wicked step-father

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Mirror, mirror on WIP Wednesday

Here’s my first Mirror Mirror scene in my Snow White reinterpretation.

A candle either side of the mirror lit Richard’s face and upper body without relieving the gloom behind him. The black of his evening wear merged with the darkness, leaving the planes of his face and the folds of his white cravat to swim against the shadows.

“It cannot be him,” he told his reflection. “He’s dead. He died nearly two decades ago. A boy of that age? A soft spoiled brat like that? And a pretty one? He could never have survived.”

The dark eyes of the reflection stared back. He thought he saw an ironic twitch of the eyebrow.

“Curse Matt. He was meant to kill the little horror and throw the body somewhere it would be found.”

Richard scowled and the reflection scowled back. The plan should have succeeded. With a body to grieve over, Madeline would have recovered. Richard could have charmed her into believing in him again. Instead, she insisted that the boy was still alive.

“She was meant to be mine.” He nodded his head once, decisively, and his reflection nodded back, agreeing with him. He had seen the pretty girl first, begun to court her. Then she met cursed Edward. The man with everything. His grandfather’s favourite. The heir. The golden boy.

Tonight’s imposter looked just like him. “It cannot be the boy. He’s a by-blow; that must be it. Perfect Edward’s base born brat.”

How he would like to tell Madeline that Edward had been diddling someone else. His teeth flashed white in the candle light at the thought of her likely reaction. His own pain, though, was greater. He had won her for such a short time, and then lost her. She blamed him for the boy’s disappearance, and in the end, he had to put her away where she could do no harm.

It wasn’t fair. Matt had ruined everything. The boy had ruined everything by biting his abductor’s hand, wriggling from his grasp, and running away to die anonymously in the mean streets.

Matt was dead and could not pay for his mistake. The boy, too, was dead. He must be.

The reflection raised an eyebrow. Of course. It was right. He must take his revenge on the imposter.

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The plot thickens on WIP Wednesday

In this week’s WIP  extract, I tangle several different plot threads just a little more.

Margaret sat with her friends in the shade, sipping fruit juice and watching Peter, Ash, Deerhaven and Snowy on the lake with half a dozen other men, rowing two to a boat in heat after heat. The ladies had been out on the water, but when the men challenged one another to a race, they had asked to be set ashore on the island, where refreshments were set out in the temple-like folly.

“You like him, don’t you?” Regina asked Margaret.

“Which him?” Margaret asked, though she knew perfectly well that Regina was referring to Snowy.

“I do,” Arial said. “Peter does, too. He is not what we expected when you told us about allowing him to escort you, Margaret.”

Margaret dropped the pretence to pursue this more interesting topic.

“What did you think he would be like?”

Arial thought about it. “A lot rougher. Less concerned about your safety and your reputation.”

“After all,” Cordelia pointed out, “you did meet him in a slum alley just behind the brothel where he works. It was not a recommendation.”

Regina agreed. “We were concerned, but not now that we have met him.”

“He has been raised as a gentleman,” Margaret said. “In my experience, he is more of a gentleman than many you meet in Society.”

The other ladies nodded. “Lord Snowden for one,” Regina agreed. Snowden was watching them from the far shore. His son and young Deffew, his ward, were out on the lake, racing, but Snowden did not turn his stare away from the four ladies.

“The rumours say Snowden is not the viscount, that there is a lost heir. Is it Snowy, do you think? Is that what this display of Snowy’s is about?” Ariel asked.

“He hasn’t said,” Margaret told them. “But the way these rumours have appeared just when he chooses to go into Society—it is too unlikely a coincidence. I think he must be behind them. Lord Snowden must be rattled. He sent his son to tell me that Snowy was a charlatan, a fraud, and that I must cease seeing him immediately.”

Regina’s reaction was the same as Margaret’s. “The cheek!”

“Interesting, though,” Cordelia mused. “Have you told Snowy?”

A face on the other shore caught Margaret’s eye. It could not be… At this distance, it was impossible to be sure, but somehow, she was.

“Margaret?” Arial asked.

“Hmmm?” What had they been talking about? “No, I haven’t had the opportunity, yet.”

Her friends were looking at her with concern. “You have gone pale, darling.” Arial said. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing,” she assured them. “I thought I saw someone I knew long ago. But I am sure I was wrong. He was some distance away, and I could not see the face clearly. Just the hair colour and the uniform.”

“Not the odious officer!” Arial exclaimed.

“The odious officer?” asked Cordelia.

Arial was the only one who knew quite how odious Martin had been, but the rest was not a secret. “A man who trifled with my heart during my first Season. I was too young to realise that his compliments were lies and his promises so much empty air. I am sure it cannot be him. As far as I know, his regiment is still posted overseas.” For years she had been checking the listings in the newspapers, hoping that he never sold out.