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What do women want?

In the classic Arthurian legend Sir Gwain and the Green Knight, the quest was finally over when the heroic knight had married an ugly old woman to get the answer to the question ‘What do women desire above all else?” (The answer was, ‘to govern their own lives’. In the video above, it is expressed as ‘their own way’, but self-governance is the point.)

In romance, which is mostly written by women, that answer is a given. The trick is to create a readable and believable story in which a desirable hero is prepared to be the heroine’s partner, rather than her owner — to let her, in other words, govern her own life. The journey is particularly fun if the story is set in a historical era or a culture where women are possessions and status symbols, but not really people. The journey is harder for some types of hero than others, but if the hero doesn’t make it to Gwain’s conclusion, the book’s a hurler for me (as in hurl it at the wall).

Here’s a version of the eight hero archetypes, and the challenges they face in accepting a partnership with their heroine. (Any given hero might have elements of more than one, of course, and if you look on the internet for hero archetypes, you’ll find lots of different sets.)

The king

This is the alpha hero, the leader. He’s in command. He looks after his own, which includes his entire family and the heroine. He hates making mistakes, can’t admit he’s wrong, won’t share, and is protective to the point of smothering. His challenge is to recognise that his mate is his equal, and that he needs to listen to her, and let her go into life’s battles at his side.

The bad boy

He’s the rebel, the crushed idealist who hates authority and fights for freedom: often only his own. He’s bitter and moody, but also charming and clever. His challenge is to accept himself as worthy of love, which makes him a romance favourite.

The best friend

The beta hero, and a nice responsible, decent, fellow. He doesn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, so he comes across as a bit of wimp, but he is dependable. He always puts others first. He’s practical and responsible. His challenge is to get the heroine to notice him, because he doesn’t have the confidence or the showy glamour of some of the other archetypes.

The lady’s man

Or the jester, or the playboy, or the rogue. He’s fun, but he’s not dependable. He avoids hard work, using his charm to slide into easy situations. His challenge is commitment, and also convincing the heroine that he’s able and willing to commit.

The recluse

This guy is secretive, brooding, and a loner. He’s also wounded and vulnerable. He’ll commit to the heroine, but he’ll never tell her because why should she be interested in an emotional disaster like him? His challenge is to let the heroine into his life far enough that he can discover how she feels about him.

The professor

On the surface, the professor seems cold and hard. He’s logical, introverted, and inflexible. He likes facts. One fact he isn’t too fond of is that he is in love with the heroine. Love means feelings, and he’s not good at feelings. His challenge is to accept that feelings — hers and his — are also facts, and that a lifetime without them isn’t going to be a lot of fun.

The swashbuckler

Who doesn’t love an action hero? The swashbuckler is daring and brave. He loves danger and adventure. He takes risks for the sheer fun of it. His challenges in fiction are often external — his adventures put him and the heroine in danger. He can rescue her, of course, but the danger of a lifelong commitment? Isn’t that a risk too far? Or might it just be life’s greatest adventure?

The protector

Our warrior hero is brave, noble, and relentless. He always sticks up for those who need his help, and he acts according to his conscience, not the rules. He wants to win, and fears being constricted. His challenge is to see his growing love for the heroine as an opportunity, not a prison.

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Where dukes came from

The genre I write in is infested with dukes. They hold the same place in Georgian, Regency, and Victorian romance as billionaires do in contemporary romance. However unlikely our multitudes of young handsome dukes and billionaires might be, they represent a certain type of story — one in which all the power lies with the hero, but still the heroine wins. Because of love. It is a story with a timeless appeal, obviously, but I thought a few facts might be fun.

The title comes from the Latin word dux, meaning a military leader responsible for a sizeable territory, and is found in the countries that were part of the Roman Empire. It was adopted by the barbarians of Germany, and after the Roman Empire fell the dukes kept ruling, either in their own lands or on behalf of a king.

