Scarred heroes

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Broken families on WIP Wednesday

I’m beginning to get my first comments back on the beta draft of To Mend the Broken Hearted, so I thought I’d give you a piece. Val’s sister-in-law and Ruth’s cousin have stolen his little girl as revenge, and Ruth was captured when she went after them. Ruth’s family and Val’s comrades from the army have banded together to get Ruth and Genny back.

This story is about family. Val’s family is broken, but with Ruth’s help, he’ll rebuild what he can. Her family is split in two, with half left behind in the East. Another kind of break. Still, love binds them together.

Do you write about families? Born, made, or cobbled together? Share an excerpt in the comments.

Every strategy had risks, as the duke said when he summed up the discussion that followed. “We don’t have any idea where in the house our ladies are being kept. If we break in, they may be hurt before we can get to them. If we wait until morning, or whenever Wharton chooses to emerge, our ladies may be suffering right now, and we’ll be standing by while it happens.”

Val had been examining the house from where they stood in the cover of the stables. “What if we could get in from the top? Find an empty room in the attics and enter that way? If we could get even a couple of people inside, and they could find our ladies…?”

“It would be a tough climb,” Rutledge mused, his eyes narrowing as he considered the idea.

“I could do it,” Drew offered. “It’s our best chance, Kaka. If we can find our ladies and take out their guard, we can defend them while the rest of you make a full on assault.”

The duke gave a sharp nod, and Drew fell into a quiet conversation with one of his warriors, while the pair of them removed their gloves, their jackets, their boots and their stockings. “Kaka, we’ll ascend between the porch pillars and the side of the house, then walk that bit of pediment, climb up where that wing meets the main house, and make our way to the roof. We should be able to drop down to that bit of roof by the gable there,” he pointed to each feature as he named it. “The window is slightly open, so there may be someone inside. We’ll make a decision on whether to enter or keep looking once we’ve got up there. Once we’re inside, watch for us to signal that we’ve found the ladies.”

The duke nodded again. “And then we’ll attack. We will be ready, my son.”

Val watched in agonised envy as Drew and his companion ascended the house face, taking it in turns to lead, the lower one often offering a foothold for the other, who then would pause to reach back for his partner. I should be doing that. But even when he had both hands, he couldn’t climb the way those two did.

“They are quite mad,” Jamie murmured in his ear. “Back at home, they used to climb rockfaces for fun. Still do. The pair of them are making a list of all the mountains in Wales and Scotland with climbs they consider worth doing.”

Around them, the men dispersed, one group to each face of the house, to choose windows to break through when the signal came. Val stayed, watching the climbers approach the attic window.

They were almost there when the window opened wide, and someone leaned out of it. Val stepped out of the shadow, staring. “Ruth!” It was. She and Drew were embracing through the open window, and then she stepped back out of sight and returned to help Genny climb out of the window into Drew’s waiting arms.

He settled the child on his back, clinging like a monkey, and Ruth followed her out the window. “What is she doing?” Jamie asked. “Ah! I see.” Ruth had taken off her pelisse and her shoes and stockings. She looped her skirt up between her legs and bound it in place by tying her pelisse around her waist by the sleeves. She used her sash to tie Genny to Drew’s back.

Val waited, his heart in his mouth, and Drew led the way down, Ruth following, and his friend bringing up the rear, helping Ruth whenever she had trouble making progress. Never had five minutes moved so slowly, but at last Drew set one foot and then another onto the ground, and Val was there to untie his little girl and take her in his arms.

 

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New Year’s goals on WIP Wednesday

 

So what are your writer goals for 2020? Can you share an excerpt that relates to those goals? One of mine is to publish at least the first four novels in The Children of the Mountain King.

Paradise Regained, the prequel, went out in December. Melting Matilda, an associated novella, is in the Belles’ box set Fire & Frost, published on 4 February. And I hope to have the preorder for To Wed a Proper Lady up by the end of the weekend, with publication early in April.

As always, put your extract in the comments. Mine is from the next Mountain King novel: To Mend the Broken-Hearted.

