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Tea with Charles

 

How in God’s name does this woman know everything?

Charles Wheatly, Duke of Murnane glanced down at the missive in his hand, a rather personal one coming from a duchess, and shook his head.

Charles

Do come to tea before you leave for China.  Shall we say Tuesday next?

Eleanor Winshire

He knew the answer to his own question. The duchess spoke to Uncle Richard, of course.  The Duke of Sudbury wouldn’t have confided such a secret in many people, but he would be frank with the Duchess of Haverford who could be trusted with both the political and the personal aspects of Charles’s mission.  Which part does she wish to pummel me about? Charles wondered.

He suspected the personal. The last time she summoned him to tea, she urged him to divorce his wife.  “This time I may listen to her,” he mumbled to the empty carriage. But no. He had no more desire to drag his wretched marriage through the mud than he did three years ago. He liked Eleanor, he truly did, but his life was his own.

The duchess surprised him. After tea had been poured, he accepted her condolences on the death of his son. She wisely chose not to linger over them, and they quickly moved on to the sort of exchange demanded by good manners. Yes, Uncle Will has recovered from the bronchitis he contracted at the funeral. Yes, Fred and Clare were thriving at Songbird Cottage, but he’d had no world from Rand recently. Charles suspected his cousin was too busy building his timber empire. The duchess, in her turn, referred lightly to the doings of her vast tribe of grandchildren: the children of her sons and foster-daughters, and the step-grandchildren from her second marriage. “They are all growing up, Charles. Even Haverford’s daughter is about to make her debut, and my son made a late start, as you know.”

Charles reached over to pick up a second lemon cake, always his favorite, when she struck.

“You will of course want to get into Canton itself.”

He sat upright, and blinked at her.

“There is no point in you going all the way to Macao just to listen to Charles Eliot’s views on the matter, much less those of Jarrett and those wretched smugglers unleashing drugs on those people.”

He put the remains of the cake down and cleared his throat. “You are correct. I had planned to haunt the docks of both cities and Madras as well.”

“And shed your title and position to do it.”

“How else can I entice people into speaking plainly?” He grinned at her, enjoying himself now. “Besides, I may as well enjoy a bit of freedom while I can.”

“Quite so,” Eleanor replied. “It is a pity you don’t speak Cantonese. You will need a translator.”

That problem had bothered him, but he assumed it could be solved. “There are people—“

“Not many. Lily would be perfect, but of course she has much too much dignity at her age to go racketing about with you.”

He choked on his tea. Lilias Hayden, the Duchess of Sudbury, might be a gifted linguist, but she wielded her skills over diplomatic dinners, not on the docks. “I should say not,” he croaked.

“I wonder if her daughter has inherited her skills?” Eleanor murmured innocently. Too innocently. Sudbury had obviously told her that his hoydenish daughter had absconded to China after refusing to accept the attentions of no fewer than six suitors during the previous Season.

“I wouldn’t have any idea,” Charles answered carefully.

“You might ask her when you see her,” Eleanor replied over her teacup. She put it down and turned the subject to tea and the opium that supported its import into London. Her extensive understanding of the laws, the economics, and the ethics didn’t surprise him.

“Be cautious what you report to Victoria, however. She may think she wants to know the truth, but she won’t upset any apple carts, and she certainly won’t cross Melbourne. Still, it can’t hurt to have the sovereign well informed. I applaud the mission.”

He rose to leave sometime later and bowed over her hand. He was half way to the door when she spoke again.

“Don’t forget what I said about Lily’s daughter. She might be just the thing you need.”

He turned and gave her a slight bow.

“And Charles, do something about your marriage. Enough is enough.”

