WIP Wednesdays

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First look at a character on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from Zara’s Locket, my story in Belles & Beaux, which is being published tomorrow. It squeaks in as a work-in-progress on a technicality, being finished but not yet distributed to readers. But meet my heroine, anyway.

Someone had trashed the small windowless room the Strickland household provided for the comfort of their governesses.

At first, Zahrah was inclined to blame her charges. The three children currently consigned to her care were hell-spawn—encouraged in their defiant disobedience by parents who chose to believe them angels, and to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

However, even their most strenuous efforts to chase her away had resulted in nothing worse than frogs in her shoes, mud puddles in her bed, and a bucket of slops balanced on a door. And their behavior had improved since she began telling them stories at bedtime on any day in which they had all three attended their lessons and displayed the manners they had formerly trotted out only with their parents and their older brothers and sisters.

At the moment, with Christmas approaching, she had an extra carrot to offer them. The Strickland family did not decorate for Christmas, but Zahrah had asked and received permission to decorate the nursery and schoolroom, and the children were looking forward to it, and so was Zahrah. It would make up for not being with those she loved for the festival.

Zahrah sorted her way through the mess. Her mirror broken. Ink thrown onto a watercolor she had tacked to the wall. Her clothes not just tossed around, but ripped apart. Worse still, pages torn from her few personal books and other pages defaced with splotches of ink.

This was not the children. They lacked the strength for such destruction. And they didn’t, she was certain, hide this degree of spite.

It could have been a servant, she supposed. They were stand-offish and unpleasant, but none hated her, or had cause to.

The wooden box her brother had made to give her on her last birthday lay in pieces, its contents gone, or hidden in the clutter, perhaps. The bits and pieces were mostly worthless to someone else. Cheap pieces of jeweler suitable for a governess, most of them with happy memories of the person who gave them to her, or the occasion on which she bought them. The latest letter from her mother, set aside for a rereading. A button that she had not yet had time to sew on a cuff.

And her locket. That was the one item she hated to lose. Her father had commissioned it for her sixteenth birthday, and she had worn it daily ever since. She had only taken it off because the catch had been broken in the scuffle with Gerard Strickland.

The oldest Strickland son had been brooding for the past two weeks, ever since his ambush on her had resulted in a threat to his person, backed up by the knife she always carried. Yes, and he had been muttering threats when none of the other Stricklands were around to hear.

She had taken no notice. What could he do, after all?

Well. Now she knew.

For more about the stories in Belles & Beaux, and for preorder links, see the project page on the Bluestocking Belles website.

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Stereotyping on WIP Wednesday

This charming English cottage was once the village gaol and police station. It dates from 1859, But I like to think that the Barkers, bless them, had a similarly nice situation.

In Zara’s Locket, my heroine is arrested because she has brown skin and black hair, is bedraggled after being caught in the rain and running away from an assailant, is on foot, and has money.

This is evidence, think the villagers, that she must be a thief.

The village lockup was at least dry, and the constable’s wife brought Zahrah a couple of warm blankets as well as a pot of tea and two large slices of fresh bread with cheese. “For while you are in my husband’s custody, you are his responsibility, and I won’t have you starving to death or shivering your way into an ague,” she insisted.

For all her brisk manner and her practical reasoning, her eyes were kind, and she thawed still further when Zahrah thanked her. “Someone taught you nice manners, even if you are an Egyptian and a thief.”

“My father was born in Egypt, but my mother is as English as you are, Mrs. Barker,” Zahrah said. “And I am no thief. The money was my own, my pay from the position I left this morning, and all that I have left after I was accosted by an actual thief.”

She had told the constable that when he arrested her. She had limped into the village, her gown torn, her hair a bedraggled mess, and attempted to use a silver crown to pay for a room at the inn. The innkeeper refused to believe she had come by it honestly, and the righteous citizens present in the taproom dragged her to the Barkers’ house and insisted that the constable lock her up.

“As to that,” Mrs. Barker replied, “you can tell the magistrate all about it, but not until after Christmas, for he has gone to visit his daughter and her children in Birmingham, bless the dear sprouts. Meanwhile, I will make sure you have a share of our meals, and you will have a warm bed out of the rain. If you would like, we can decorate in here for Christmas! Now don’t you worry, dearie. Sir William—that’s the magistrate—he’ll sort it all out when he returns.”

She bustled off, closing and locking the door between the lockup and the Barkers’ family quarters. The lockup was divided into three spaces. Bars formed two cells for prisoners, and the rest of the room held a table, a chair, a bookshelf, and a fireplace.

The constable was not, at the moment, in the room. He had locked Zahrah into one of the cells, chivvied the jeering onlookers out through the outside door, and disappeared through the inner one.