Ruth roused from a doze in the small dark hours after midnight, though she hadn’t known her eyes had closed until a sound startled her awake.  Something out of place, it must have been, alerting the sentinel in her brain that she’d developed when she and Zyba were out in the field. They had served her father and honed their skills by dressing as boys and riding with the guard squads assigned to escort caravans through bandit country in the mountains and deserts of her homeland.

There it was again. A metallic scrape. Silently, she uncurled from her chair, reaching through the slit in her skirt for the dagger in the sheath strapped to her thigh. Against the gray of the night, a blacker shape climbed onto the window sill, pausing there to whisper. “Lady Ruth?”

Assassins do not usually announce themselves. She could probably acquit the intruder of malicious intent, which meant he was more in danger from the illness than she and her charges where from him.

“Go away,” she told him. “This room is in quarantine. We have four cases of smallpox.”

The man moved, coming fully into the room so she could see hints of detail in the far reaches of the candle light. He was tall, with broad shoulders. A determined chin caught the light as he pulled something from his pocket and sat on a chair by the window. The light also glinted off a head of close-cut fair hair.

“I am aware. Four patients, one of them my responsibility. One exhausted doctor. You need help.” As he spoke, he lifted one bare foot after the other, rolling on a stocking each and then tucking the long elegant foot into a soft indoor shoe.

“I don’t need more patients,” Ruth objected, less forcefully than she might if he had not moved closer so that the light touched half of his face, making the rest seem darker by contrast. What she could see was lean, carved with grief. Dark eyes glinted in the shadows cast by firmly arched brows. His gaze was intent on hers.

“I have had the smallpox, my lady, and I am not leaving, so you might as well make use of me. I’m no doctor, but I can follow instructions. You need sleep if you’re to avoid illness yourself.”

Her tired brain caught up with the comment about his responsibility. “You are Lord Ashbury,” she stated. “You cannot think to nurse the girls.”

“What prevents me?” Ashbury demanded. “My amputation? I have one more hand than you can muster on your own. Their modesty? Leaving aside that you and the maids can manage their bathing and other personal matters, I can free you to look after them by lifting and carrying for you. My dignity? I work my own fields, my lady. I am not too exalted to fetch and carry for the woman who intends to save my niece’s life.” She turned, then, and looked straight at him, and he moved so that the lamp shone directly on his face. A long jagged scar skirted the corner of his eye and bisected his cheek and then one side of his mouth, trailing to nothing on his chin.

“You are not qualified,” she told him.

Ashbury shrugged. “True. I daresay half the world is better qualified than I. But I have done some battlefield nursing and I am here.”

“You cannot stay. I am an unmarried woman. You are a man.” A ridiculous statement. Here, isolated from the foolish scandal-loving world of the ton, who was to know. Besides, she would never put something as ephemeral as ‘reputation’ ahead of the needs of her patients.

He took another meaning from her objection, spreading both hands to show them empty, and saying gravely. “I will do you no harm. I give you my word.”

Of course, he wouldn’t. Even if he were so inclined, he would not get close enough to try. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, because one corner of his mouth kicked up.

“I suppose you are a warrior after the fashion of that fiercesome maiden you have guarding the quarantine. You are three-times safe then, my lady, with my honour backed by your prowess and reinforced by the knowledge that any missteps on my part will anger your champions.”

Her spurt of irritation was prompted by Lord Ashbury’s amusement, not by the unexpected physical effect of his desert anchorite’s face, lightened by that flash of humour. “I was more concerned about the impact on our lives if it is known we’ve been effectively unchaperoned for perhaps several weeks.

He raised his brows at that and the amusement disappeared. “My servants are discreet and yours would die for you. Besides, you have your maid with you at all times, do you not? And I have my—” he hesitated over a word; “my charges,” he finished.

His niece and his daughter, Ruth thought, wondering what story explained his reluctance to say the words. No matter. He was determined. He was also right; she needed someone else to share the nursing, and now she had a volunteer. Her attraction to him was undoubtedly amplified by her tiredness. She would ignore it, and it would go away.