 

About the Book: The Unexpected Wife

Children of Empire Book 3

Crushed with grief after the death of his son, Charles Wheatly, Duke of Murnane, throws himself into the new Queen’s service in 1838. When the government sends him on an unofficial fact finding mission to the East India Company’s enclave in Canton, China, he anticipates intrigue, international tensions, and an outlet for his frustration. He isn’t entirely surprised when he also encounters a pair of troublesome young people that need his help. However, the appearance of his estranged wife throws the entire enterprise into conflict. He didn’t expect to face his troubled marriage in such an exotic locale, much less to encounter profound love at last in the person of a determined young woman. Tensions boil over, and his wife’s scheming—and the beginnings of the First Opium War—force him to act to rescue the one he loves and perhaps save himself in the process.

Zambak Hayden seethes with frustration. A woman her age has occupied the throne for over a year, yet the Duke of Sudbury’s line of succession still passes over her—his eldest—to land on a son with neither spine nor character. She follows her brother, the East India Company’s newest and least competent clerk, to protect him and to safeguard the family honor. If she also escapes the gossip and intrigues of London and the marriage mart, so much the better. She has no intention of being forced into some sort of dynastic marriage. She may just refuse to marry at all. When an old family friend arrives she assumes her father sent him. She isn’t about to bend to his dictates nor give up her quest. Her traitorous heart, however, can’t stop yearning for a man she can’t have.

Neither expects the epic historical drama that unfolds around them.

The Unexpected Wife, will be released on July 25 and can be preordered from Amazon internationally as well as here:

https://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Wife-Children-Empire-Book-ebook/dp/B07FGGC918/

Here’s a short video about it:

https://www.facebook.com/carolinewarfield7/videos/924791187669849/

About the Author

Traveler, would-be adventurer, former tech writer and library technology professional, Caroline Warfield has now retired to the urban wilds of Eastern Pennsylvania, and divides her time between writing and seeking adventures with her grandbuddy. In her newest series, Children of Empire, three cousins torn apart by lies find their way home from the far corners of the British Empire, finding love along the way.

She has works published by Soul Mate Publishing and also independently published works. In addition she has participated in five group anthologies, one not yet published.

For more about the series and all of Caroline’s books, look here:

https://www.carolinewarfield.com/bookshelf/

 

 

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Help one person

I’m always embarrassed when people praise me for doing something useful, or for helping out when I happen to notice a need. To me, this is the base setting; the pass grade. I learnt at my mother’s knee, by watching what she did, that

  • if you belong to a group you take a role to support the group, whether it is baking cakes for a stall, setting out the cups for morning tea, chairing a meeting, or putting out the monthly newsletter
  • people should be kind.

That’s it, really. My whole philosophy. Take responsibility and be kind to those whose lives intersect with yours. If everyone did that, what kind of a world would we live in?

I manage it, mostly. I know others who manage it heroically, and my hat is off to them. They get a B grade or maybe even an A plus.

Today at Mass, Fr Binu told a story that resonated with me.

A man saw a child begging on a street corner. He was clearly cold and hungry — dressed in rags and mere skin and bone.

“Oh God,” the man said, “Won’t you please help this child. Look at him. He is shivering in the cold, and he looks more than half starved.”

“I see him,” said God. “He hasn’t had anything to eat since yesterday morning. He has no family, and he is afraid to go to sleep at night because the other children steal everything he has. Even if he can stay awake, the bigger children beat him up and take it anyway.”

“That is dreadful, God. Something must be done to help him.”

“I agree,” God said. “He needs warm clothing and food. More than that, he needs a home and someone to love him for himself. Without those things he will die.”

The man felt dreadful, knowing that the boy was at such risk. “Then you must act quickly, God, before it is too late.”

“I have already acted,” God replied.

The man was very relieved. “Thank you so much, God. I knew I could count on you. What have you done?”

God said, “I have made you.”

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Slavery in the Cape Colony

The slave lodge in which the Dutch East India Company (VOC) kept its slaves. The lodge was built in 1679, and was used to house slaves until 1811, when the new British government converted it into government offices.

The first slaves arrived in the Cape Colony in 1658. Slavery was abolished in 1834 — in what was to become South Africa as well as in the rest of the British Empire. In between, thousands — as many as 71,000  — of people from India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Indonesia and the East African coast were brought here to work as slaves.

