice despite his best intentions.

Susan blinked rapidly and her own face stiffened, her bland Society hostess expression forming between him and what she really thought. “Of course we will, Rutledge. I am so pleased we have had this time to get to know one another again.”

Gil cast about for something to say. Something that would soften the parting. “Thank you for coming with me to meet Chloe, Susan. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

It was the right note. The tension in her eased a little, though the mask was still in place. “Your nieces are delightful, and Chloe is stronger than she thinks. You will all do very well, I think.”

“I would have made a ham-fisted mess of it without you.” As he would, undoubtedly, of the rest of his life.

She must have heard the wistful note he could not repress, because she hesitated, examining his face.

Behind her, Chloe appeared at the door. “Susan? The little girls hope you will come up and say goodbye before you go.”

Susan considered Gil for a moment more, then looked over her shoulder at his sister-in-law. “Yes, Chloe, I’ll be right there.”

Chloe withdrew and Susan faltered and then seemed to make up her mind, crossing the room at a rush and bending to kiss Gil’s cheek. He clutched the rug to anchor his hands, which threatened to break free from his control and seize her, and never let her go.

“Come to me in London, Gil,” she commanded, her voice ragged. “This cannot be finished.”

“If you need me, I will come,” he promised, even as he shook his head.

She straightened, biting her lips until they were white, then turned and hurried out of the room, but not before he had seen the tears in her eyes.

What a bastard he was, making her cry.

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Where to start on WIP Wednesday

When I write, I have trouble starting at the beginning, because I have to find it first. In life, all beginnings continue from an earlier story, and all ends transmute into a later story. But in fiction, we need to start each book and each chapter at the beginning. At that point in time and space where at least one of the characters we care about is revealing their story, and making it matter to us.

Dear fellow authors, share a beginning with me and the blog readers, if you would. Something from a current work in progress. The start of a chapter or perhaps the start of the whole book. Mine is from The Realm of Silence, and it is the first scene in the book. At least, it is at the moment. Anything could happen in edit.

Stamford, England

1812

Gil Rutledge sat in the small garden to the side of the Crown and Eagle, and frowned at the spread provided for him to break his fast. Grilled trout with white butter sauce, soft-boiled eggs, grilled kidney, sausages, mashed potatoes, bacon, a beef pie, two different kinds of breads (one lightly toasted), bread rolls, a selection of preserves, and a dish of stewed peaches, all cooked to perfection and none of it appealing.

Two days with his sister, Madelina, had left old guilt sitting heavy on his stomach, choking his throat and souring his digestion. And the errand he was on did not improve matters.

He cut a corner off a slice of toast and loaded it with bits of bacon and a spoonful of egg. He was too old a campaigner to allow loss of appetite to stop him from refuelling. He washed the mouthful down with a sip from his coffee. It was the one part of the meal Moffat had not trusted to the inn kitchen. His soldier-servant insisted on preparing it himself, since he knew how Gil like it.

No. Not his soldier-servant. Not any more. His valet, butler, factotum. Manservant. Yes, his manservant.

Gil raised the mug to the shade of his despised older brother. “This is the worst trick you’ve played on me yet,” he muttered. The viscount’s death had landed the estranged exile with a title he never wanted, a bankrupt estate, a sister-in-law and her two frail little daughters left to his guardianship but fled from his home, and an endless snarl of legal and financial problems. And then there were Gil’s mother and his sisters.

Lena had at least consented to see him; had assured him that she no longer blamed him for her tragedies. Her forgiveness did not absolve him. He should have found another solution; should have explained better; should have kept a closer watch.

With a sigh, he took another sip, and loaded his fork again. The sooner he managed to swallow some of this food, the sooner he could be on the road.

Beyond the fence that bordered the garden, carriages were collecting their passengers from the front of the inn. Stamford was on the Great North Road, and a hub to half of England, with roads leading in every direction. As Gil stoically soldiered his way through breakfast, he watched idly, amusing himself by imagining errands and destinations.

Until one glimpsed face had him sitting forward. Surely that was Amelia Cunningham, the goddess’s eldest daughter? No. This girl was older, almost an adult though still dressed as a schoolgirl.

He frowned, trying to work out how old little Amy must be by now. He had last seen her at the beginning of 1808, just before he was posted overseas, first to Gibraltar and then to the Peninsular wars. He remembered, because that was the day he parted with the best horse a man had ever owned. More than four years ago. The goddess had been a widow these past two years and Amy must be— what? Good Lord. She would be sixteen by now.

He craned his head, trying to see under the spreading hat that shielded the girl’s face, but she climbed into a yellow post chaise with a companion — a tall stripling boy of about the same age. And the woman who followed them was definitely not the goddess; not unless she had lost all her curves, shrunk a good six inches, dyed her golden hair black, and traded her fashionable attire for a governess’s dull and shapeless garb.

No. That was not Susan Cunningham, so the girl could not have been Amy.

The door closed, the post boy mounted, the chaise headed north, and Gil went back to his repast.

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Epistles on WIP Wednesday

Snippets from letters, notes, diaries, articles, and other written texts are often a good way for our character to tell the reader what’s going on in their lives without a long scene that might otherwise bog down the plot. Do you use them? Show me and the readers an excerpt in the comments.