In Germany, eleven sovereign duchies survived into the twentieth century. In France, four duchies were almost independent of the Crown in the early feudal period, but were later absorbed back into the Crown. The ancien regime also appointed dukes who were part of the French peerage rather than hereditary sovereigns: first royal princes, and later illegitimate sons and royal favourites of all kinds. More than 30 of these titles survived into the late 20th century. In Italy, the title is still widespread, not only as a result of the territorial duchies, six of which lasted into modern times, but Popes, Kings and Emperors could — and did — bestow the title.  In Spain, the territorial duchies disappeared with the Moorish conquest, but when the title was revived, it was, as in France and Italy, awarded to royal princes and royal favourites, even most recently as the 1940s. Portugal suffered the same conquest, and likewise revived the title. Fewer Portugese dukes were created than Spanish ones, though.

Britain, with whom our genre is chiefly concerned, imported the title with the Duke of Normandy, but it was Edward III who created the first English dukes. In the 14th and 15th century, all creations had royal blood, but after that it was increasingly given outside the royal family. The same timeframe and devolvement to the wider peerage applied to Scotland.

There were never many dukes in the United Kingdom. In 1814, there were 25 non-royal dukes holding 28 ducal titles:  17 English, 7 Scots only, 1 Irish. Today, there are 26 holding 31 titles. Plus the various sons and grandsons of monarchs, of course, but such historical figures are not available for us to marry off to our heroines.

Ah well. We can always bring one in from the continent. They had a few spares, it seems.

 

UPDATE: following on from some of the comments, I’ve looked up the dukes alive in 1814. Excluding the Duke of Wellington, who was a new creation in that year,  four-fifths were 40 or over in 1814, and half were 50 or over. All but two were married in 1814. One of those never married, and one (Leinster, who succeeded aged 13 and was 23 in 1814) married a couple of years later. So debutantes of the 1814 season had, on the face of it, two dukes in their twenties looking for brides, one Irish and one not interested, as it turned out.

Most of the dukes around in 1814 had already married while still heirs, and nearly all of them married in their twenties. Eight married after they succeeded to the peerage. Seven of these were children at the time of succession. One was 69 at succession and was 80 when his only son was born. I’ll bet there’s a story there.

 

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First meeting on WIP Wednesday

 

This week, I’m thinking about first meetings. My Maximum Force story is percolating in my head, and I’m also planning the first meeting scenes in books 3 and 4 of Children of the Mountain King. As in Unkept Promises, the heroines of those two books met their heroes when they were still schoolgirls, and I haven’t decided whether the scenes will be in flashback, or just narrated as a memory. Max’s heroine, Serenity, is an adult, though — whatever the elders of her cult may think.

Today, I’m inviting authors to give me an excerpt with the first meeting between the hero and the heroine. Mine is from the first chapter of Unkept Promises. The first two chapters are set seven years before the rest of the book. Jules has been captured by smugglers and locked up in a cell.

The light came as a surprise, shining like a beacon from the other side of a barred opening set high up in one wall. Standing, Jules managed to reach the bars and pull himself up, to look through into another cell very much like his own. A man lay still, curled on a mess of rags and clothing. His eyes were shut, and he had not responded to the girl who crouched beside him. She was a skinny child, still boyish in shape, but Jules did not suppose that would discourage the smugglers from making use of her body or selling her to someone for that purpose. He made an instant vow to save her, whatever the cost.

The girl held the candle she had lit away in one hand to cast its light without dripping its wax, and brushed back the hair that fell over the man’s forehead. “Oh, Papa,” she said, her voice trembling.

“Miss,” Jules hissed. The girl startled back from her father. Her face, already pale, 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 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.

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Tea with the Fourniers

Fournier’s of London had been open for three weeks, three weeks in which the numbers of diners had grown nightly until they needed to take bookings and began to turn people away at the door.

Tonight, though, no bookings had been accepted and nor would casual diners be able to penetrate into the elegant interior, where polished wood, crisp white linen, shining silver, and sparkling crystal waited for the few privileged guests.

And tonight, welcoming the diners would not be the task of the maître d’hôtel who usually managed the dining room while the proprietor controlled the kitchen.

Tonight, Marcel had left his chief assistant in charge of the final preparations. Tonight, Monsieur Fournier himself would greet his patrons, and not alone. For tonight, the restaurant, normally a sanctuary for gentlemen, would be entertaining women, and not only women, but ladies. Including Cedrica, who was waiting at the door.

Had it been less than a year since she had written to her father’s noble relative in a last desperate bid to keep the bishop from locking the poor man up? How things had changed!