Their diverse origins and therefore languages, the fact that they were mostly scattered and isolated on farms in the hinterland, and the skewed gender balance (four men for every woman) meant that, unlike in other slave-owning cultures, they didn’t develop their own slave society until the nineteenth century, and then mainly in Cape Town.

Life on the isolated farms was brutal, encouraging  many to attempt escape despite the punishment that would follow if they were caught.

Slaves in the countryside ate food grown on the farms. Sometimes they also ate fish and rice. Some slave owners took advantage of the lack of legislation and gave their slaves food of a very poor quality. One visitor wrote in 1804 that: “black bread, half sand, and the offal of sheep and oxen are their general fare”. On the other hand, on some farms, slaves had small pieces of land where they grew vegetables for their own use. Domestic or house slaves usually received better food than the slaves who worked in the fields.
(https://slavery.iziko.org.za/slaveexperience)

Some did better in private ownership in Cape Town itself, as a Dutch sea captain suggests in a possibly exaggerated account written towards the end of the 18th century.

“I would reckon that a white servant in Europe does twice, or even three times more work than these ‘slaves’; but I would also be certain that, in a house where everything is well ordered, four or at most six slaves can easily do work. However, I believe that, except for the least substantial burghers, there are many houses, large and small, where ten or twelve are to be found. As they divide tasks, they are necessary. One or two have to go out each day to fetch wood, which takes all day. If the mistress leaves the house, there must be two for the sedan chair. The slave who is cook has an assistant in the kitchen. One does the dirtiest work every day . . . and two are house slaves. Many Cape women do not gladly sleep without a maid in the room, and thus one is kept for this and, better clothed than the others, also has the job of lady’s maid and carries the Psalm Book behind on visits to church. If there are children, each has a maid, although sometimes two daughters share. Small children need one to themselves. This is without one who washes and makes the beds, a seamstress and a knitter, as three or four are always kept busy that way, and I still have none for the stable.”
(C. de Jong, ‘Reizen naar de Kaap de Goede Hoop . . . 1791-1797’, 3 vols (Haarlem, 1802-3), pg. 143-4.)

On the other hand, how hard slaves worked even in the town, and how they were treated, depended entirely on the disposition of their owner. Those retained in the slave lodge either worked for the company or were hired out for labour.  They lived in terrible conditions.

The Slave Lodge was dark, wet and dirty. A subterranean stream flows under the Slave Lodge and this stream flooded the cellar of the Lodge during winter. The roof also leaked which led to hardship in the wet winter months. The slaves only received blankets after 1685. Before then, they had nothing to cover themselves against the cold. However, Höhne, the Slave Overseer, reported in 1793 that the bedding stayed wet in winter and that the slaves never had time to properly wash and clean their belongings. Statistics show that the death rate was higher during winter than in summer. The building was very dark and without adequate air circulation. There were no windows in the building, only slits in the walls with bars. Only a few of these slits faced the outside of the building. Louis Michel Thibault, the building inspector, reported in 1803 that the building was so dark inside that one needed a lantern even in the day.

Furthermore, the Lodge was very dirty. Mentzel wrote in 1785 that the stench was unbearable in the Lodge. The stench was especially bad in the vicinity of the eight toilets next to the quarters of the mentally ill. Pigs were kept in the courtyard and fattened on garden refuge to be sold to the free citizens to earn an income for the slaves.
(https://slavery.iziko.org.za/slavelodgelivingconditions)

Women faced sexual exploitation, of course. The shortage of female slaves was echoed by the shortage of women overall. From late in the seventeenth century, the VOC issued regulations forbidding relations between Europeans and female slaves. They didn’t stop European men visiting the slave lodge, however, which was known to operate as a brothel. Mulatto children and cases of men who purchased a slave’s freedom and married her suggest  no-one took the regulations very seriously.