Mariana Gabrielle and I use this device quite often in our on-going novel Never Kiss a Toad,  (currently being published in episodes on Wattpad) and my rake Aldridge’s daughter and her rake Nick Wellbridge’s son. Sally and Toad are torn apart after being discovered in compromising circumstances (in the heir’s wing at Haverford House; if you’ve read A Baron for Becky, you’ll understand why that was adding insult to injury). They spend most of the novel in separate countries, and we use their letters to maintain their connection.

In our Christmas collection about our hero and heroine’s younger days, God Help Ye, Merry Gentleman, we offer readers more than 90,000 words of fiction: purpose-written for this book or gathered together from other stories about Sally, Toad, their families, and their friends (including the explanation of how Toad got his nickname). It goes on sale this week, as is a light-hearted way to entertain yourself this Christmas. Only USD 99c, too, so it won’t break the bank.

The following letters are in God Help Ye, and also in Never Kiss a Toad.

Christmas 1841: Sally’s letter to Toad

(Sent through the Duchess of Winshire)

January 2nd, 1841

London

Dear Toad,

We are heading home to Margate, after spending Christmastide at Wellstone. How strange it was to be there without you. I kept expecting to see you around every corner, in every room I entered, in all of our favourite places. My usual letter, sent by Papa’s hand, will be full of enthusiasm for the dinners we attended, the parties we held, the entertainments we enjoyed. My first grown-up holiday at Wellstone.

All of that is true, and none of it.

Here, where only you will see, I can tell the truth, my dearest friend. I wished myself anywhere but there. In London, even in Margate, I can pretend you are away at school or on some escapade with your friends, and will be back shortly. I have never been to Wellstone without you, and every moment of every day, I missed you.

Why did they not let you return home for Christmas, David? I cannot understand it. Papa would say only that Uncle Wellbridge thought it best, and Uncle Wellbridge would not answer at all, but kept arranging new activities for me, as though a sleigh ride or a game of charades would distract me, like a child in the nursery.

Enough of that. I do not mean to fill this letter with whinging, and give you a distaste for me. I hope all is well with you, and that you are studying hard, so you can excel in your examinations and come home at your next school break.

I feel I must tell you some of the guests at Wellstone met you in Paris, and they say you spend much of your time in gaming clubs and with women of dubious morality. I told them I did not believe them, and I did not wish to hear any more. Oh Toad, if it is true, I pray you will think of your dear mother, and others who miss you and would hate to see you demean yourself so.

I have no right to scold, and I know you have always done well at school despite your other activities. (About which I am supposed to know nothing, at least according to Papa and Uncle Wellbridge. As if I have no ears.) I can imagine you telling me it is none of my business, which is true. But even if I have no right to object to how you spend your time, I do not want you to come to harm, or to draw the kind of slanderous comment I heard this holiday at your mother’s own dining table. Please be careful and circumspect.

Do not be cross with me for writing so. We have been the closest of confidants our whole lives, which I hope gives me some small license to opine. Write and tell me that you are still my friend, for I am yours.

 

Your faithful,

Sally

 

Christmas 1841: Toad’s letter to Sally

(Sent through the Duchess of Winshire)

December 16, 1841

Dear Sally,

As you may know by now, my parents have decreed I not return to England for the winter holiday. My mother blames travel times and shipyard scheduling, but of course, my father is behind it. I am so sorry I cannot be there to visit with you and enjoy the Yuletide season together, as we have every year of our lives. I beg you understand I have done all my parents have asked to be afforded the chance to come home, if only for a few days, and have been refused in any case. I cannot see what they hold so zealously against me; but equally, I cannot fight against what I cannot see.

I am writing from my cabin on the family frigate, docked in Marseilles, and will send this through Aunt Eleanor before we set sail. With luck and a fast wind, this will arrive in time for Christmas. I wish I had posted it earlier, but I had hoped so much to see you in person. We will be on our way to Livorno in the morning, then Florence, where I will spend the holiday with Lord Piero d’Alvieri and his family at the count’s castello.

You will like Piero when you meet him, though he is even more a rogue than your David, so you must never be alone with him. He has five younger sisters, the eldest, Maddalena, a year younger than Almyra. Piero assures me we will be followed incessantly by pestilential girl children, which will remind me how much I miss my own pestilential shadow, Monkey. I’ve only just met his brother, Arturo, il conte d’Alvieri, who is quite a good chap, though Piero will forever accuse him of meddling.

Fortunate am I that he meddles, for, ever your errant boy, I managed to find myself gaoled for fighting in a gaming hell, and Arturo used his influence to secure my release. (It truly was a minor incident, resolved in less than a day.) I would think this the reason I was denied the chance to come home, but it was my mother’s letter refusing me that sent me off on the unfortunate drunken spree that resulted in my incarceration. If you can discover what I have done that is so awful as to keep me from your side, even for a visit, pray, write to me so I may rectify the error. I cannot think news of my imprisonment will help, but I have received the highest marks, and, on the whole, my life has been far less profligate than in the past.