He had not returned, but Mrs. Barker had lit the fire when she came with her tea tray, blankets, and good advice. The woman was clearly in favor of looking on the bright side, and she was not wrong. Zahrah was grateful for food and shelter.

Grateful, too, that if English justice proved to be unreasonable, at least she would not be hanged out of hand. She would undoubtedly have time to get a message to her family, if she could find a way to pay the postage. Perhaps she could sell her boots? Perhaps Mrs. Barker would help her?

She regretted the loss of her book, though with the storm outside making the sky dark, reading was probably not an option. Not without a good lamp, and she lacked even a candle.

(The term Egyptian–short form, gypsy–is an outsiders’ name for the Romani, and many Rom find it insulting. It is based on the mistaken belief that they were originally from Egypt.)

Zara’s Locket is part of the Belles & Beaux collection, available to order for the special preorder price of 99c.

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Nasty relatives on WIP Wednesday

 

I seem to have a lot of nasty relatives in my stories. A Regency romance trope that can be very useful. Here is my heroine from my Lyon’s Den story, The Talons of a Lyon, which is coming out with Dragonblade next April.

Despite the size of the rooms and the number of facilities, there was a queue for the dressing screens. Mrs Worthington insisted on Seraphina going first, and Seraphina conceded, since she had had a glass of champagne and two of punch in the course of the evening, and the matter was becoming urgent.

When Seraphina came out from behind the dressing screen, Mrs Worthington was nowhere to be seen, so she must have taken her turn.

Seraphina stooped to peer into one of the mirrors, and fiddled with a couple of her pins to fix a lock of hair that had fallen down. Focused as she was on the mirror, the first she knew of the presence of one of her enemies was when the woman’s reflection appeared in her mirror.

She turned to face her. “Virginia,” she said.

“You nasty common little bitch,” her sister-in-law hissed. “How dare you come here, swanning around on the arm of your fancy man, pretending you are fit for the company of your betters.”

“You insult Lord Lancelot Versey,” Seraphina replied, pleased that her voice was steady, though inside she was shaking like a blamange. “He is a perfect gentleman, and you are wrong to speak such untruths.”

Virginia didn’t listen, which came as no surprise. “Marcus and I will see to it that you are put back in the gutter where you belong, and I can promise you that you will never see your children again,” she snarled.

Mrs Worthington had emerged and was standing behind Virginia. “I have a promise for you, Virginia Frogmore.” When she spoke, the woman started, and twisted to see who was there.

“You and your husband,” Mrs Worthington continued, “have lied and cheated to see Lady Frogmore deprived of her place, her fortune, and her children. I promise that your sins have been uncovered, and you will not be allowed to enjoy the fruits of your lies and deception. Now go home before I tell Her Grace of Winshire that you have been threatening another of her guests.”

“You cannot support her!” Virginia whined. “She is not one of us!”

“You are not one of us, Mrs Frogmore,” Mrs Worthington declared. “Ladies do not spread false gossip. They do not cheat widows out of their income. Lady Frogmore has powerful allies. If you are wise, you and your husband will return the children and retire to somewhere you can afford without stealing from the little baron. I believe Italy might be suitable.”

Seraphina realized that everyone else in the room had stopped what they were doing and were listening avidly. Virginia must have noticed the same thing, because she suddenly put both hands over her face and rushed from the room.

The starch went out of Seraphina’s knees and she sank onto the stool in front of the mirror. Her breath, as she released it, was ragged.

Mrs Worthington sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “What a horrid woman,” she commented.

Seraphina’s laugh was as shaky as she felt. “You do not know the half of it,” she said.

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Weddings on WIP Wednesday

I’ve somehow managed to find myself writing three weddings in three different works-in-progress all in the same month. Here’s the first one.

Pauline had never believed this day would come. The morning had passed in a flurry of excitement, with Tante Marie, the modiste, and two of the maids fussing over her, and Jane and Mrs Thorne providing a running commentary.

Pauline kept expecting someone to stop her, and tell her it was all a mistake. But here she was, walking towards John and the altar on Noncle Pierre’s arm, in a gown of the softest silk in a warm buttery cream, carrying a huge golden yellow bunch of Noncle Pierre’s prize roses, and wearing John’s gifts around her neck, in her ears, and on her wrist.

It was real. There he was, smiling at her, his eyes warm and welcoming. She fought against submitting to the fantasy. This was not a love match. He had been very clear. He liked her. He desired her. He wanted her as a mother for Jane. She should not expect anything more.

As she moved towards him down the aisle, she balled up those sensible thoughts and locked them away in the deepest recesses of her brain. Today was a dream. She was wedding the man she loved, and she was going to enjoy every moment. When she reached his side and Noncle Pierre released her into his hands she gave herself over to the fantasy.