In the book I’m writing at the moment, the British have taken over the Cape Colony for the second time (after returning it to the Dutch a few years earlier). The slave lodge has been closed, but slavery is still legal, and slaves still outnumber free people in the colony by around three to one.

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Surprises on WIP Wednesday

Surprising my characters, and therefore my readers, is such fun. I’m working on three different projects at the moment — Unkept Promises, in which my heroine surprises her errant husband by turning up in the Cape Colony to look after his dying mistress and her children (my couple haven’t met in seven years); Never Kiss a Toad, the ongoing saga Mariana Gabrielle and I are publishing on Wattpad, in which the villain surprises the heroine in a dark alley and is surprised in his turn when she pulls a gun on him; and The Beast Next Door, in which my heroine flees her pushy family but finds her usual sanctuary has been invaded by a suspiciously well-cared-for dog.

Post an excerpt with one of your surprises in the comments. Meanwhile, here’s a surprise for Mia from Unkept Promises.

Mia turned left, but the servant darted in front of her, his arms wide. “Missus can’t go in there,” he said. “Missus go away. Come back another day. Captain wouldn’t like it.”

She raised her brows and glared. “The Captain is my husband, which makes this my house. Out of my way. Now.”

The glare, copied from her more formidable sisters-in-law, did the trick. He faded sideways.

“And you can make yerself useful,” Hannah said, “by bringing in Mrs Captain’s luggage before every street scamp in the town takes off with it.”

Mia had her hand on the door handle before the servant mustered another protest, and had turned it by the time he finished. “Miz Kirana, she not there.”

One glance in the room made that clear. A European girl lolled on the bed spooning fruit and cream into her mouth from a bowl — Scots or Irish by her pale skin and flaming red hair. Much of an age with Mia, at a guess, whereas Kirana was Eurasian, and in her early thirties, only a few years younger than Mia’s husband.

The girl confirmed her origins when she opened her mouth, her Irish accent plain. “Who’re ye, bustin’ into me bedchamber? Japheth, who is this gobermouch? And why did ye let ‘er in?”

“I am Mrs Julius Redepenning,” Mia said in her driest tones, “and you, I take it, are my husband’s most recent bed partner.” She ignored her sinking heart. It had been easy to overlook Jules’ attachment to Kirana, who had been his mistress for years before Mia met him. But were her hopes of making a real marriage to founder before she had a chance to even see him again?

A harrumph from Hannah. Her low opinion of men made her dubious about that part of Mia’s mission, but Mia would not give up. Not yet.

She looked around at the room, untidily strewn with clothing and jewellery. The woman had clearly been trying on garments in front of the large mirror before dropping onto the bed.

“Tidy up in here before you leave the room,” Mia instructed. “And do not think to take a thing that is not your own. My husband no longer requires your services.”

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Tea with Mia and Kitty

The two girls were discussing their suitors. Catherine Stocke had a sharp wit and a wicked gift for describing each man’s least charming characteristics. At least her suitors intended marriage. Euronyme Redepenning, as a married woman with a husband on the other side of the world, attracted less permanent offers, which she had no hesitation in refusing. Her stories of the rakes’ reactions had the girls in giggles.

The duchess should probably squash the conversation, which had become a rather racy for two maidens, for Mia was still untouched despite the wedding that took place in this very castle over two years ago. She would not, though. Both young ladies had experienced rather more of life than the sternest arbiters would consider desirable, and being able to laugh about the stupidities of men was a healthy reaction, Eleanor thought.

The mystery surrounding Kitty whereabouts these last seven years, and her sister’s recent marriage to Eleanor’s nephew the Earl of Chirbury, had made her a sensation since the day she walked into a London ballroom earlier in the year. Her own beauty and charm won her an immediate following. Her disinterest in any of her court had the paradoxical effect of increasing it event by event, despite her tactic of insisting that she would not dance more than once with anyone, and that the men surrounding her must take themselves off and dance with other ladies.

