A Bend in the Road

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Falling in love in WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from “A Bend in the Road”, my story in Love’s Perilous Road, which will be published October 31st. My newsletter story this month will be a little vignette of their meeting and their time in Brussels. In the scene, Justin has been wounded, and Felicity is reading out loud to him.

Justin was seduced anew by the magic of her melodic voice, with the laughing glances Felicity cast at him, inviting him to share her amusement at the florid text. Seduced by dreams he should not have. She had always enchanted him, from the moment he had first seen her on the deck of the yacht Sea Mist off the coast of some remote English village. The sling that had lifted her aboard had been caught by a rogue wave before it lifted beyond the sea’s reach. He was there to welcome aboard some earl’s sister, undoubtedly indignant at the wave’s lèse-majesté and ready to blame the nearest officer—him.

Then Felicity emerged from the sling, a laughing if somewhat drenched fairy, her golden hair sparkling in the sun, but not as much as her blue eyes, and he was her slave from that moment.

Each day in Felicity’s company had enraptured him more. On the sea voyage, he had tried hard to convince himself that she was a social butterfly, all glitter and glamour. But watching her smoothly take charge on the canal boat and the midpoint accommodation house dispelled that impression, and a few days in Brussels taught him she was a consummate hostess, a skilled politician, a stateswoman and—as he worked beside her in the make-shift hospital that received Waterloo casualties, a strong and compassionate woman.

He loved her, and living without her was living with a gaping hole where his heart should be.

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A Bow Street Runner in WIP Wednesday

Some of the Bluestocking Belles’ more complicated box sets have had not just a common setting or event, but a bit of a puzzle – Who is sending gossip to the Teatime Tattler? (Storm and Shelter) Whose baby is the orphan with the amulet belonging in the village, delivered by a travelling couple who found him in France. (Under the Harvest Moon) And the one coming up, Love’s Perilous Road, in which the overarching question is, who is the highwayman?

Of course, that sets up a question about how to order the stories so we don’t let the cat out of the bag too soon! I hope, when you read our ten stories, that you’ll agree with the order we have chosen.

Of course, people in our stories were also asking that question, and one of them was Principal Officer Robert Pierce, sent by the Office of the Magistrate’s Court, Bow Street, London. My Bow Street runner’s case book forms a little vignette between each story, as he writes his thoughts about the events of the day, consigning his frustrations and sometimes his successes to paper, for his own eyes only. And yours, dear reader. Here is Casebook entry number 4.

The Casebook of Principal Officer Robert Pierce

The Office of the Magistrates’ Court, Bow Street, London

The clue of the trousers on the church steeple led nowhere. No one knows who put the trousers up there, and the curate swears he was the only man with a key. The locals are protective of “their” Captain Moonlight, but there will be a break soon. I am certain of it. Everyone makes a mistake sometime.

The second highwayman robbed another coach. Had ladies not been present, I am certain the man would have been shot, for the ladies were accompanied by some very competent gentlemen. It is a risky business, being a highwayman without a gang.

I am getting closer to Larcenous Lucy! Word has it she has been active in Brighton itself, so I am heading there in the morning.

If you’d like to know more about Robert, the trousers on the steeple, the two highwaymen (and possibly a third), Larcenous Lucy, smugglers, a ghost, a blackmailer, Fennians, and more – not to mention ten delightful romances, read Love’s Perilous Road, now on preorder, and published October 31st.

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Highwaymen, smugglers and other dangers

The next Bluestocking Belles’ collection, Love’s Perilous Road, serves up a heaping helping of romance, with a side order of highwaymen, garnished with a few smugglers, a ghost, a gang of Fennians and more than one spy.

Were there highwaymen in Sussex in this period? Sure were, and smugglers, too, though the popularity of Brighton meant that they’d moved along the coast. Don’t miss it!

And meanwhile, here’s a video on the ins and out of being a highwayman.