My mother writes you will have Christmas at Wellstone, so you may be sure I hold you in my heart and my mind’s eye as I remember all the winter months we have spent there. Please write, I beg, with an account of the holiday, for I cannot expect to enjoy any of our favourite Yuletide pastimes in Italy. From Piero’s descriptions, one wonders if we will do anything but attend endless Catholic masses morning to night. (I pray you do not say so to my mother, lest she fear for my immortal Anglican soul.)

Since you are at Wellstone, and I cannot safely send a gift through all the ports of France and England, I have written to the bookshop in the village and placed ten pounds on account for you to spend as you like, and I have instructed they send to London for any book you request, without question, without bothering the dukes and duchesses about the subject matter. (I leave to you the damage to your reputation, should you choose unwisely.)

I will miss you sorely, Monkey, for there is no one else with whom I can always prevail at every parlour game. Happy Christmas and Joyous New Year, my dearest girl.

 

Ever Your,

David Abersham

 

Christmas 1842: Sally’s letter to Toad

(Sent through the Duke of Haverford)

December 12, 1842

Wind’s Gate

Dear Toad,

How odd that you will receive and be reading this letter sometime in the new year, and I am writing it in early December. Where are you at the moment, I wonder? And where will you be as this gigantic house fills with guests and then with all the festivities? I hope you are with congenial friends since you cannot be at home with us.

As I told you in my last, Grandmama has commandeered my services as her aide-de-camp, to organise the house party she was determined to hold, which is now but days away. Her role is to drop vague suggestions; mine, to scurry from attics to cellars, by way of every bedchamber and three separate kitchens, in order to carry them out.

Yes, Toad, I said three kitchens. I am sure, when we were six or seven and attempted to count all the rooms in Winds’ Gate, we failed to notice at least one of these kitchens, without which, three separate cooks and their respective staffs would murder one another (or so I have come to believe) while preparing the food needed for all the dozens of guests Grandmama has invited. Or rather, I have invited, in the name of the Duchess of Winshire, who has had very little to do with the enterprise. Still, I am certain she would be distressed should dinner consist of braised kitchen boy and roast haunch of chef, so I shall endeavour to keep the peace between the three independent domains ruled by my three gustatory tyrants.

Grandmama says I must never forget that I rule them, and indeed, Toad, you would laugh to see how I give my orders to high and low, sending out lists and minions from the sitting room Etcetera has dubbed The Command Centre.

Did I mention Etcetera is here? He came to keep company with Grandmama, and when I first saw him, I was a little in awe. He must have been sixteen the last time we met, abetting you as you tried to avoid me the Christmas after you returned from touring Europe. He has, I can assure you, grown considerably; the giant who bent over my hand bore little resemblance, aside from his fair hair, to the lanky boy who supported you in vexing me so unmercifully that winter.

I have quickly lost my shyness, for the same Etcetera lurks behind the beard and broad shoulders. As ever, he is always ready with a joke and willing to turn his hand to anything. He is not my only helper, of course. I am also ably assisted by Jonny and Almyra and several of my other cousins. The stalwarts are Elf—I should say Sutton, but it does not come easily when I have called him Elf all my life—and his sister Anna, Michael St James and his sister Henry, who have come to spend the holidays with us.

I am determined everyone will have a wonderful time. The party will fill every one of those 103 bedchambers we counted, and every day, a succession of planned activities. And the food coming out of those three kitchens would make your eyes widen and your mouth water, I can assure you!

You would be proud of your Sal, were you here, my dear friend. I wish you were.

 

Your,

Sal

 

Christmas 1842: Toad’s letter to Sally

 (Sent by courier)

December 5, 1842

Marseilles

Sally, my dearest,

I’m sorry to send this in a manner that may alarm you, but the rough man who delivered it was the only Seventh Sea sailor willing to defy Hawley—only because he is soon leaving my mother’s employ to join my new venture with Uncle Firthley, which is a great secret. I will ask Bey to explain in detail when he is in London for Sutton’s nuptials in January.

I wish you to know I will return home after my graduation, before I go to Greece—with or without the duke’s assent—and stay until the weather warms enough to easily make the passage. Yours is the first face I hope to see when I reach English shores again.

If, that is, you will have me.

I have been a damned fool, my love. With that dreadful comtesse, to start (for whom I cannot apologize abjectly enough), but every time I have behaved in a manner that might bring you shame, make you doubt my devotion, or keep me banished from England and apart from you. Until a few months ago, I was a terrible choice for a husband, and while I will never forgive your father, I begin to understand his reservations about placing you in my care. I swear to you, my sweet, I repent my wicked deeds, and beg you forgive me as I become a man upon whom you can depend for the rest of our lives.

It will be Christmastime by the time you receive this, and while I do not feel comfortable sending anything of excessive value with this particular courier, I wished you to have some token of my adoration, so I had these calling cards made when last I visited Florence with Piero. (His oldest two sisters are exceptionally talented with brush and quill, and they have adopted me as another older brother.) The cards are not the sort of thing you expect me to send for your Scrapbook, but I hope you will not mind if I bare my heart to you this once, and not more carnal assets, though both are yours in their entirety, my dear one.

I must go now, my darling, but pray, do not forsake me before I can come to you.

 

Your devoted slave,

David

Mari and I take it in turns to post a new episode, so follow us both to get the latest chapter every Friday.