She was determined to memorise every moment, but afterwards, she mostly remembered John’s voice, strong and confident, vowing to love her above all others, placing a ring on her finger and then not releasing her hand, John sneaking glances at her throughout the ceremony, glances that hinted at his own wonder and delight as they bound themselves to one another for life.

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The virgin hero on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from The Flavour of Our Deeds (Book 5 in The Golden Redepennings). My hero has been resisting the heroine for six years. She is a lady born, daughter and sister of an earl, wealthy and beautiful, with the world at her feet. He is base born, a commoner, a working man, too old for her, and in danger. She has finally got him to concede that he loves her, and wants to marry her. Some time. When the danger is over. In this scene, she demands that he thinks again.

In the next moment she was in his arms, and he was kissing her. “You will be the death of me, stubborn female,” he muttered against her lips, before covering her mouth again, one hand on her lower back pressing her against him, the other gently cradling the back of her head as he ravaged her with his lips and his tongue. This time, he was the one to draw back. “We have to stop.” His body belied his words. He was flushed and trembling, and the thin layers of their robes had not in the least disguised his arousal.

“Must we?” Kitty wondered, “If we are to marry within the week?” She had a theoretical knowledge of what came next. His kisses left her eager to put theory into practice.

She thought he would deny them both because she was young and innocent, and he would be taking advantage of her. What he said instead was unexpected.

“I am a bastard, Kitty. Got by my father on the pretty daughter of his gamekeeper. My only memory of my mother—or memories, because I think it happened many times—is of her crying after one of his visits.”

Kitty didn’t see the relevance. “You are not your father, Luke. And I am not your mother.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I made a promise to my grandfather, Kitty. When he lay dying, he begged me not to be like my father—careless with women and ruled by my pri— my lust.”

Still not relevant, Kitty thought, but Luke hadn’t finished.

“I promised that I would wait until marriage to experience physical intimacy with a woman, and would be faithful to my wedding vows once I’d made them. I swore it on the family bible.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Wait. Did that mean he had never...?

Luke was looking into some mental landscape—the past perhaps? “I’ve never found it hard to keep that promise, because I have seen so much misery arising from the behaviour my grandfather decried. My mother, and so many other woman. Even the ones who were eager risked being left broken hearted. Or they gave themselves to a man who died before he could put a ring on their finger, and his good intentions didn’t protect them or their baby from the consequences.”

He was right, of course. Kitty had seen it herself. Indeed, if not for Anne’s masquerade as a widow, she would have lived it, at least by association.

“Then along came you, Kitty. I have always struggled to resist you, and with each kiss it becomes harder and harder.” He chuckled suddenly, and his voice dropped to a low growl that vibrated in the places that ached for him most. “In more ways than one.” She caught the salacious reference, and her face heated. She licked her lips, which had gone suddenly dry.

Luke gulped and looked away. “Help me keep my promise, Kitty,” he begged.

Botheration. An appeal to her honour. “Yes, of course.” She turned her back on him to straighten the robe he had brushed aside during their kiss, drawing it closed high up her chest and belting it firmly. “Thank you for explaining.”

Luke had tidied himself while she was rearranging her robe. He offered her another brandy, but she refused. “If I must be good, another would be a bad idea,” she said. She returned to her chair, more determined than ever. “Luke, will you marry me and take me to Cumberland with you?” A special license was sounding more and more appealing.

Luke sat, too, smiling at her. “Are you going to argue with me for the rest of our lives together, heart of my heart?” His tone was one of enquiry rather than criticism.

“Only when you are wrong,” she retorted, then amended the statement. “No, for sometimes I might be wrong, but believe myself to be right, as when I saw no reason why you should not bed me, tonight. When you explained, I changed my mind. I would hope, Luke, that we can disagree in a civilized manner, discuss things, and reach agreement.”

“I beg you not to speak of bedding, my love,” he groaned.

“A special license?” she suggested, hopefully.

“A common license. In the morning, I shall speak with Rede, and with Uncle Baldwin about waiting a few days longer. Now go to bed, Kitty. You have won.”

Kitty widened her eyes. “I have won? That is not reaching agreement, Luke.”

“I misspoke. We have both won. You are correct that it is not my right to decide to keep you from my life in order to protect you from a threat that might not even exist. But Kitty, if you are in immediate peril and we do not have time for a discussion, I want your promise that you will obey me in that moment. We can talk it over when we are safe.”

That was fair, and quite a large concession. “I promise, Luke, unless you are the one in danger and I can do something to save you.”

Luke heaved a sigh. “I imagine that we will have many more vigorous discussions in our future, my love.”

Kitty blew him a kiss as she made her way to the door. “But imagine the fun we will have making up!” she told him, then slipped out the door, closing it behind her, delighted with her exit line.

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The Preface on WIP Wednesday

This is a long one–2,500 words. I’ve written a preface for Perchance to Dream, and I don’t know if it is good, bad, or indifferent. If you can bear to read it, let me know your opinion in the comments.