Here was the biggest change of all: her husband, looking splendid in a black dress coat and knee breeches. He slipped an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. “Are you nervous, cherie?”

“Proud, Marcel. I am looking forward to showing our investors what we have done.”

He turned with her, surveying the largest of five dining rooms with satisfaction. Here, they could host up to one hundred diners at a time, with tables that could be divided or put together to suit the convenience of the patrons, from single diners to large banquets. The smallest of the rooms accommodated eight with comfort and could be configured for smaller groups.

Tonight, they would be using one of the medium-sized rooms, for tonight, they welcomed the friends who had taken shares in the restaurant.

It had been Lord Aldridge’s idea. When Cedrica first realized that he planned to pay the dowry he had promised, she voiced her decision to split it between buying care for her father and helping Marcel pay for the restaurant, but Aldridge advised her to think again.

“The Grenfords owe your father a duty of care,” he assured her. “Invest in the restaurant by all means, but not only in the restaurant. You also need a separate income. I suggest money in the Funds for security and then some other ventures that will give a greater return. You must think of your long-term security, cousin.”

Cedrica had quizzed Marcel on his plans and then spent hours collecting figures and doing sums. “But we will need all that money if we are to open this year.”

“We could work another year,” Marcel suggested, “or open a lesser establishment.”

“Or accept investors,” Aldridge suggested. “You and Cedrica to hold the majority share, and no one else with more than…” He pursed his lips as he considered, “five percent. You would have my support. I am confident you will make me money.”

Her Grace agreed, and so did the Laceys and the Suttons and others. In no time at all, it seemed, they had the funds to make over a building to Marcel’s high standards, the rental on a comfortable home nearby, and investments in the Funds, Aldridge’s cousin’s trading company, a woolen mill in Manchester, and a canal building enterprise.

Less than two months after the end of the house party where it all started, Monsieur Marcel Fournier and Mademoiselle Cedrica Grenford were married. Twice. Once according to English practice and law and again in a small comfortable parlor off the side of the local Roman Catholic chapel.

And now Monsieur and Madame Fournier would say thank you to those who made it possible.

“It looks well,” Marcel decided. “And the dinner, the dinner, my Rica, will be the most magnificent they have ever tasted.”

Cedrica smiled. He said that every night, and every night, his guests assured him it was true.

Out in the hall, the restaurant door opened, and they could hear the portier greeting the first arrivals. In moments, it seemed, they were surrounded by cheerful friends, the men slapping Marcel on the back and congratulating him on making them all rich, the women kissing Cedrica on the cheek and gently scolding her for being too busy to meet friends for tea.

“Mama and I brought you a present,” Aldridge said. “I left it in the hall. Just one moment.” He left the room and returned a moment later with a long, flat, oblong shape wrapped in silk and tied with ribbon, which he handed to the duchess.

“We wanted to give you something useful but unusual, something that would always remind you of Hollystone Hall,” she said.

Marcel, seated beside Cedrica, lifted her hand and kissed it. “I have a wonderful souvenir of that house party, Your Grace,” he said.

The duchess smiled. “Indeed you do. To remind you of us, then, Monsieur. We consulted with Mrs. Pearce, and she suggested that this might be suitable.”

What on earth could it be? Cedrica and Marcel took one end of the parcel each and began to untie ribbons. When Marcel cleared his end of the silk and saw the box within, he began to laugh. Cedrica was still mystified until she finished unwrapping and was able to open the box and see the pearwood mold within, the one with the dolphin shapes that had caused such contention.

“Look, Marcel, at last you will be able to make your ice tower!”

Leave it to Aldridge to have the last word, as he raised his glass of wine. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Fournier’s of London. May it, and its proprietors, be a towering success.”

***

Today’s scene is the epilogue from A Suitable Husband, a stand-alone novella that first appeared in Holly and Hopeful Hearts. In that anthology, the Bluestocking Belles wrote stories set around a house party hosted by the Duchess of Haverford.

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Is it news if not much is happening?


I’ve not been doing much writing. Instead, I’ve been doing a heap of reading, quite a few tasks around the place, a modicum of socialising, and thinking. Mountains of thinking.

