‘Black Monday or the Departure for School’, 1919. After William Redmore Bigg (1755–1828)

Somehow, I find myself including children in my stories. Perhaps it is because I am a mother and a grandmother and I write what I know. Or perhaps that putting children into the equation of a marriage adds an extra element with huge potential for plot and character development. However that may be, I’m back into blogging again with another Work in Progress Wednesday invitation. If you have children in your current work in progress, how about giving us a sneak peak by posting an excerpt in the comments?

Mine is from To Mend the Broken Hearted. My hero, Val, is helping in the sickroom, where two of the sick are the little girls he is responsible for. They were born after he was posted overseas, and have been at school for the entire three years he has been home. Mirrie is at the sore throat stage of the smallpox, by the way, hence the staccato delivery.

He entered the room as quietly as he could. The sickest of the schoolgirls was coughing bitterly as a maid tried to encourage her to drink something for her throat. The adult patient was sleeping. The two girls Val was responsible for had reached an arm across the gap between their beds, their hands held in the middle. They lay, each on the edge of their own bed, facing one another, talking in scattered words with long pauses between.

“I met Father.” That was Mirabelle. She had her mother’s build; small-boned and slender, but the blonde hair could have come from either side.

“Nice?” Genevieve was also fair-haired, but with the heavier build of the Ashbury line.

Mirabelle moved her head in a shallow nod. “Kind. Looks a bit like Uncle. But not angry. Kind, Genny.”

“Did you ask?”

Mirabelle shook her head. “Not yet.”

Genny roused enough to insist, “He can’t send us away again while we’re sick.”

“Kind,” Mirrie insisted.

“You think he will let us stay home?”

Mirrie nodded. “Kind,” she repeated

Val concealed his wince. He had no right to the child’s good opinion. He’d done his best to forget the pair of them, even resented Mirrie’s monthly letters because he was honour-bound to think about her long enough to write a cursory reply.

He backed to the door again, and called, “Greetings, ladies. I am on my way to bed, and thought I would come to wish you a day of healing.” The words took him across the floor to the bedsides of the two girls. He smiled at Genevieve. “I know who you are. You are Genny, my brother’s little girl.”

“Lord Ashbury,” the child answered, hope and hesitation mingled in her eyes.

“Uncle Val,” Val suggested. No doubt purists would have a fit to hear a child use such casual address, but hearing their opinion of his brother — angry? what had the old devil put them through? — made him determined to distance himself from the name Mirrie had known the man by. What did Genny call her father? Not Papa, Val was certain.

Genny rewarded him with a smile. “Uncle Val.”

“Rest, my ladies,” he told the two of them. “I need to talk to your attendants, and then I’m off to bed, for I was up all night helping Lady Ruth. I will see you this evening, and will hope to find you both much better.”