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Getting to know your character on WIP Wednesday

As I near the end of the first draft of The Realm of Silence, I’m well into planning for the next book, House of Thorns. For me, the first step is usually a scene, and the scene that sparked this story came to me years ago. A woman in her early twenties, on a rickety ladder reaching for an early rose blooming on the side of a house. A late snow is beginning to fall, and below in the garden a large and angry man shouts at this intrusion, startling the woman so that she falls.

I have most of the rest of the plot now, but I’m working on character, and this week I’m inviting you other authors to share with me about one of your characters. I find out a lot about my characters before I start writing. I answer character questionnaires. I give them backstories and birthdays and hobbies. I interview them. I explore their greatest longings and their deepest wounds. I find out more when I start to write, but I’m not at that stage yet in House of Thorns.

Here’s some of what I know about Hugh Gavenor, the large shouting man, who is known as Bear.

Bear has always been big for his age. As a small child, he had a sister eleven months older, who was dainty, very clever, charming, and the apple of their parents’ eyes. She, it was, who gave Bear the nickname that has stuck to him throughout his life. His parents thought it was cute, because he was large, clumsy, and slow at his lessons (he has mild dyslexia).

The family were minor gentry: effectively farmers, but with pretensions.

When Bear was ten, his mother and sister died of an infection he brought home from the nearby village. Afterwards, his father sent him to school and pretty much became a recluse. He neglected the estate, and when he died the property sold for enough to buy Bear his colours. Bear served in the army until after Waterloo.

From early in his school career, Bear displayed a talent for trading, buying things other people didn’t want, fixing them, and selling them for a profit. This is now how he makes his living. He buys broken-down estates, does them up, and sells them to mill-owners and other newly rich so they can make believe they have moved up the classes. Bear is successful and rich, and always waiting for people to discover that he is still the large, clumsy, slow boy who was mocked at home and thrashed at school because of his mistakes in reading.

In particular, he is nervous of women, particularly clever or beautiful women, and even more if they are daintily built, as his mother and sister had been.

Naturally, my heroine is a pocket-sized Venus and as smart as can be.

Watch for a marriage of inconvenience that suits neither of them. Or so they think.

Your turn. How do you get to know your characters, and what do you know about them? An excerpt is fine, or a snippet of an interview, or just a bit of exposition.

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Bit parts in WIP Wednesday

I have a tendency to become absorbed in the lives of my bit parts — those minor characters who walk on stage and walk off again. Enter, messenger, stage left. Exit, messenger, stage right. But I want to know! Who are they? What are they like? Why are they that way?

I’d like to think it adds texture, even if little of it reaches the page. But whether or not, I can’t help but dream up little backstories for the street sweeper and the third footman and the serving girl in the tobacco shop.

What do other authors do? Why not show me in the comments. An excerpt with a walk-on part, please, and I’ll show you mine. This is from The Realm of Silence, and my hero and heroine are meeting with an anxious innkeeper. In my mind, Mr Withers has children of his own, all grown now. His dear departed wife would have insisted that he help this worried mother as if the missing child was one of their own grandchildren.

At Doncaster, the Ship and Anchor rewarded Susan with the information she and Gil sought. It was possible that a French governess and her charges had stayed the night, and did Madam by any chance know the name of those charges?

“Why do you ask?” Susan wondered.

The clerk, an earnest young man with thinning hair and a face set in lines of anxiety cast his gaze around the room, as if for inspiration, and an older man cut short his conversation with an aproned maid and limped over to speak to them. This man was altogether more prosperous looking; no less neat and his equally subdued clothing of higher quality cut, fabric, and stitching.

“Is there a problem, Clemowes? May I be of service, madam? I am the proprietor, Mr Withers.”

“I am seeking some information, Mr Withers,” Susan explained.

“This lady was asking after the French lady, sir, and the young lady and gentleman.”

Withers pulled his spectacles down his nose to regard her over the top, then appeared to make up his mind. “Clemowes, you have the helm. Madam, would you be so good as to step into my office.

Gil came in from ordering the next change of horses, and followed them as she and Withers crossed the inn’s entry hall through a door hidden in the panelling.

The office was small, with barely enough room for the desk, shelves neatly stacked with file boxes and books, and three upright chairs; one behind the desk and two in front. “If you would be kind enough to be seated, Mrs— Er—, I will explain.” Withers squeezed between the desk and wall of shelves, and faced them with his hands on his own chair, standing until Susan had selected her chair and lowered herself into it. Like the man himself, it was serviceable but not ostentatious.

Gil ignored the remaining seat to stand behind her, his silent presence an unaccountable comfort.

Withers tidied an already neat stack of papers then more perfectly aligned an ink pot on its tray.

If he would not begin the conversation, Susan would. “I asked your clerk about the French woman and her two charges, Mr Withers. In return, he asked me an impertinent question. I trust you do not intend to follow that example.”

Mr Withers grimaced. “It is an odd circumstance, madam, but I could not be easy in my mind if I did not follow the instructions I was given, as Mr Clemowes has followed mine.”

“And those instructions are?”

“First, madam, would you indulge me by naming at least one of the young people? Even just a first name? I would not insist, but yours is not the first enquiry, and the previous fellow did not appear to be aware of… But never mind.”