The thinking is partly about plot and character. Unkept Promises needs more work before it is ready for someone else to edit and proofread. I’m rewriting large chunks of To Wed a Proper Lady to tighten the story and introduce plot elements that will work themselves out over the series (the Duke of Haverford and his slow demise, for one). I keep seeing scenes from the next two books in the Mountain King series. I’ve worked out plot motivations for the next Redepenning book. And I’m about to set down and do a Hero’s Journey for Maximum Force, the contract killer, and his heroine, Serenity Christian.

It’s also partly about my own motivations. Somewhere in all the discussion about how hard it is to be seen in the bazillion book marketplace, with its pirates and its scammers and all the barriers put up by the retailers and social-media companies in their bid for world-domination, I’d lost track of the fact I don’t care.

It isn’t that I don’t want my books to be read. I do. I really, really do, and I humbly thank all of you who have followed me and supported me. But that isn’t why I write.

I write, and I publish what I write, because telling stories is a huge part of what I am, and a story isn’t real until a reader or listener recreates it in their own imagination. To put it in religious terms, this is my vocation. I need to tell the stories that are in my head to tell, and to do so with all the skill and imagination at my command. I need to slave and fret over them till they’re the best they can be. That’s my calling. That needs to be my focus.

I’m not going to ignore marketing, because to do so would be stupid. I’m not going to worry about it, either. My job is to write.

 

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The villain of the piece on Work in Progress Wednesday

This week’s challenge is to post an excerpt with your villain. I’m looking for his entry onto the stage; as always, just post your piece into the comments.

I’ve been rethinking To Wed a Proper Lady. It had mired in the last third, and I needed to take a step back. I’ve now done a hero’s journey chart for both protagonists, and mapped the overarching plot line for the series, and one of the things I’ve decided is to introduce my series villain early on. He has been lurking in the background of a number of my books, but it is in Children of the Mountain King that he steps up into the key negative protagonist role. He dies somewhere before the fifth book, but the nastiness he foments isn’t all solved till the end of the sixth.

The Duke of Haverford had been at the ball for nearly two hours, which was unusual enough to catch Sophia Belvoir’s attention. He’d been attending more events in polite Society than usual this Season, the first for two of the duchess’s wards, but this was the first time Sophia had known him to stay beyond the first half hour

He was strolling through the crowded reception rooms, stopping from time to time for a brief conversation, then moving on. After a while, a pattern emerged: all the people he stopped were men, peers, and members of the loose political group that voted with Haverford in the House of Lords. What was his Grace of Haverford campaigning for now?

The Earl of Hamner asked Sophia to dance. She was sought as a partner by husbands and confirmed bachelors who wished to dance without giving rise to gossip or expectations. Twice-betrothed, she was clearly not a wallflower. Twice-bereaved, she was nearly, but not quite, a widow. The never-wed sister of a protective earl, she was off-limits for seduction, but at twenty-five she was too old to expect a proposal of marriage. Being outside the expected categories for high-born females was a sort of freedom, she had discovered.

When Hamner returned her to the matrons with whom she’d made her debut, she was the only one not to blush and turn away as Haverford paused in front on them. His attention was on Hamner, another of his acolytes, and not on the ladies, but they fluttered as if a fox had strolled into the dovecote.

Not far from the truth, though if the elderly rakehell was on the hunt tonight, it was for naïve politicians and not the young wives of other men.

Sophia, protected by her virgin status and her relationship with the evil old man’s wife, curtseyed and said, “Good evening, Your Grace.” He cast a wintery eye in her direction. He had no time for women who did not conform to his expectations, and she was surprised even to receive a stiff nod. “Lady Sophia.” She had heard the man had charm; had even seen him executing it. Clearly the elderly spinster sister of the Earl of Hythe did not warrant his further attention. “Hamner, a word, if you please.”

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Tea with Jude

 

Her Grace gestures to a seat, and begins to pour a fragrant cup of tea from the teapot she has ready at her elbow. She does not ask how I have it — medium strength, no sugar, no milk or cream. We have been together now for more than six years, and we know one another’s habits.