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Proposal under pressure on WIP Wednesday

Here’s an excerpt from my novella in next month’s Bluestocking Belles’ collection, Love’s Perilous Road. My heroine has come to warn my hero of the villain’s plans, but he has other things on his mind.

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“Was that Grant I saw leaving?” she demanded, as he drew her inside and shut the door to protect her from the eyes of scandalmongers. “What did he want?”

“To tell me I wasn’t good enough for you,” he blurted.

She raised her eyebrows and gave an unamused chuckle. “At least there is something the two of you agree about.”

I hurt her. Justin supposed he must have known it before, but seeing her use humor to deflect possible hurt brought it home to him.

“I told him we are betrothed,” he blurted. “I shouldn’t have. Not when I haven’t even asked you. I love you, Lady Felicity Belvoir. I have loved you since I first met you. For the past two years, even while I kept telling myself that it was hopeless, and that I was an arrogant bumptious fool for ever thinking I was fit to touch the toe of your shoe, I have loved you. Will you forgive this poor fool for running away without talking to you?”

Somewhere in that impassioned speech, he had caught up her two hands. He lifted them to his lips, and then said, “Will you marry me, and join me in a partnership to make our dreams come true? Will you, Felicity?”

Felicity lifted her lovely face and touched her sweet lips to his. “Yes, Justin. Yes, I will.”

During the kiss, Justin lost his wits for a while, allowing Felicity to instead fill his senses, sinking into the web of desire even as he wove it. He was not ready when she drew back after several glorious minutes, but he immediately loosened his grip so that she did not feel confined.

She had an urgent matter on her mind.

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Unwanted Suitors in WIP Wednesday

Here’s a passage from my story in the Bluestocking Belles With Friends collection Love’s Perilous Road.

Apparently, Captain Grant could not bring himself to believe that Felicity meant the firm ‘no’ with which she had greeted his proposals in Paris in 1815 and again in 1816, and the proposal that followed in London. He showed every sign that he was going to try a fourth during this house party. What a nuisance the man was!

He must have shared his intentions with Penelope Somerville, for he was assigned to take Felicity in to dinner two nights in a row, and when they travelled into the village to patronize the local shops, Penelope sent Felicity to ride in a curricle driven by Captain Grant.

He also followed her around, partnering her in every two-person activity if she had not been quick enough to find another partner, joining any group she was in, sitting next to her at tea, and constantly speaking to and about her as if they were an established couple.

She managed to deflect any attempts on his part to turn the conversation in a personal direction, and truly, if it came to the point, she would simply refuse him again. But it was exhausting.

Also annoying, for she had had no opportunity to make another visit to the schoolhouse, and Justin had not tried to see her. Robin, too, was playing least in sight, so she could not even recruit him to either carry a message to Justin or run interference with Captain Grant so she could be her own messenger.

“Penelope,” Felicity said to her hostess after breakfast on the third morning of the house party, “Please stop pairing me with Captain Grant. I do not wish him to think I might be amenable to his courtship.”

“But darling,” Penelope replied, “Captain Grant has done me the courtesy of discussing his intentions towards you, and they are everything honorable. He is a gentleman of means, and while his father’s family is nothing to speak of, his mother’s people are mostly highly connected. Most highly indeed.”

“Captain Grant has already proposed several times, Penelope. I have refused and will continue to do so.”

Penelope could not understand it. “But Felicity, you cannot have thought. He is most eligible, I assure you, and so elegant in his manner. I cannot see any objection. Indeed, I am certain the Earl of Hythe and your sister Sophia would be most distressed if I failed to urge you to reconsider.”

Penelope was quite out, there. Hythe disliked Grant, though he had declined to discuss why, which left Felicity with the impression it was to do with the secret work Hythe sometimes did under cover of his diplomatic positions. And Grant was not popular with Sophia, either.