Susan glanced up over her shoulder, and Gil nodded his agreement. “I am seeking Amelia, known as Amy, and Patrice, known as Pat. Pat is travelling as a male.”

Mr Withers let out his breath in a sigh, and opened a drawer to his right. “Then you are the rightful recipient of this note, madam, left for me by one of the young ladies. I might add that the note was wrapped in another, addressed to me as innkeeper. Before I hand it over, I must ask for the full name of one or both of the young ladies.”

“Amelia Susanna Elizabeth Cunningham and Patrice Grahame,” Susan told him, and Mr Withers passed her the folded piece of paper, and another that he said was the note to him. Gil reached over her shoulder to abstract that one from the innkeeper’s hand.

Susan recognised her daughter’s neat schoolgirl hand on the single sheet, clearly torn from a lined notebook, with some commonplace about the weather written in ink at the top and crossed out in pencil, and a pencil-written message taking the rest of both sides of the paper.

“To our rescuer,” she read. “We suspect Mlle Cornilac of being a French spy. She caught us following her and has forced us to go with her. We don’t know our destination, but the post-chaise is booked for Newcastle, and she has inquired about accommodation in York. We will be staying at The White Rose. Ask there for a further message.

“Look for a lady with a French accent accompanied by a girl in the costume of our school, and a boy. Amy is the girl and Pat is the boy.

“Please let Amy’s mama and Pat’s aunt know that Mlle has not hurt us, and we are both quite safe. But she is very clever, so when we seek help, she turns it so people do not believe us. If we get the chance, we will escape.

“Yours faithfully, Amelia Cunningham and Patrice Grahame.”

Susan handed Gil the letter and read the note to Mr Withers. “To the innkeeper. Please keep the enclosed note safe and give it only to someone who asks after us and who knows our names. This is not a game. Our lives could be forfeit if you fail.”

Like the other note, it was signed with both girls’ names.

“Clever girls,” Gil murmured, making Susan smile.

“It is true, then?” Mr Withers flushed a little. “I must beg your pardon, Mrs Cunningham. I took the liberty of reading the enclosure in order to be certain I was not caught up in some child’s prank. It is Mrs Cunningham, is it not? The eyes. One cannot mistake the relationship. And you would be Mr Cunningham, sir, I take it.” He bowed to Gil, as well as he could while still seated.

Gil accepted the name without demur. “Why York? It is but four or five hours away.”

“A delay with the post chaise.” Mr Withers colour deepened as he explained that the post chaise lost a wheel not thirty minutes after leaving Doncaster, and that the passengers had been left in a farm cottage while the post boy rode back for an alternative equipage. With nothing available but Mr Withers’ own gig, he had himself fetched them and brought them back to the Ship and Anchor to wait for either the repair of the broken wheel or the next post chaise to return from its travels. The note had been discovered after the party’s second departure from the inn.

Gil nodded at the conclusion of the saga. “So they did not leave until early afternoon. Good. That helps us, Susan. Now, Mr Withers, we cannot delay. We have but another three hours of daylight and I wish to be as close to York as I can before we stop for the night. We will take some refreshment, and will you join us, sir, to answer some further questions?”

Within thirty minutes, they were on their way, warmed as much by the news of the girls as by the warm stew and the pint of ale inside them. Thanks to the accident with the post chaise, they were catching up faster than they’d hoped.

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“What’s in a kiss?” on WIP Wednesday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds_muLUBMNw

What’s in a kiss? sings Gilbert O’Sullivan, and this week I’m looking for excerpts that answer that questions. The kiss itself, if you please, but also what it means to the hero or the heroine. One moment of bliss? A delicatessen supplying every need? Something less or something more?

My extract is from The Realm of Silence. Gil has absolutely no idea what Susan thinks of him.

Susan was washing her turnover down with a swallow of ale, shifting impatiently as her hands inched towards the knife and fork she had placed on her plate between mouthfuls, as proper table etiquette required. Her inclination to rush the meal and be on her way was clearly at war with her training in manners.

“Relax, Susan. A few minutes will make the world of difference to your digestion, and very little to our arrival time.”

What a valiant creature his goddess was. She managed a smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “I know you are right, you annoying man. I will try not to worry and to be patient.

“You are thinking I have no notion what you are suffering, and you are right that I have never been a father, and have never had to wait and worry about a child of my flesh.” Gil almost left it at that, but then he took a deep breath and spoke the rest of his thought. “But I have been an officer with men I loved and who loved and trusted me, and I have had to send them into danger knowing that some of them will be killed and others wounded. That perhaps gives me a small inkling of your feelings, goddess.”

He winced as the last word slipped out. She hated when people called her that, but it was how he felt. He had worshipped her from the moment he met her as a boy; carried a candle before her image in his heart since that day; held her as a beacon of the best of English womanhood through a thousand engagements on four continents and any number of islands. She was his goddess.

She was oblivious to his preoccupation, considering what he had said. “I had not thought about it like that. Yes. I imagine you were a father, or at least an elder brother, to your men. My brothers are the same. It is like, Gil. So you know how hard it is.”