Mia’s tale was old news by this time. In the weeks surrounding her fifteenth birthday, she had been trapped by smugglers, forced to marry by the damage to her reputation, and abandoned by her husband on their wedding day (for his duty to the Far East fleet, said some; for his mistress in India, said others). Eleanor, who was rather fond of young Jules, thought the assessment harsh. Faced with conflicted duties, the boy had done his best. He had married an orphaned schoolgirl twelve years his junior in order to save her reputation and give her a home with his family. Then he’d returned to the east in obedience to his orders. Her in-laws had taken the bride into their hearts and been stalwart defenders these past two years.

Both girls had accepted her invitation to spend several weeks at Haverford Castle so they could spend more time together, away from the men who pestered them, and Eleanor was enjoying their company. No. She would not interrupt them. Let them have their fun. “More tea?” she asked.

Kitty and Mia are introduced in Farewell to Kindness the first book in The Golden Redepennings series.  In the Epilogue to that book, we are told that the two friends are staying with the Duchess of Haverford, so the scene above belongs to that visit.

My next newsletter subscriber story, going out this week, is of Mia’s encounter with the smugglers and her wedding. The novel I’m working on at the moment, Unkept Promises, tells what happens seven years later when she heads to the Cape Colony at the foot of Africa to retrieve her husband’s daughters by his mistress.

Kitty will have her own story told in the fifth book of the series.

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Do bad boys make bad heroes?

You know who I mean. Pirates, vikings, highwaymen, vampires, rakes, thieves, spies, assassins, ruthless billionaires, gang members — men who will take whatever they want, careless of who is hurt in the process.

Whatever the story, the trope has the bad boy discovering his inner humanity because he has fallen in love. I’m not convinced. It’s not that I don’t believe in the possibility of redemption: people can change, they do it all the time. They can even be motivated to change because a new relationship causes them to examine their fundamental assumptions. But I wouldn’t count on the love of a good woman redeeming a bad man.

In most of the stories I’ve read with this as a plot line, they’re not even redeemed! They treat their woman well, but go on behaving just as badly to everyone else. Not my idea of good marriage material.

In my coming plots, I have a number of bad boys to redeem. They’re going to have to struggle through the redemption process themselves, maybe motivated by the wish to please one particular woman, but also motivated by a recognition that previous behaviour hasn’t brought them happiness, has hurt other people, and needs to stop if they’re to become the kind of person they want to be.

What do you think? Have you read any good ‘bad boy makes good’ stories.

I’ve written about aspects of this before. See:

In praise of decent men

Rakes, rapists, and alpha-jerks

Human beings and intimacy

The Jude Knight Manifesto

All you need is love

 

 

 

 

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Out-takes on WIP Wednesday

I often cut scenes when I edit. Sometimes, I know even as I write them that they’re not going to be needed, but I still need to write them to get where I’m going. Sometimes, I love them dearly, but find out there’s a better way to achieve the same result. And sometimes I cut them reluctantly because I like them a lot, but they add nothing to plot or character.

This week, I’m busily writing a prequel to Unkept Promises that will never go in the book. It’s set seven years before the novel, and I posted the start of it a couple of weeks ago. Mia meets Jules when they are imprisoned together in a smugglers’ cave.

It is coming along, and I intend the whole sequence to be my next newsletter short story, from when Jules realises someone is in the next cell to where Jules kisses his new bride chastely on the forehead and rides off to Portsmouth and his ship.

Do you have a favourite deleted scene you’d like to share? Post it in the comments! Here’s the next bit of mine.

“Miss,” Jules hissed. The girl startled back from her father. Her face, already white, turned whiter as she faced the door, putting her body between herself and the unconscious man.

“I’m a prisoner,” Jules reassured her. “In the next cell.”

The girl held the candle high as she stood, peering towards the sound of his voice. He kept talking to guide her. “Lieutenant Julius Redepenning of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, at your service, Miss. I am going to get out of here, and I’m going to take you and your father with me.”