She has become more than I expected when she first surfaced from the depths of my imagination. My notebook says:

Anthony George Bartholomew Philip Grenford, Duke of Haverford, Marquess of Aldbridge, Baron Chillingham
m
Eleanor Frances Sophia Grenford nee Creydon (daughter of Earl of Farnmouth)

Duchess with two sons and unhappy marriage treasures her many goddaughters. Links books through goddaughters. Sons have their own stories.The Duchess also rescued her husband’s by blows and put them into school etc. See David. Could be more stories about these by-blows.

“That was the start,” Eleanor agrees, “but we have gone beyond that, have we not?”

We have. Even from her first appearance, she has demanded her own voice. She is the maternal aunt of the hero of my first novel, and he goes to her when he needs help with the social circumstances of his lovely widow. England is in the middle of the 1807 election, and Eleanor has been canvassing the Kent electorate on behalf of her husband’s candidate.

The sun was setting on Saturday evening, and Rede was beside himself with frustration, before the Duchess of Haverford’s coach was finally seen tooling up the road to the castle.
He was waiting when she entered the front door, and she greeted him with pleasure. “Rede, darling. What a lovely surprise. Have you been waiting for me long?
“Such a circus in Deal. The electors were inclined to listen to the merchants, and the merchants did not favour Haverford’s man. Not at all.
“So I had to visit every shop in the town and buy something. The carriage, I can assure you, is laden. But Haverford believes that it may have done the trick.
“Just as well, dear, for I have enough Christmas presents for every one of my godchildren for the next three years. And some of them are not of the best quality, I can assure you.”
She was talking as she ascended the stairs, giving her cloak to a maid as she passed, her bonnet to a footman, and her reticule to another maid.
“You want something, I expect. Well, you shall tell me all about it at dinner. I left most of the food I purchased at the orphanage in Margate, but I kept a pineapple for dessert. Such fun, my dear, have you tried one?”
“No, dear aunt,” he managed to say, sliding his comment in as she paused to give her gloves to yet another maid. Or it may have been the first maid again.
“Well, today you shall. Join me in the dining room in—shall we say one hour?” And she sailed away towards her apartments, leaving him, as always, feeling as if he had been assaulted by a friendly and affectionate hurricane.
Over dinner, he laid all honestly before her. Well, perhaps not all. The lovely widow, betrayed by George, the three sisters, the little daughter. No need to mention that he’d played fast and loose himself with the lady’s virtue. Just that he needed to rehabilitate her. Just that he wanted to marry her and she had refused.
“She has refused you, Rede?” Her Grace was surprised. “But you are handsome, titled and charming. And rich. What does she object to?”
Rede hadn’t been able to work it out, either. “I know she cares for me, Aunt Eleanor. But she keeps saying no. The first time—to be honest, the first time I made a disaster of it. I told her… I gave her the impression that I only wanted her for a wife because she was too virtuous to be my mistress.”
Her Grace gave a peal of laughter. “Oh Rede, you didn’t.”
“I’m afraid I did. But the second time I assured her that I wanted her for my Countess.”
“And you told her that you loved her,” the Duchess stated.
“No. Not exactly. I told her I wanted to keep her safe. I told her I wanted to protect her.”
“I see. And I suppose you think if you bring her into society, she will consent to marry you?”
“I don’t know, aunt. I only know that she deserves a better life than stuck in a worker’s cottage in the back of nowhere working as a teacher so she can one day give her sister a decent life. If she won’t have me… Well, she has been to see a lawyer about a small inheritance she has coming. I thought perhaps I could make it a bit bigger. Without her knowing.”
“You do love her,” said the Duchess, with great satisfaction.
“Yes, but… Yes.” There were no buts. He loved her. At least he hadn’t told her so. He had no taste for laying his heart on the floor for her to walk on.
“You need to tell her so.” The Duchess echoed and denied his thinking, all in one short sentence. “She is probably afraid that you are marrying her out of a misplaced sense of duty. You are far too responsible, Rede.”
“No, she couldn’t think that. Could she?”
“Who knows? Well, I will do it. I cannot have my niece-in-law having her babies in scandal. I take it there is the possibility of a baby? You would not be feeling so guilty otherwise.”
Rede was without a response for a long moment, finally huffing a laugh. “Aunt Eleanor, a hundred years ago you would have burnt as a witch,” he told her.