John Forsythe placed a tender kiss on the cheek of his baby daughter, then passed her to her nursemaid, gently, so as not to wake her. “You have worn her out, my lord,” the nursemaid whispered, smiling.

John returned the smile. His hour and a half outside with his little girl had cemented the decision he’d been coming to for weeks. In a few days, she would reach her first birthday. It was time for John and Tina Jane’s mother to resolve their difficulties. Yes, their marriage had begun in lies and continued in discord, but surely they could build on their joint love for their daughter and build a real marriage? John was going to find his wife and ask her to try.

He had collected Tina Jane from the nursery after her breakfast and carried her with him on his rounds of the stable, the dairy, the barn and the poultry yards. He couldn’t say who enjoyed it more—him or the baby girl, who loved the animals, the bustle, and being with her father.

The name had been the cause of one of their fights. Augusta had wanted to name her baby Phillippa Augustina, uniting her own name with that of Philip Spindler, the treacherous rat who had impregnated her then abandoned her to marry the bride who was his family’s choice.

John had first been flabbergasted at her sheer effrontery at wanting to name the child born in their marriage after her former lover, then furious. Augusta reacted to his unequivocal ‘no’ with a six-week-long sulk. She had shut herself in her room and had refused to talk to him. She had not even visited the baby.

As he searched the house for his wife, John’s mind continued to revisit the sorrowful memories. The saddest part was that it had been six weeks of bliss. None of her tantrums or weeping jags or other dramatics. Jane could get on with the work of the estate, and spend all his spare time with the baby. He had fallen in love with the wee mite from the moment she had been placed in his arms on the day she was born, and had tumbled more deeply every hour he spent with her.

In the end, he had given Augustina Jane her first name as an overture of peace to his wife.

After all, however it came about, however he and Augusta felt about it, they were married. It had, to a degree, worked. Augusta emerged from her room, resumed her place at the dinner table, accompanied him to social events in the neighbourhood and did her best to behave well in public.

She even began to show an interest in the baby, or at least in having Tina Jane’s nursemaid trail behind Augusta with the little girl dressed in a gown made from scraps of fabric left over from whatever Augusta was wearing. “Do we not make a picture, Lord John?” she would simper.

“Where is Lady John?” he asked each servant that he met, but she must be restless today, for she was not in any of the rooms to which he was sent. Lord and Lady John. She insisted on the ridiculous title rather than his preferred use of the military title he had earned fighting Napoleon’s armies, and retained as a part time soldier in the local militia.

Again, it seemed a small price to pay for a relative degree of marital peace.

“She is very young,” he reminded himself. Only nineteen when he met her, and much younger in her years. Her parents had alternatively ignored her and given in to her many whims. She had always been able to get anything she wanted, merely by having a tantrum.

Even John, though she had not wanted John himself. Only a fool with an estate and noble connections who could be trapped into marrying her without asking too many questions. An older man she could manipulate as she had manipulated her parents.

She had been disappointed to discover that the worn-out soldier she’d conspired to trap had a will stronger than her own, and would not bend to her pleading or her histrionics.

Though he gave way to her in minor things, all the sulking in the world had not convinced him to allow her to redecorate the house that had been fully refurbished eighteen months ago before they moved into it, or to take her to London for the Season where they would inevitably meet Spindler and his wife, or to fire Thorne, his manservant, who had been with him since Salamanca in the Peninsular Wars, because Thorne had come across her beating the nursemaid with a riding crop, and had taken the crop off her.

John, appealed to by both Augusta and his manservant, discovered that the nursemaid’s crime had been to argue that Tina Jane should not go out visiting with Augusta on a cold and blustery day, since the poor little girl had the sniffles.

John had been coldly furious. “Miss Embrow was right to protest, Augusta. Taking our daughter out in this weather when she is already ill would have been foolish.”

“But Lord John,” Augusta protested, “it was not her place to question my instructions.”

“It is her place to put the welfare of the baby first. But even if she was wrong, you should not have beaten her. I will not have any in my household subjected to such violence. You will never raise a hand or any other implement to a servant again.”

She had been cowed by his anger, perhaps, for she slunk away and treated him to a week-long sulk, after which she emerged to demand that Thorne be dismissed for laying hands on her when he took the crop off her.

John’s refusal earned him the silent treatment for a further two weeks.

Still, she had not persisted, so perhaps she was learning. She was, after all, nearly twenty-one and had become a mother. She might be maturing. He’d seen a firm hand and kindness transform many a wild young man into a steady officer.

Indeed, for the last few days, she had been smiling, sometimes even at John. She had even spent an hour in the nursery yesterday, ignoring Miss Embrow as she had since the incident, but playing pat-a-cake and peep-a-boo with the baby.