“I have nothing personal against the man, Felicity,” Sophia had said. “But I cannot warm to him. And His Grace has warned both me and James against becoming too familiar with Captain Grant, so I daresay he knows something to the man’s discredit.” His Grace was the Duke of Winshire, father to Sophia’s husband James, the Earl of Sutton.

Even if Felicity had been partial to Captain Grant, she must have questioned her inclination once she discovered he had come to the attention, and not in a good way, of her brother and her sister’s father-in-law, both of whom were active in His Majesty’s service.

She could not tell Penelope any of that. It was probably some sort of top secret, and she did not have details, in any case.

“Neither my brother nor my sister would want me to marry where I felt no affection, Penelope. Indeed, and I know I can rely upon your discretion—I cannot like the man. No doubt a fault in me, but there it is. I am certain you would not wish me to pursue an acquaintance with a person I dislike, for you are so very fond of Sir Peter, and he of you.”

Penelope frowned, wrinkling her nose as if she might be about to cry. “Oh dear. Are you certain? Only, he seemed so certain you were merely showing maidenly reserve, and that his persistence would win you.” She sighed. “I did think it romantic he would try and try again.”

I find it disturbing. “I am certain. And truly, Penelope? Maidenly reserve? You have known me since I was eleven!”

Penelope giggled like the girl she had been when she first became friends with Sophia. “I suppose you are right, darling. You have always been very confident.”

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Choices on WIP Wednesday

In my story for Love’s Perilous Road, my heroine is accosted by the villain.

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All Felicity wanted was a couple of hours sleep, which was surely not too much to ask. But apparently it was. She had talked to Robin for a few minutes and then gone upstairs to find Victor Grant waiting in the hall outside of her bedchamber.

“I trust your patient has not died in the night,” he said, in a tone that implied the opposite.

The best form of defense was attack. “Were you spying on me, Mr. Grant?”

“Let us say, rather, I was looking out for the lady I mean to make my bride.”

“I have already refused your proposal, Mr. Grant. I will not marry you.”

Grant smiled. “I think you will. I hold your reputation in the palm of my hand, Lady Felicity. One word from me, and the whole of England will know you spent the night in the schoolhouse with Weatherall. And what is he, after all? A penniless schoolmaster. Distantly related to an earl, it is true. But by no means a match for a Belvoir, one of the great families of England.”

“Of the United Kingdom, Mr. Grant,” Felicity informed him, lifting her chin proudly. And yes, she was proud. The Belvoirs had served king and country since there was a country, and all without scandal staining their name. Grant was mistaken if he thought his threat would work on her, however. That very pristine reputation would protect her, and if it did not? Then better retirement to the country alone than marriage to a yellow-bellied cur.

“The answer is still no,” she said.

The man had not expected that. His smile slipped, and he snarled. “Then I will have no choice but to tell that Bow Street Runner who is here looking for our highwayman that Weatherall is Captain Moonlight,” he said.

Felicity absorbed the blow, schooling her face to show no expression. He could not know for certain, and even if he had witnessed something incriminating, it would be his word against Justin’s. And her word. She would give Justin an alibi even if she had to perjure herself. “What utter nonsense,” she said.

“I am going to Brighton today, Lady Felicity. I shall call on your brother and tell him what you have been up to. He, at least, will have a care to your reputation.”

Felicity managed to say, quietly, “I am of age, Mr. Grant. I will make my own choices.”

“Be sure that you make the right one,” Grant insisted and swaggered off, leaving Felicity far more disturbed than she would allow him to see.

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The schoolhouse in WIP Wednesday

An excerpt from A Bend in the Road, a novella for the next Bluestocking Belles box set.

Justin Bannerville dismissed the children for the day and set about straightening the schoolroom. Putting everything away where it belonged was the last task he assigned every day, but it never ceased to surprise him how much even the older children missed. A lid off an ink pot. A crumpled piece of paper tucked out of sight under a desk. (Smoothed out, it proved to be the dart Gareth and Billy had been tossing back and forth until he caught them at it. He had wondered where that had gone.)