The face turned up to him was just leaving childhood behind, but the eyes shone with intelligence and her response indicated more maturity than he expected. “I hope you can, Lieutenant. But if your cell is as sturdy as mine, I beg leave to reserve judgement.” She sighed. “I am sorry for your predicament, but I will not deny I am glad to have company.”

“May I borrow the candle?” Jules asked. Her eyes widened in alarm and he rushed to add, “just for long enough to check my cell. They left me without light.” Without food or drink, either, but he would not tell her that. Perhaps the smugglers intended to supply him, and if they didn’t, he would not take the supply she needed for herself and her father.

She passed the candle up, her worry palpable, and he hoisted himself higher with one hand so that he could stretch the other through the bars. “I will be careful, Miss, I promise.”

“Mia,” she said. “Euronyme Stirling, but formality seems out of place, here.”

He returned her smile. She was a brave little girl; he had to find a way out for her. “Call me Jules,” he offered, “as my friends do.”

He rested the candle — a stubby bit of wax with a rope wick — on the sill between the bars and dropped, shaking the ache out of the shoulder that had taken most of his weight. When he reached the candle down, Mia let out an involuntary whimper at the loss of light.

“I have it safe,” he said. “You shall have it back in a minute.”

“I do without it most of the time,” she replied. “It’s just — I have always known I could light it again.”

Most of the time? “How long have you been here?” Jules asked, keeping his voice light and casual against the lump in his throat at her gallantry.

She answered a question with one of her own. “What is today? Tuesday? Or later.”

“Tuesday, probably. It was late Monday evening when I came across the smugglers. They knocked me out, but surely not for long.”

“The tenth of June? It was the fourth when Papa and I…” she trailed off, a small gulp the only sign of her distress.

Six days. Perhaps seven. “How long has your Papa…” Surely she had not been nursing a sick man all this time?

“They hit him when they attacked us, but I think — I wonder if he has had an apoplexy, Jules.” She took a deep shuddering breath and spoke again, her voice once more under her control. “He has not woken since that day. I have managed to get some water into him, but…”

“No food,” he guessed.

“They have given us nothing to eat.”

Bastards. They’d left her mostly in the dark, with no food, little water, and a dying father. He had been exploring his cell while they talked, and found no comfort in it. The door was firmly set, its hinges on the outside where he couldn’t reach them, though he ran his knife through the gap between the wood of the door and the stone of the walls, and guessed the hinges were iron by the sound they made. The door had a small hole, just big enough for someone outside to peer in, or for food or a small drug to be passed through. He pushed the shutter that blocked the hold from the other side, but it didn’t shift.

The only other gap in the stone was the high barred window between his cell and Mia’s. He put the candle up on the sill, and then added the bun, still wrapped in his handkerchief. That meant pulling himself up by the bars at the other end of the window, and the one closest to the edge shifted slightly as he put his weight on it.

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Tea with Lion

The Earl of Ruthford waited while his godmother exchanged a hug and a kiss with his lovely countess, and then saluted Her Grace with his own kiss.

“It is always lovely to see you, Godmama,” he said, his blue eyes alight with humour.

Dorothy, who had not yet regained her full strength since the birth of Lion’s heir, sank into the chair the duchess indicated and immediately betrayed her hovering spouse. “Lion has been speculating about your intentions ever since your invitation arrived, Your Grace.”

The duchess laughed. “Dorothy, my dear, please call me Aunt Eleanor, as your husband does when he is not determined to be provocative. And Lion, must I have an ulterior motive for inviting you?”

“Must is a strong word, Aunt Eleanor,” Lion agreed. “Let us just say that I have reason to believe you may be taking an interest in a friend of mine. Bear, is it not?”

The duchess showed her surprise by the merest twitch of her eyebrows, then smiled. “Well done, Lion. Let me pour your wife a cup of tea, and you shall tell me all about Bear Gavenor, his spontaneous marriage, and his unlikely bride.”