Where on earth could the woman be? She was not in the house, and she was hardly one to spend hours in the garden. He checked with the stables, and discovered that she’d ridden out, and refused to take a groom with her.

John was worried. Augusta was not the most accomplished of riders. Perhaps she has fallen. He ordered his own horse saddled and rode off in the direction the grooms indicated.

The path split, with one branch entering his woods, and the other joining the lane that led out to the village road. John rode a short way along the lane, but he could not see Augusta or a horse, so he returned to the woods. Perhaps she felt the need of the shade.

The path led to a clearing where the woodcutter had a cottage that he used, but this was not the season for harvesting or planting or clearing undergrowth. So why were two horses tied up at the side of the cottage, and why was smoke rising from the chimney?

John stopped just inside the trees to examine the scene. He couldn’t be sure, as it was in the shade and partly obscured by the larger of the two horses, but he thought the smaller one was Augusta’s mare. He was still processing the implications of that when the cottage door opened and two people came out. One was Augusta. The other he could identify by the man’s white-blonde hair. It was Spindler. The swine bent to give John’s wife a tender kiss.

John nudged his horse into a walk. Spindler looked up at the clop of hooves, started, and ran for his own horse. John resisted the urge to give chase as Splindler threw himself into the saddle and kicked the beast into a gallop. After all, what would he do with the man if he caught him?

Rearranging the dirty dog’s pretty face would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t solve the problem of his marriage.

Augusta looked up at him without a hint of remorse or concern, trying but failing to compose her face into a serious expression. But a beaming smile of absolute delight kept breaking through. “Lord John, don’t be cross. We didn’t do anything, honestly. And he brought such good news.”

He didn’t trust himself to speak to her. He dismounted, tied his horse beside hers, and walked past her into the cottage. Didn’t do anything? The blankets had been thrown from the bed and the room reeked of sex.

Augusta had followed him, to stand in the door. “You must try to understand, Lord John. We have not been together for nearly two years.”

Nor had Augusta and John. Not once since they wed. John had been patient, thinking that she would accept their marriage in time. He had also been celibate, since he had long since promised himself that he would never cheat against his marriage vows, as both his parents had.

And she thought he should understand? “I do not understand, Augusta.” When Captain Forsythe spoke in that tight clipped voice, soldiers knew to stand to attention and keep quiet, for retribution was about to fall. “I don’t understand how you can stand there and expect me to countenance you and your lover meeting in secret, right here on my lands, less than a mile from the nursery where our daughter sleeps.”

Augusta was not one of his soldiers. “My daughter,” she insisted. “Mine and Phillip’s.”

A touch of panic spiked his fury. “Not according to the law,” he reminded himself. “She was born within our marriage. I have claimed her. Spindler has no rights here.”

At that, the smile blossomed again, though her eyes remained wary. “Not Spindler. Lord John, that is what he came to say! Kingston is dead! Phillip is free!”

The Duke of Kingston was Spindler’s grandfather, and in some ways the orchestrator of John’s misery. Spindler had been his pensioner, along with his mother and father. Disliking his grandson’s attachment to Augusta, who had only beauty to recommend her, being of modest family and wealth, he forced Spindler to make a choice. Poverty and Augusta. Riches and a bride of Kingston’s choosing. Either he did not care that the scoundrel had impregnated Augusta, or her condition did not become apparent until after her lover married the selected lady.

Kingston’s death was not a surprise. Even John, who took no notice of Society gossip, knew he had been failing since the apoplexy that followed the tragic deaths, months ago, of his heir and his heir’s son. Which made Spindler’s father the heir presumptive, and now the duke. Spindler’s father, who had never refused his son anything except his attention.

“He is not free,” he told Augusta. “Your lover is married and so are you. You both have a spouse and a child.”

She stared at him as if he was speaking in a foreign language. John didn’t want to look at her. He moved around the room, picking up a chair that had been knocked over, folding the blankets, pulling the underblanket off the mattress and throwing it into a heap by the door to take to the laundrymaid.

“We can be together,” Augusta insisted. “Tenby—he is Earl of Tenby now—does not have to please his grandfather ever again.”

John faced Augusta. She was clenching her fists and jutting her chin, ready to fight. “Augusta, talk sense. You are both married. Tenby lives in London. You live here, with me.” His voice dropped to a growl. “And you can be sure I will not turn a blind eye to you meeting your lover here or in London.”

He took a deep breath. She was not listening to him. Instead, her eyes were fixed on some mythical and impossible future that only she and Tenby could see.

“Augusta, we could make something of our marriage. Wouldn’t life be better if we were comfortable with one another? Would you not like more children?”

That caught her attention. “No!” she declared. “I don’t ever want to go through that again, getting lumpy and ugly. And then the pain! No, my lord, not even for Tenby. But he says he has his heir and that cow is pregnant again, so there might even be a spare. He will not ask it of me.”