Susan called him Gil, he noticed, when she was moved, just as he slipped into calling her goddess. He did not call her attention to his mistake, but when he moved her chair back to help her rise, and she stepped to one side almost into his arms, he could not resist wrapping them around her.

He had intended a brief peck on her hair. She lifted her mouth as if she had been waiting for just such a move, and he was lost. She was all that existed. The elusive scent of her filled his nostrils, her yielding curves filled his arms, and her lips and mouth consumed all of his thoughts as he tenderly explored them.

How long the kiss lasted he had no idea, but when she stiffened and pulled away, he let her go immediately, sense rushing back into his brain and berating it for the most arrant stupidity. She didn’t comment — wouldn’t even meet his eyes — but led the way out of the garden, almost running in her hurry.

They had to wait in the stableyard while the groom assisted a man in a hurry; a rider who spurred his way out of the yard without leaving a gratuity, much to the groom’s disgust.

“Didn’t give me nothing day afore yesterday, neither,” he grumbled to Gil as Gil helped him with the horses for the phaeton. “Silly fool. What’s he want to go dashing up and down to Scotland for?”

Gil looked after the disappearing hooves of the horse. “He’s come down from Scotland? Did he say how the roads were?”

The groom shrugged. “Bit of a slip at Grantshouse, but he said he was ready for it, seeing as how he passed it on the way up yesteren. So what does he want to turn around and come back for, I says. He had business in Scotland, says he, and now he has business in Newcastle. Silly fool.”

Gil backed the horse in his charge into the traces. It seemed a steady sort, and moved without complaint or resistance.

The groom was doing the same with the other horse, but he suddenly stopped. “Hey, I just thought me. You was asking ’bout the man what was following the French lady? That was him there, what just rode out of this yard. Got as far as Dunbar then turned around and come back. Must be mad. What’s at Dunbar?”

Amy and Pat, perhaps. That news would take Susan’s mind off his impudent kiss. If that was their mysterious pursuer, then they might be closer than they thought. Gil pondered the implications while his hands went ahead with the familiar tasks of buckling and fastening. The man was heading back to Newcastle in haste. Had he finished the task that sent him north? And if so, what did that mean for Amy and Pat?

Years in combat had taught him not to fret overlong about what he couldn’t know and couldn’t change. He thanked the groom and gave him a tip a dozen times the size of the despised measly offering for the pursuer.

“If that fellow comes through again, delay him, will you?”

Soon, they were rolling north again, and Gil told Amy what he’d learned, and what he had concluded.

“Will we find them at Dunbar?” she asked

“We will be there by late afternoon. We will find out then.”

She was silent again, probably worrying about her daughter, though Gil was finding it near impossible to think about anything but that devastatingly beautiful kiss. It was dawning on him that the goddess had kissed him back. What was he to take from that? He could reasonably conclude that she wanted to be kissed. Wanted to be kissed by him? She was a chaste and respectable lady; one, furthermore, who had managed her own affairs and those of her household and her husband for more than twenty years. She kissed him back, and he couldn’t believe that she gave her kisses lightly.

It was probably the situation. She was worried about her daughter and needed comfort. He dare not read more into it than that.

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Danger on WIP Wednesday

This week, I’m inviting your excerpts about moments when danger brings your couple closer or drives them apart. I tend to write romantic suspense, at least in my novels, so my heroes and heroines often face physical danger. But I’d be delighted to see excerpts about other types of risk: scandal, embarrassment, parental disapproval, misunderstanding.

Mine is from The Realm of Silence, and was written yesterday. I hope to have the first draft finished by mid-December, but am not yet predicting a release date in case my plans turn to custard.

Susan startled awake at the sound of a crash, followed by more crashes and bangs. The sound of a fight? She would swear it was within the house, and not far away. She lit a candle, steadying her hand so it didn’t shake in her hurry, and dragged a robe over her night dress. The sound of a shot had her racing to the door. Another crash, definitely just the other side of the wall she faced, the one between the rooms of the house and Hamish’s apartment.

Candles approached her from the servants’ stairs, McMurdo with the housekeeper, Mrs Anderson, behind him, and further up the stair two of the footmen.

“Mrs Anderson, fetch me the key to Mr Cunningham’s apartment. The shot came from there,” Susan commanded, and the housekeeper hurried back up the stairs to her room.

The locked door was a little further down the hall. Before Mrs Anderson could return, it opened, and Hamish put his head out into the hall, blinking a little at the sight of Susan and the three men hurrying towards him.

“Send someone to fetch a doctor, Cousin. Lord Rutledge has been shot.”

For a moment, Susan felt a rushing in her head and the world swam, but she took a deep breath. No time for nonsense. “He is not…?”

Hamish looked surprised at the half-question. “A glancing shot. He is not badly hurt, he says.” He disappeared back into the apartment, leaving the door open behind him.

He says. So he is not dead. She gave the order for the doctor and hurried after Hamish.

Gil was sitting on the edge of his bed, being helped into a pair of trousers. Susan hastily averted her eyes and turned her back, but not before seeing a pair of long muscular legs marred on the left by a ropy scar. The man had clearly been naked when he was shot. Did he sleep that way? The brief glimpse she’d had of his masculine equipment was etched into her brain.

“Susan, you should not be here,” Hamish fussed.