Lion is a secondary character in House of Thorns, currently with the editors at Scarsdale Press and with a tentative publication month of September.

Here’s a short excerpt, in which my hero, Bear, tries to explain his marriage to Lion, his former colonel.

He turned from the tray to find his former officer sitting straight behind his desk, his hands folded together on his blotter, his eyes steady on Bear’s face, a small smile playing around his mouth. “Confession time, my son. Tell Father Lion everything. Whom have you married, when, and why?”

Bear said nothing while he brought his coffee over to the desk and seated himself on one of the robust pieces of furniture that Lion’s wife had bought for her husband’s sanctuary. “For you are mostly giants,” she had informed his friends, “and I want you all to be comfortable.”

Lion raised an eyebrow at Bear’s continued silence. “That bad?”

“Not bad. Just… complicated.” Where to begin?

“Not one of the London debutantes you were so scathing about this past Season, poor little girls.”

“Poor little feather-wits and rapacious harpies.”

“So you said in April, to my wife’s despair, for she had introduced you to the nicest girls she knew.”

“Not her fault. I was too old for them, Lion, as you said at the time.”

“And too nice for a widow. Have you married a widow?”

“I wasn’t against marrying a widow. Just not one who was having such a good time kicking up her heels in London that I feared spending my remaining days waiting for her to bump me off so she could do it again, with my money.”

“Avoiding the question, Bear? How bad is it? Sorry. How complicated.”

“She’s not too young. Not too old, either. Thirty-six.”

Lion said nothing, but his eyebrows lifted in the questions he was not speaking.

How to explain Rosa. Bear was barely conscious of the helpless wave of his hand as he considered and rejected several sentences. “She suits me, Lion.”

“A pertinent fact, but not a history. I can see an interrogation is required. What is the name of this not-old lady, and where did you meet?”

“Rosa. Rosabel Neatham. I found her on a ladder picking my roses.” Once he started, the story was easy to tell, and Lion had always been an excellent listener.

“Then a few days after the wedding I got your message and came to London. So I hope you’re in a hurry to get back to Lady Ruthford, for I do not mean to linger here one day more than I need to.”

“I beg your pardon? A few days after the wedding? You married this paragon then abandoned her a few days after the wedding? Why on earth didn’t you write back and tell me to go soak my head?”

Bear’s guilty wince didn’t go unnoticed, because Lion’s eyes sharpened.

“You and the lady have had a falling out.”

“Not precisely. Rosa doesn’t… That is to say, I thought some distance might help, but Rosa is not one to nurse a grudge. She writes charming letters, and I write back. When I get home, we will put it behind us.”

“If you will take advice from a man who has been married four years longer than you, Bear, when you get back to Mrs. Gavenor, discuss whatever it was and clear up any misunderstandings. She is very likely blaming herself for whatever came between you. Women do.”

“Surely not! It was my fault entirely. At least… Lion, I thought virgins bled.” Lord. I did not say that out loud, did I?

Lion didn’t turn a hair, but just took a sip of his coffee. “Not that my experience is vast, but I don’t believe it to be an inevitable rule, no. It depends on the age of the woman, on what kinds of physical activities she has done — my own wife rode astride as a girl and… Well. Let’s leave it at that. And the man’s patience is important.”

Bear groaned. “I should probably be hanged.”

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Stretch goals for the next eighteen months

So a person needs stretch goals, right? I’ve just spent a few hours setting up a writing and editing schedule for the next eighteen months, creating an accountability book for recording word counts and milestones, and writing the titles on my ‘take everywhere’ notebooks for the next three books:

  • Unkept Promises, Book 4 in the Golden Redepennings
  • The Beast Next Door, a novella based on the newsletter subscriber short story The Bluestocking the Beast
  • Charlotte’s Wish, a contemporary novella for the Authors of Main Street Christmas Wishes box set.

Further across the spreadsheet, I’ve calculated the word count per day to reach the publication date. I can write 1500 words a day, but can I do it every day? We’ll see.