John shook his head. It was like arguing with a river. You could talk all you liked, but it wasn’t going to stop flowing in the direction it had chosen. “You and Tenby cannot wed,” he pointed out. “You are both married to other people.”

At that, she crossed the room, laid a hand on his arm, and looked up at him pleadingly. “Yes, but we could live together. Tenby says that if I move in with  him, you can easily sue him for stealing me away (though I was always his, so that part I do not understand), and then petition the church for a legal separation. You get to keep Augustina, and you will not have to pay for clothes and the like for me ever again. And I get Tenby.”

“You will be cast out of Society,” John warned. He would, too. Not so much because he would be blamed, but because he would be laughed at. People might pity a cuckold, but they did not admire him. Still, he could live without Society.

“We can live in Paris, Tenby says,” Augusta said, airily, “where they understand these things. It is the best plan, my lord. Everyone gets what they want.”

“What of Lady Tenby? What does she want?”

If John had hoped to appeal to Augusta’s sympathy for another woman, he would have been disappointed. She shrugged. “She gets to call herself Marchioness and live at Spindler Palace with her sons. I don’t care about her. It is me that Tenby loves.”

“My answer is no. Your plan is foolish, Augusta. You and Tenby owe it to your children to make the best of your marriages. Come. We shall return to the house. I shall write to Tenby and tell him that if he approaches you again, he will regret it.”

That was not the end of it, of course. Augusta was convinced that she was the female half of a romance for the ages: a Helen of Troy, an Isolde, a Guinevere, an Eloise, a Juliet. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of her happy ending. She blocked John’s every attempt at a reconciliation, raised the option of a legal separation at every opportunity heedless of who else might be listening, and in the end forced his hand by running away to France with Tenby.

By then, it was almost a relief to see the end of what would have been a total disaster from the beginning, except it had given John his little Jane. When Lady Tenby died shortly after the church courts had granted their legal separation, John barely argued at all about taking a case to the House of Lords for a full divorce.

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Dialogue on WIP Wednesday

Dialogue should tell us about character, move along the plot, feed us bits of backstory, or all three. I shared this bit in a Facebook chat the other day. What do you think? It’s from The Flavour of Our Deeds, novel 5 in The Golden Redepennings.

My lord, if the case goes against me, would you take Paul and protect him? I know it’s a lot to ask, but—”

“Consider it done,” Chirbury interrupted. “If things go badly, I will take him into my family. But we shall endeavour to ensure that they don’t, for my sister will be upset if they hang you by the neck until dead, Lucian Ogilvy. Speaking of which, what are your intentions towards my sister?”

Typical Chirbury. A soothing remark then a sneak attack. Two, in fact. Luke forced back the visceral reaction at the thought of his hanging, and tried to deflect the second jab. “Your sister?”

Chirbury raised a single eyebrow. “You thought I might possibly mean my sister Meg or my sister Lady Bexley?”

Luke stopped jousting. “I cannot have intentions towards Lady Catherine.”

The other eyebrow lifted. “Cannot. Not will not, or do not.” The earl’s tone was contemplative. “Perhaps you mean should not? My question is why not? You travelled for a week introducing her as your wife. Some would say you owe her a proposal.” He pulled out one of the chairs at the table, turned it around, and straddled it so he could rest his forearms on the back. “Take a seat, man.”

Who knew that words could knife a man in the chest and, at the same time, lift him to the stars? Luke sat in the other chair without thinking about what he was doing. “Chirbury, with due respect, I am the bastard son of an earl and a gamekeeper, I’m twelve years older than her, and to cap it all off, I’ve been arrested for murder. What do I have to offer her?”

Chirbury shrugged with his eyebrows. “What she wants, apparently. So Kitty says, and my countess agrees, so it must be true.”

Luke gaped at Chirbury. “Lady Chirbury thinks Kitty and I should marry?” He had forgotten to call her Lady Catherine.

“Not what I said,” Chirbury pointed out. “My lady thinks that Kitty wants to be your wife, and that she—that Kitty doesn’t care about your birth, your age, or the false accusations against you.”

Kitty cared. Luke knew that. But Chirbury would never let her make such a mistake, and if Chirbury would, Luke wouldn’t. “She is too young to know her own mind,” he said, arguing with himself even as he said the words. She was twenty-three, almost twenty-four. Her family’s trials had matured her early, and—except for her feelings about him—he would trust her judgement and her instincts ahead of those of most people he knew. The earl in front of him included.

Chirbury shrugged. “She was young six years ago when she set her heart on you. Anne and I told her that it was an infatuation. That she was reacting to the trauma of Selby’s assault and then the kidnapping. That she fixed on you because you helped to rescue her, and because she knew so few other unmarried men.”