She would sleep. At the realisation she could finally hand her watch over to someone else, her exhaustion crashed in on her, and it was all she could do to draw herself together and say, “Come. I will show you what you need to do, and explain what to watch for.”

 

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Expect the unexpected on WIP Wednesday

 

I love twists and turns. One of my favourite plotting mechanisms is to think about what might possibly go wrong, and then make it happen. How about you? Do you enjoy surprising your characters and your readers? Show me an excerpt in the comments!

Mine is from the start of To Mend the Broken-Hearted, the second book in the Mountain King series. My hero, Val, is a recluse after some terrible experiences at war and at home. His seclusion is about to end.

Val heard Crick before he saw him. “My lord, my lord,” the man was shouting, his voice high with barely suppressed panic. Val excused himself from a discussion about clearing a blockage in a stream that was threatening to flood the young barley, and took a few paces to meet Crick as the butler came hurtling across the field, careless of the new shoots.

“My lord, we’re under attack. They’ve captured the house, my lord.”

Val took the man’s arm and led him to the side of the field. “Take a deep breath, Crick,” he soothed. “All is well. We are in England. For us, the war is over.”

Crick pulled his arm free and so far forgot himself as to seize Val’s shoulders. “No, sir, you don’t understand. Soldiers on horseback. A lady with a sword. Another lady in the carriage. I tried to stop them, sir, but they forced their way into the house. They made Mrs Minnich take them to the family wing. We have to marshall the tenants, my lord, and rescue the servants.”

Being addressed as ‘my lord’ gave Val pause. Usually, when Crick had one of his episodes, he reverted to Val’s former rank. Always, in fact. When Crick called Val ‘major’, the whole household knew to hide anything that could be used as a weapon.

Barrow and his gangly young son had followed and were listening. Val met Barrow’s concerned eyes. “A carriage and some horsemen went down the lane a while back,” Barrow disclosed. The lane was out of sight from here, but Barrow explained his knowledge by fetching his son a clip across the ear. “The boy here saw them when he went to fetch the axe, but didn’t say nothin’”

Young Barrow’s observation suggested some truth to Crick’s fantasy, but it couldn’t possibly be the invasion Crick imagined. What would be the point? “I’ll investigate,” Val decided.

Crick and Barrow protested him going alone. “Five men, my lord,” Crick insisted. “Foreigners, they were, and the lady, too.”

Val’s troops were a half-mad butler, a burly tenant farmer, and his fifteen-year-old son. Val would do better alone. “You shall be my back-up,” he told them. “Stay at the edge of the woods where you can see the house. If I don’t come out within thirty minutes and signal that everything is safe, ride to the village for help.”

Crick argued, but Val was adamant. Still, as he crossed the open ground to the house, his skin prickled with the old familiar sense of walking into enemy territory.

He diverted his path to pass the stables. Sure enough, a strange carriage stood outside the carriage house, and through the open door of the stable block he could see two strangers, one with a fork of hay and one with a bucket, heading towards the stall. They stopped when they saw him, and stood waiting for him to approach.

Val saw why Crick had identified them as foreign. The olive skin and the beards would have been enough, without the red tunics that flowed loosely to mid thigh, the loose black trousers gathered into knee high boots, the bushy sheepskin hats. They did not put down their burdens, which argued for peaceful intentions, but the weapons in their belts, their alert stance, and their wary eyes suggested that ‘warrior’ was the correct identification.

“Who told you to make free with my stables?” he demanded.

The man with the hay fork used his head to indicate Val’s elderly stable master, who appeared from the aisle the men had been heading into. “Is it a mistake, my lord?” Greggs stammered. “Only, Mrs Minnich said I was to let them have what they needed.” His eyes lit and he smiled blissfully. “Such horses, my lord! I have never seen such horses in my stables. No, not in all my years.”

The man with the hay fork bowed. “Lord Ashcroft, I take it. I regret the necessity to trespass on your hospitality, your lordship.” The English was perfect, but Val could not place the accent any more than he could the clothing.

“You have the advantage of me,” he pointed out.