House of Thorns is with the publisher, and Paradise Regained goes to 2nd beta on 2 July.

And I’ve made a start on Unkept Promises, so that’s okay. Day 1. Tick.

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Telling or showing in WIP Wednesday

Show, don’t tell, beginning authors are told. And it’s good advice. Put the reader inside the scene and let them watch it unfolding. Don’t give them a character (or worse still, a narrator) who fills in all the backstory in paragraph after paragraph.

Like all good advice, as you gain more experience you know when to ignore it. Showing is usually best. Except when it isn’t. Use the comments to share an excerpt with either sharing or telling, and tell us why you chose to do it that way.

I’ve been thinking of taking one of my newsletter short stories, and turning it into a novella for a box set the Bluestocking Belles might publish for Valentine’s Day 2019. Because of the format, they tend to have a bit of telling — purely and simply to keep the story short. Like this bit from the story I might rewrite, The Mouse Fights Back. (For those who don’t subscribe to my newsletter, each one contains the start of a short story written exclusively for newsletter subscribers and a link to the rest of the story plus all the others I’ve written so far. Click on the link in the side menu to subscribe for this and heaps of other free stuff.)

They were trying to kill his Mouse.

The runaway carriage might have been an accident. Such things happen. Mouse was shopping, with Jasper and two footmen in attendance, when it careened down the street, and only Jasper’s quick thinking and quicker action saved her from injury or worse. He thrust her into a doorway, protecting her with his body, and the carriage passed close enough to tear the back out of his jacket. The footmen both jumped clear. Hampered by her skirts, Mouse could well have been killed.

The shot that just missed her in Hyde Park must surely have been deliberate, though the magistrate called to investigate insisted on regarding it as carelessness at worst. “Some foolish young man making bets with his friends. Not at all the thing. Your wife could have been hurt, and how would they feel then?” Tiberius’s own investigators found a trampled spot in the bushes, probably the place where the assassin had waited to make his shot.

Tiberius doubled the guard on Mouse when she went out, and thought about confining her to the house, but couldn’t bear to curtail the freedom she was enjoying so much as she visited the art galleries, shops and museums she’d been barred from when she was under her aunt’s paw.

His own estate, his investigation into his uncle and stepmother, and Mouse’s affairs kept him busy during the day, and he couldn’t escort her as often as he wished.

As her husband, he now owned her inheritance, but extracting it—or, more likely, what was left of it—from Lord Demetrius’s hands was proving to be difficult, with his uncle’s lawyers throwing up one obstacle after another. Tiberius didn’t need the money, but he would be damned if Lord Demetrius was going to have it. Besides, as Jasper said, if they could prove the wicked uncle had stolen from Mouse’s trust, they would have a reason to have him arrested, and the whole sorry saga could be put to rest.

And then he could spend time with his delightful, fascinating, sweet little wife, who was blossoming like a rose away from the bitter atmosphere of her aunt’s home. The old harridan’s oppression had not suppressed Mouse’s intelligence or her sense of humour. It had made her afraid of almost everything, and every day he saw more reason to admire her courage as she fought through her fear and faced the world with a cheerful smile.

He dodged five more suspicious accidents and outright attacks, but none of them bothered him as much as the crowd of drunken slum dwellers who mobbed Mouse and her footmen in the street as she emerged from his house. He sallied out with the rest of the household and drove the attackers off. She was shaken, but not hurt. This time.

“You need to send her to Redfern,” Jasper scolded, after Tiberius had hugged her, examined her for injury, and handed her over to her maid so she could wash and change. “Every time she goes out in London, she is in danger.”

He was right. At the earldom’s principal estate, Tiberius could control every inch of ground for acres around. He had purged Redfern of the few servants who owed allegiance to Lady Bowden, and those who remained had either been born and brought up on the estate, or were people of his own. She would be far safer there. But he hated the thought of staying in London alone.