Susan ignored him. “Where are you hurt, Gil?”

“You can look if you wish, now that I have my trousers on.” She would also ignore the infernal man’s amusement at her embarrassment, especially when he went on to assure her, “It’s just a scrape. It knocked me backwards for a moment, or I would have had him.”

“Let me look.” The wound was clear, even in the candle light and from across the room. The bullet had struck the fleshy part of his upper arm, which seeped a trail of blood down towards Gil’s elbow.

Gil stood as she approached, and Hamish stepped in her way.

“We should wait for the doctor, cousin Susan,” he insisted. “And it is most inappropriate for you to be in a gentleman’s bed chamber.”

Susan had no time for such nonsense. “Gil, sit down before you fall down. This is no time to fuss about propriety, Hamish.”

She moved her cousin to one side, and examined the arm Gil presented for her inspection. “Hmm. Yes. It seems to have missed anything vital, but the bullet is still in the wound and will need to be removed. What happened?”

“I could do with a brandy. And some more clothes,” Gil prevaricated.

Hamish clearly sympathised, since he gave the order to the manservant. “Pass Lord Rutledge his robe, Mendles, and then fetch him some brandy.” The manservant obeyed, fetching a brightly coloured banyan from where it lay on a chair.

Susan capitulated, reflecting that Gil’s naked chest a few inches from her face was not conducive to focus.

“Oh very well.” She stopped Mendles before he could hurry out of the room. “I’ll need a clean cloth to cover the wound before that robe goes over his shoulder.” She turned back to Gil. “My sister-in-law Ella swears keeping wounds clean reduces the risk of infection. It is fortunate you were unclothed when he shot you, Rutledge. No dirty pieces of cloth in the wound.”

Gil managed a facsimile of a smile. “My manservant would be offended to hear you imply my clothing is unclean, Susan.”

Mendles passed her a pad made from clean handkerchiefs and then several strips of linen to bind it in place, and Susan bent to the work.

“There,” she said, after several moments. “That should be comfortable enough until the doctor arrives. Do you feel well enough to tell us what happened?”

Gill shrugged. “Not much to tell. I woke to find someone searching through my satchel. I called out, and he turned a gun on me. He wanted the note from the girls; the one they left at Newcastle. I told him I had thrown it away, but he didn’t believe me. He said he’d shoot me if I didn’t hand it over.”

Susan made her displeasure heard on a huff of air, which Gil correctly interpreted.

“I didn’t tell him you had it, Susan, and I’m glad he was the sort of idiot that thinks men can’t trust women, because if he’d tried your room first…”

Susan was having none of such typical wrong-headed male gallantry. “I would have given him the note and would be perfectly well. I suppose you tried to assail him, you foolish man. And him with a gun.”

“A weedy idiot with a big voice, so frightened that his hand shook.” Gil’s voice was laden with scorn. “Of course, I lunged for him. I was as like to get shot by mistake, the way he was trembling. But he pulled the trigger and had better aim than I’d calculated.”

Susan blinked back tears, and could not resist taking Gil’s hand. “Foolishness,” she told him, her voice soft.

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Plans gone awry on WIP Wednesday

Think ‘what could possibly go wrong’, someone suggested to me years back when I talked about developing a plot. And I’ve always been fond of the saying that when people lay plans, God laughs.

So this week’s work-in-progress Wednesday post is about plans that don’t work out or that get overrun by circumstances or that hit a brick wall. Please post your excerpt in the comments. In mine, my widow’s groom has fallen ill with a cold, just as predicted by the childhood friend who has insisted on travelling with her.

Lyons’ sneezing increased as the horses consumed the miles to Stamford. By the time they pulled into the stable yard at the Crown and Eagle, he was wheezing with each breath, and failing in his attempts to subdue paroxysms of coughing. His flushed face indicated a fever, which was probably lower than if they had not been driving into a chilly wind for the past hour.

Gil handed his horse into the care of a stable boy and came to help her down, stopping when he looked across her at Lyons. The groom leant forward and swayed, paling so alarmingly that Susan clutched at his arm and pulled him back into his seat. “Stay where you are until Lord Rutledge comes around to help you,” she commanded.

Gil was wearing his granite face again. If he hadn’t donned the expression to hide the urge to say ‘I told you so’, her instincts were completely at sea. She gave him credit for being gentleman enough not to crow. “Lyons is wretched, Rutledge. We must get him inside.”

The groom protested, but weakly, letting Gil help him to the ground, then leaning against the much taller man, his eyes shut. Gil wrapped a firm arm around him to keep him upright. “He’s burning with fever, Mrs Cunningham. Come, Lyons. Let’s get you into a bed.”

“I’ll deal with the horses,” Susan offered. “Will you ask the innkeeper to send for a doctor?” Lyons was so sunk in misery he didn’t respond. Gil supported him through another spasm of racking coughs then half carried him into the inn, and Susan turned to give her instructions to the stable hand.

She followed a servant upstairs fifteen minutes later, while another trailed behind carrying Gil’s saddle bags over his shoulder and a valise from the curricle in each hand. Lyons’ bags and her own overnight things. Susan was not fool enough to think they’d be moving on tonight. She was unsurprised when the innkeeper greeted her as Mrs Rockingham, and told her that her husband had reserved a suite upstairs and was even now with the doctor. Rockingham indeed. She could only hope Lyons recovered quickly.