The thick brows drew together over the eagle’s beak of a nose. “The advantage, sir?” He cast a glance at his companion, who did not quite shrug.

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Scars on WIP Wednesday

My next story to be released has a hero with a scarred face, and I’ve been contemplating the number of my books that include a character with a physical deformity. I have quite a few scarred heroes — echoes of the Beauty and the Beast trope.

In every story where such a character appears, I have to consider the scars as part of what drives the story. How is my character affected by their scars, the cause of their scars, and the impact on others of their scars?

So that’s my theme for today. The scar might be internal or external, and belong to any person in the story. Give me an excerpt, in the comments, that describes your character or one of those effects.

My excerpt is from The Beast Next Door, my Valentines from Bath story. Valentines of Bath is the next Belles’ box set, due out on 9 February.

How beautiful she had grown. The men of Bath must all be married or blind. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and then she smiled and held her hands up as if she would fetch him down through the window. “Eric? Eric, is it really you?”
Ugo gave an amiable bark and wagged his tail, then collapsed onto the grass at Charis’s feet. She frowned again, looking from the dog to its master. “He is yours? Oh, but he has been here for weeks. Eric, have you been hiding from me?”
“I did not want to scare you, Charis. I never thought you would know me right away. But wait, I will come down.” No flinch. No fixing her eyes and then turning them away. It was as if the disfigured side of his face was no different than the side that bore a single long scar from a knife cut.
“Of course, I knew you,” she greeted him when he rounded the folly and approached the bench. “No one has eyes like yours, Eric. And no one calls me Charis except you. Here!” She backed to sit again on the bench, sweeping her gown to one side and patting the place beside her. “Come and sit with me and tell me everything you’ve done since last we could write. Oh, Eric, when Nanny died, I felt as if I had lost you both, and I can only imagine how you must have felt so far away from home! I am so sorry.”
Eric hesitated. Given a choice, he’d have sat on the other side, so she didn’t have to look at the mess the surgeons had made. Charis put her head to one side, her smile slipping a little, and he sat quickly before he made her uncertain of her welcome.
“I thought it was worse for you,” he told her, “stuck here and no one knowing or caring how important she was to us both.”

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Wounds on WIP Wednesday

Characters without character flaws and scars tend to be boring — the Mary Sues of literature, there not to drive the action but to be acted upon. I try not to write them, but that means I do spend a lot of time thinking about the emotional and psychological wounds that make my characters more than two-dimensional.

 In this week’s WIP Wednesday, I’m inviting you to post excerpts from your current work-in-progress that talk about a character’s wounds: physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual; obvious or hidden.

My piece is from The Beast Next Door, my novella for the Bluestocking Belles’ Valentine box set. My hero bears both internal and internal scars.

How beautiful she had grown. The men of Bath must all be married or blind. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and then she smiled and held her hands up as if she would fetch him down through the window.“Eric? Eric, is it really you?”

Ugo gave an amiable bark and wagged his tail, then collapsed onto the grass at Charis’s feet. She frowned again,looking from the dog to its master. “He is yours? Oh, but he has been here for weeks. Eric, have you been hiding from me?”

“I did not want to scare you, Charis. I never thought you would know me right away. But wait, I will come down.” No flinch. No fixing her eyes and then turning them away. It was as if the disfigured side of his face was no different than the side that bore a single long scar from a knife cut.

“Of course, I knew you,” she greeted him when he rounded the folly and approached the bench. “No one has eyes like yours, Eric. And no one calls me Charis except you. Here!” She backed to sit again on the bench, sweeping her gown to one side and patting the place beside her. “Come and sit with me and tell me everything you’ve done since last we could write. Oh, Eric, when Nanny died, I felt as if I had lost you both, and I can only imagine how you must have felt so far away from home! I am so sorry.”

Eric hesitated. Given a choice, he’d have sat on the other side, so she didn’t have to look at the mess the surgeons had made. Charis put her head to one side, her smile slipping a little, and he sat quickly before he made her uncertain of her welcome.

“I thought it was worse for you,” he told her, “stuck here and no one knowing or caring how important she was to us both.”