“All true,” Luke agreed, though reluctantly.

Chirbury shook his head. “Demonstrably not. She has been courted by a broad selection of English gentlemen, Luke. I’ve no wish to dwell on the number of suitors I’ve turned away. I passed on to her anyone I thought she had even the slightest interest in, if they were honest and respectable. More than a score over the years, and she refused them all.”

Luke, was it? They’d never been on first name terms, though that was more on Luke’s side than Chirbury’s. The earl had asked him years ago to call him by his nickname, Rede. Given that he lusted for the man’s sister-in-law, Luke thought such familiarity a mistake. He had to remember that he was not a fit mate for Kitty. But Chirbury apparently thought differently.

“Are you telling me that you would permit Kitty to marry me?” he asked, though it came out as more of a challenge.

“It is Kitty’s decision. And yours, of course. My countess and I would not oppose the match, and she could still marry you if we did. She is three years past the age of needing our consent. You are twelve years older than her, and that age difference mattered when she was not quite eighteen. To us, at least, though even larger age gaps are common. Now? She is an adult, and to my mind, uncommonly mature for her age. You are base born, you tell me, but you are the acknowledged son of a baron and the guardian of another.”

He shrugged. “Yes, some will believe she has married down, but not people whose opinion she cares for. Which leaves us with your current situation. That, of course, needs to be resolved. However, we are ahead of ourselves, my friend. I still need to hear what your intentions are towards my sister.”

Luke groaned. Heaven was his for the grasping, except a hangman’s noose dangled between him and it. “I cannot deny that I love her, Rede. Marrying her would be the greatest privilege I can imagine. Also, if I win my freedom and prove my innocence, I have my own estate. It is not much compared to Longford, but I can afford to take a wife. If I can prove my innocent. My uncle is determined to see me hang.”

“Whereas I am determined that you shall not,” Rede replied.

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Mystery on WIP Wednesday

I do like a mystery with my romance. What about you? This is from a made-to-order story tentatively called The Missing Daughter. I’m looking at you, Laura!

Louisa still had no idea what was going on three days later when the three of them reached Mama’s home village. Papa arranged a suite of rooms at the inn for his family, and baths to refresh after the journey. Mama ordered dinner to be served in the suite’s sitting room in one hour.

“I have a note to write before my bath,” she announced.

“To the vicarage?” Papa asked. “Or the house?”

“Vicarage,” Mama said. “I will make an appointment in the morning.”

“What is going on, Mama?” Louisa asked. “Why are we here?”

“Go and see if your bath is ready, dear,” Mama said. “I will come through shortly to undo your buttons and laces.”

Mama would say nothing more. Not then, not over dinner, and not when she came to check that Louisa was safely tucked up in bed, with the door to the outside passage locked and bolted.

Louisa tried again over breakfast. “Are we going to visit your family, Mama?” she asked.

“I don’t have family here anymore, Louisa, and no, I am not telling you anything else just yet. All in good time.”

That again. Louisa cast a pleading glance at her father. His response was unexpected. “I might still have a brother here.”

“A brother? I have an uncle?” Papa had never mentioned his family. And Papa came from the same village as Mama? How had Louisa not known that?

“I assume you still have an uncle,” Papa said. “He might still live here. We lost touch.”

Louisa’s mind whirled, teaming with so many questions that she couldn’t find anything to say.

Mama frowned at Papa, then said to Louisa, “I am going to visit the vicar. Stay in your room while I am gone, Louisa.”

“No need for that,” Papa told her. “I am going to walk your mother to the vicarage, Louisa, and then go and visit my brother, or at least my old home. You can come with me, if you wish.”

“Will!” Mama objected.

Papa raised his eyebrows. “I will take my daughter to meet her uncle, Lissie,” he declared. And that was the end of it. People thought that Papa lived under the cat’s paw; that Mama was head of the family. Louisa knew that Papa seldom countered Mama’s commands and decisions, but when he did, Mama subsided.

“She will be safe now,” he said, reassuringly.

Had Louisa not been safe before? The more she heard, the less she felt she knew!

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Convenient marriages on WIP Wednesday

It’s a common trope in historical marriage. The couple marry for reasons other than love, but love comes to surprise them. That’s one of the tropes in Lady Beast’s Bridegroom. My hero has inherited a rundown estate. My heroine needs a husband to protect her from the dastardly schemes of the cousin who is her closest male relative.

Here’s my hero’s reaction to the idea.

The sense of something just out of reach followed Peter into the morning. His appointment with Richards was at noon. He waited to be announced, feeling as he had sometimes before a battle: as if something momentous marched inexorably towards him, bring a change for better or for worse.

After civil greetings, Richards got straight to the point. “I have an opportunity for you, my lord. It will allow you to pay the estate’s debts and leave money and to spare over to bring your lands back into full production. And you will also be able to do a great service for another person.”