Eleanor reads the words over my shoulder and laughs. “Silly boy,” she observes. “But it all turned out in the end.”

“And then you helped Becky and Hugh,” I reminded her. A shadow passes over her face. That also turned out in the end, though perhaps not for Eleanor’s son, the Marquis of Aldridge.

By that time, Eleanor Haverford had embedded herself into my Regency world. She appears again and again, always helping, always protecting the defenseless and supporting the cause of true love.

From her wistful look into her cup, I know what she is thinking. I know the question she wants to ask.

“Will it ever be my turn?” The room hums with the unspoken words.

I can’t answer; those stories are not written yet, although I’ve begun them. Things change as I’m writing. I can’t imagine that the one-word answer will reverse, but she will want details, and I need to write the six-novel series, Children of the Mountain King, to find out for certain whether it will ever be Eleanor’s turn.

I hope so. She deserves it.

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What a shambles

Did you know that a shambles was originally a meat slaughterhouse and market? I didn’t. It came to be used for scenes of carnage and disorder, and later lost the sense of guts and gore to become a description of a teenager’s bedroom. Except in England, where it survives as a place name — The Shambles in York, for example.

The word ‘cheap’ is another one associated with markets. It comes through old English from a Latin word meaning a small trader or innkeeper. In old English, it came to mean a market, giving us market towns such as Chipping Campden and Chepstow. In the fifteenth century, a good cheap was a good bargain,  which lead to the modern meaning.

As to my own name, the original Old English was cniht, meaning a boy or a youth. It was a term common to the Germanic languages and came to mean young warrior and then military follower before it settled into its current meaning (a rank in the nobility) in around the mid-sixteenth century. My full surname is Knighton, and a ton was a homestead, piece of land, or group of buildings enclosed in some way. Originally, in the Germanic languages, it meant a fortified place, but some of the other languages derived from Proto-Germanic have settled on a meaning of ‘hedge or fence’. So I’ve always suggested that my surname means the young fellow hiding behind the hedge.

The word evolved by the mid twelfth century to mean an inhabited place larger than a village; our modern spelling is ‘town’.

The measure ‘ton’ comes from a French word meaning ‘cask’. It was a measure of weight — the quantity necessary to fill a cask, hence a ‘ton of bricks’.

The Georgian ‘ton’ is a different word altogether. It comes from Old French — ‘ton’ was a musical sound or tone. From the fifteenth century, the word ‘tone’ was used in English to mean a manner of speaking, but in the eighteenth century the French word was borrowed again, this time to mean ‘the prevailing mode or style’. The full phrase was ‘le bon ton’ — those of good manners. Members of the ton came from the aristocracy, the gentry, and royalty.

Isn’t language fun?

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The hero’s friends on WIP Wednesday

A person is known by the company they keep. It’s an old saying, and a useful one for writers. Our characters show who they are in the friends they choose, and the way they behave with those friends. This week, I’m looking for excerpts with your hero and one or more friends. Please post it in the comments. Mine is from a story I’m just beginning to put together in my mind; one tentatively called Maximum Force and the Immovable Lady.

Max watched from the shadows as the Earl of Ruthford browsed the shelves in his library, one finger running along the leather spines, occasionally tipping a book out for further examination. So far, all those selected had been returned to their place.

The man looked well; better, in fact, than Max had ever seen him. His casual house attire — ornately-patterned banyan worn over an open-necked shirt, loose pantaloons and indoor slippers — suited him no less well than the regimentals of their joint past. The tall form, broad in the shoulders and narrow in the hips, had not changed, and nor had the dark hair, cropped short enough to discourage but not eliminate the curls.

However, something about the way he carried himself spoke of comfort ; happiness, even. The ready smile, flashed at a book that amused him, carried no overtones of bitterness; no expectation of a dark tomorrow. Max’s old colleague and sometime commander had found a haven here in England; in his ancestral home. Max envied him.

Watching so closely, he caught the moment the earl realised he was not alone: a miniscule pause in the movement of the reaching hand, a slight tension in the shoulders. It was enough warning. When the earl turned and pounced, all in one fluid movement, Max was ready for him, sliding sideways and speaking as he did.

“Good to see you, too, Lion.”