She waited while the leading servant knocked at a door and then opened it to let her into a nicely appointed sitting room. A door on either side led, presumably, to bedrooms. Yes. As she crossed to the warm fire, she caught a glimpse through the open door; the corner of an iron bedstead, part of Gil’s back and one strong leg. She could hear the murmur of voices, but none of the words.

The servants put the bags in the other room. “Will there be anything else, ma’am?”

“Can your cook make a soothing tisane for my groom’s throat? And Mr Rockingham and I would appreciate a pot of tea, please. Perhaps some bread and cheese?” Gil had a prodigious appetite.

They hurried away and Susan sat to await the doctor’s verdict and to fret about her daughter, another day’s hard travel away in Doncaster.

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Antagonists on WIP Wednesday

Our heroes and heroines need antagonists: some outside force that unites them and allows them to work together. These characters may be outright villains, or they may merely be avaricious matchmaking mothers or interfering relatives. Antagonists, this week’s post is for you.

Authors, please share an excerpt (in the comments) showing your antagonist at his or her disagreeable worst. I have two in my excerpt; my nasty rector and his equally unpleasant sister.

From behind the curtain in the parlour, Lalamani saw Philip arrive at the gate just as the Wagley’s gig pulled up. The two who descended, as Lalamani had noticed at church, were male and female counterparts: tall, gaunt, and elderly; spry, but a little bent. They put Lalamani in mind of herons—sharp features and an alert forward-leaning stance.

Lalamani flicked the curtain back into place and hurried into the front hall in time to introduce Philip.

“Allow me to present Philip Daventry, who works for the Earl of Calne.”

Two pair of pale eyes fixed first on Lalamani and then on Philip. Brother and sister both, Lalamani noted, jutted their chins forward and lengthened their necks, increasing the resemblance to herons. Dr Wagley, dressed top to toe in black, relieved only by a white stock, clearly stinted nothing on the cut and quality of his cloth, and Miss Wagley’s grey silk gown was trimmed with, if Lalamani was not mistaken, real French lace. The contrast between their finery and Aunt Hannah’s worn and much-mended widow’s wear could scarcely be greater.

Dr Wagley surveyed Philip from top to toe, and asked, coldly, “And what do you do here, sirrah? The people of this village think highly of Mrs Thorpe, and will not see her put upon.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Dr Wagley,” Philip answered mildly. “I am here to survey the Hall, to decide what repairs are necessary.”

Miss Wagley furrowed her brow. “You are a Daventry? How closely related are you to the earl, Mr Daventry?”

“The late earl was a connection of my father’s,” Philip prevaricated.

“Did you hear that, Jeremiah?” Miss Wagley tugged on her brother’s arm, but Wagley’s harrumph suggested he was not impressed.

The conversation in the parlour limped from one pronouncement by Dr Wagley after another. He frowned upon the evangelical fervour gripping a nearby parish, was suspicious about the proposed Act of Union, despised the call by radicals to widen the vote, and was scathing about the Speenhamland system of poor relief.

Addy’s invitation to the dining room interrupted a homily on the place of women—silent and obedient.

Over dinner, Lalamani made an effort to turn the conversation. “Mr Daventry was formerly in the army. Before you arrived, he was telling us a little about the markets in Egypt.”

Dr Wagley looked dourer than before. “Nothing unsuitable for a lady, I trust.”

“Oh, Jeremiah,” his sister chirped, “Mr Daventry is a gentleman; a relative of Calne, you know.”

Philip, catching Lalamani’s desperate eye-roll, picked up the conversational ball with a story about a carpet he and his friends had bargained for and how language difficulties had almost left them with a camel instead. He made an amusing tale of it, but only Lalamani laughed.

Dr Wagley spoke into the pause. “Another excellent meal, Mrs Thorpe. Mrs Thorpe sets a fine table, Daventry.”

Lalamani did not try to resist the impulse. “My aunt is very grateful for the charity of the people of the parish, Dr Wagley, without which she would undoubtedly starve. Though…”

She felt a blow on her ankle. Philip, who had clearly guessed she was about to mention her uncle’s provision for his sister. She shot him an accusing glance, but pressed her lips tightly together.

“The care of widows,” Dr Wagley opined, “is, of course, enjoined on us in Scripture. ‘But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’ Charity begins at home.” He nodded seriously and took another mouthful of the donated chicken.

“And,” his sister added, “it is the duty of every Christian to support the men of the cloth.” She poked suspiciously at the chicken. “I would not like to think our parishioners were stinting their duty.”

“Now, now, Euphrania,” Dr Wagley said. “We do not begrudge Mrs Thorpe a chicken or two, especially when she has visitors. Do you make a long stay, Miss Finchurch? It would not do for you to be a charge on your aunt.” He cast her an admonishing stare over the top of his glasses, which had slipped almost to the tip of his nose.

“My plans are not fixed, Dr Wagley.” Lalamani was going to ask how it was his affair, but Philip spoke first, once again preventing her from antagonising the sour old man.

“How nice that you are able to support your brother in his parish work, Miss Wagley.”