Several items went into his desk drawer for tomorrow, when he would hold each one up and ask the owner to collect it. He hoped a moment of shame might make the perpetrators more careful in future, but so far, it had not had the desired effect.

Was he expecting too much? The smallest of powder monkeys soon learned to keep his kit and his duty station immaculately tidy. Mind you, the navy used a heavy hand to enforce discipline, even on those most junior crew members. Justin had never liked the practice. Whipping or birching might enforce obedience, but it created fear and resentment, too. Justin had seen crews turn sour under the rule of a bully, and a surly crew was ripe for mutiny.

Justin would not have used birching in his schoolroom in any case, since he taught both boys and girls. No man worth his salt would raise his hand against a female, and Justin couldn’t consider it fair to birch boys and not girls.

“They are not a bad lot,” he reminded himself. Their untidiness might offend his navy-trained sensibilities, but they were mostly good students. With a few notable exceptions.

“Milly Stone is heading for a sharp set down.” Milly Stone was the daughter of the butcher, and revelled in her reputation as the prettiest girl in the village. She was fifteen, and her ambition in life was to better her mother’s achievement of marrying by sixteen and having her first child before her seventeenth birthday. She had set her sights on becoming the schoolmaster’s bride, and was doomed to disappointment.

“Silly chit. She is half my age and has considerably less than half my wits.”

As if his thoughts had conjured her up, Milly sashayed through the door, all ready for conquest. “Mr Bannerville?” She’d either been stung by a bee or she’d been pinching her cheeks and biting her lips. Given that she had also unbuttoned the top of her dress and folded the pieces back to give herself a decollatage that would not have disgraced the seamier streets of Paris, Justin was placing his bets against the bees.

“Did you leave something behind again, Miss Stone?” He attempted to infuse his voice with both ice and long-suffering boredom. It worked about as well as he expected. Milly was impervious to hints.

“I thought I might be able to help you, Mr Bannerville,” the girl simpered, batting her eyelids so vigorously that Justin imagined he could feel the wind.

“No, thank you. It is time for you to go home.”

Instead, she continued to advance across the classroom. “You are so diligent, Mr Bannerville,” she cooed. “So much better than our last teacher.”

Justin had replaced an elderly lady who used to set the work for her pupils each morning and spend the rest of the day asleep. She had been thrilled to accept when Lord Somerville, the school’s patron, offered her a pension and a little cottage of her own. And Justin had been delighted to take her place—still was, Miss Stone notwithstanding.

“Mrs Caldecott was an excellent teacher in her day, so I am told,” he said. “Do run along, Miss Stone. It is not appropriate for you to be here with me when the other pupils are not absent.”

“I don’t mind.” There went the eyelashes again, stirring up a hurricane. “Da won’t mind, either. He likes you better than my other suitors.”

Good Lord. “Miss Stone, I am not your suitor.”

Milly leaned forward to give Justin a better view of her mammary assets. “You could be, though, Mr Bannerville. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter if you are poor. Da is rich, and he likes the idea of having a gentleman as a son.”

Time for that set down, Justin. Pity you haven’t composed one. He’d just have to improvise. “Miss Stone, even if I was in the market for a wife, I would not consider a child of half my age.” Or a chit with feathers for brains and no more thought of what marriage entailed beyond a pretty gown for her wedding and the chance to lord it over the other girls in the village.

Another simper warned Justin that the palatable excuse had not been enough. “Da says a man is better to marry a young wife, so he can teach her how to go on.”

Mrs Stone was a timid woman completely in the shadow of her formidable husband and demanding daughter. Justin could not imagine Milly ever becoming a counterpart of her mother, no matter whom she married.

“You have my answer, Miss Stone. I will not change my mind, and if you continue to attempt to flirt with me, I shall tell your father that you are learning nothing at school, which is no more than the truth, and that you should stay at home and help your mother.”

For a moment, Milly looked her age, as she pouted and stamped one foot. “You are so mean,” she declared.