“It sounds too good to be true,” Peter commented. “What is this service that brings such great rewards?”

His solicitor leaned forward a little, his eyes intent on Peter. “Another of my clients has commissioned me to find her a husband, Lord Ransome. Her need is urgent and imperative.”

An obvious reason for haste occurred. “Pregnant, is she? I’ve no wish to make someone else’s son my heir, Richards.”

“No, my lord. My client is a lady and a maiden. I am authorized to explain her reasons, but only if you agree to consider the marriage. The lady does not wish her identity to be known or her circumstances to be discussed except with the candidates for her hand.”

Peter’s brows twitched upwards. “Candidates? I am not the only person to whom you are putting this proposition?”

“The lady commissioned me to select candidates and send them to her for interview, Lord Ransome. She will make the final decision.” He nodded, firmly. “After all, she will live with the results.”

“She, and her chosen groom,” Peter pointed out. “I wish the lady well, Richards, but I am not minded to sell myself in such a way.” He’d not sunk that low. Not yet.

Richards set his jaw, examining the blotter on his desk as if it contained some secret he could interpret if he stared for long enough. “You will forgive me, my lord, if I point out that your other choices are untenable. You have cut your outgoings to the bone, and yet you will still not have sufficient money to pay the mortgages when they fall due, let alone the other more pressing debts.”

Peter protested, “You advised me not to let staff go nor to begin selling off everything that is not entailed!”

Richards nodded. “I advised you not to frighten your creditors by behaving as if you were insolvent. You and I needed time to come to terms with what might be done. But, my lord, you are insolvent. I must change my advice. If you will not consider an advantageous marriage, then you must make haste to sell whatever you can.”

“It won’t be enough!”

“No, my lord.” Richards sat back in his seat, his hands in front of him on the desk, keeping his gaze steady.

Peter shivered, though the day was not cold. He had sunk lower than he knew, if a convenient marriage was his only option. “I daresay I could find an heiress on my own.” He had a little time, surely? The mortgages were not due until next quarter day, and Richards could continue to put his creditors off a little longer.

The solicitor tipped his head in acknowledgement. “Yes, my lord. A wealthy merchant’s daughter, perhaps.”

Peter sighed. “You think I am cutting off my nose to spite my face. Very well, Richards. I will consider your lady. Tell me why I should agree to be one of the supplicants for her favor.” He wrinkled his nose at the thought of being interviewed by the would-be bride, like a footman or a groom anxious to win a position.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder, in WIP Wednesday

In Perchance to Dream, I have nearly 17,000 words in the bucket, and have just written a scene where John is listening to his daughter in the garden and thinking about his recent visitor, with whom he has been exchanging letters.

Jane’s writing and reading was going ahead by leaps and bounds, and she also showed a flair for numbers. I suppose I shall have to employ a governess sooner or later. His mind’s eye pictured Pansy, bending over her work on that last afternoon. She would make a wonderful governess. John rejected the thought, shoving it away with something akin to horror. Even if the lady was looking for employment, which she wasn’t, he could never have her living under his roof.

Witness his frequent thoughts of that visit, of the growing desire that made him both anxious for her present and eager to avoid it, of how he struggled with lust that last afternoon as he viewed her lovely rear, neatly outlined in her woollen gown.

She is a friend, and has become a good one over the past few months. That was all it could be.

His inner self asked, snidely, So is that why you are hovering by the window instead of getting on with your work?

He had to admit, if only to himself, that he was waiting for Thorne to come back from the nearest Royal Mail stop, some five miles away by road. He’d been sent to post a letter and to collect any mail that might have been waiting.

You had a letter only a week ago, he scolded himself. She had written that she was travelling to Essex. He hoped Peter’s children were recovering. He hoped she found treasures in her new rose blooms.

His own letter carried an invitation. He was nearly ready to install the Carlisle clock tower scenes, and would be travelling up there within the fortnight. Yesterday, the town council had sent him the date for the opening ceremony. The Thornes and Jane would travel up for it, of course.

He should not hope for it. It is a long way for Pansy to come. On the other hand, it was in July, when the ton were abandoning the stinky hole that London became in the summer, and she did, after all, have a sister to visit in Galloway, only a day’s journey from Carlisle.

Against that, it was high summer, and she would be desperate to get back to her garden after the long months in London.

The clop of hooves had him crossing the room to look out at the carriage way. Thorne was home.

John drew away from the window before Thorne could see him, and busied himself tidying his work desk, and then his tray of parts. Doubtless, Thorne and his wife had figured out how besotted John had become. It was hard to keep such a secret from a man who had been his batman since he first took up his commission. John could, however, at least pretend to be indifferent.

It was a very long half hour before Thorne knocked on the door and entered.