Zara’s locket

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First look at a character on WIP Wednesday

This is an excerpt from Zara’s Locket, my story in Belles & Beaux, which is being published tomorrow. It squeaks in as a work-in-progress on a technicality, being finished but not yet distributed to readers. But meet my heroine, anyway.

Someone had trashed the small windowless room the Strickland household provided for the comfort of their governesses.

At first, Zahrah was inclined to blame her charges. The three children currently consigned to her care were hell-spawn—encouraged in their defiant disobedience by parents who chose to believe them angels, and to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

However, even their most strenuous efforts to chase her away had resulted in nothing worse than frogs in her shoes, mud puddles in her bed, and a bucket of slops balanced on a door. And their behavior had improved since she began telling them stories at bedtime on any day in which they had all three attended their lessons and displayed the manners they had formerly trotted out only with their parents and their older brothers and sisters.

At the moment, with Christmas approaching, she had an extra carrot to offer them. The Strickland family did not decorate for Christmas, but Zahrah had asked and received permission to decorate the nursery and schoolroom, and the children were looking forward to it, and so was Zahrah. It would make up for not being with those she loved for the festival.

Zahrah sorted her way through the mess. Her mirror broken. Ink thrown onto a watercolor she had tacked to the wall. Her clothes not just tossed around, but ripped apart. Worse still, pages torn from her few personal books and other pages defaced with splotches of ink.

This was not the children. They lacked the strength for such destruction. And they didn’t, she was certain, hide this degree of spite.

It could have been a servant, she supposed. They were stand-offish and unpleasant, but none hated her, or had cause to.

The wooden box her brother had made to give her on her last birthday lay in pieces, its contents gone, or hidden in the clutter, perhaps. The bits and pieces were mostly worthless to someone else. Cheap pieces of jeweler suitable for a governess, most of them with happy memories of the person who gave them to her, or the occasion on which she bought them. The latest letter from her mother, set aside for a rereading. A button that she had not yet had time to sew on a cuff.

And her locket. That was the one item she hated to lose. Her father had commissioned it for her sixteenth birthday, and she had worn it daily ever since. She had only taken it off because the catch had been broken in the scuffle with Gerard Strickland.

The oldest Strickland son had been brooding for the past two weeks, ever since his ambush on her had resulted in a threat to his person, backed up by the knife she always carried. Yes, and he had been muttering threats when none of the other Stricklands were around to hear.

She had taken no notice. What could he do, after all?

Well. Now she knew.

For more about the stories in Belles & Beaux, and for preorder links, see the project page on the Bluestocking Belles website.

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Tea with Simon

Simon Marshall was nervous. He had drawn several designs to show the Duke and Duchess of Winshire, and now he was to present them. They were ordering a signet ring to mark the sixteenth birthday of the duke’s nephew, and Simon had made hundreds, perhaps thousands, or rings, many of them signets. The status of the clients, however, made this one of his most important jobs ever.

Not as important as the locket the duke’s dearest friend had commissioned for another sixteenth birthday some eight years ago. That locket, rescued from a thief, had reunited him with Zara, his darling wife of just a few months.

Zara stood somewhat in the relation of a godchild to the duke, and had assured him that the august couple were very nice. He knew that. He had met them at his wedding and again when they summoned him to Winshire House to commission the ring.

She also said his designs were magnificent. She was prejudiced in his favour, and thought everything he made to be beautiful. They were acceptable. Any one of them would work to make both an attractive ring and a clear and identifiable impression in wax—a mark that signified Elias, Lord Bentham, the youth who would receive the ring.

He held the courtesy title of viscount, as heir to the Earl of Lechton, would one day succeed to his father’s title and wear the ring that now graced the earl’s finger. “Long may that day be in coming,” the duchess had said. “In the meanwhile, my husband’s family has formed the habit of gifting their sons a signet ring when they turn sixteen.”

“A tradition,” the duke added, giving his wife a look full of affection, “that we will in future extend to daughters, at my duchess’s behest.”

Simon had asked a few questions about the Lechton coat of arms and the young recipient’s interests.

Dozens of drawings had been narrowed down to three designs. One contained the elements of the Lechton heraldic symbols that came from the Bentham title: a sword and a stylised fish. One was a representation of a star cluster, since Bentham had a passion for astrology. And one combined the two: a star crossed by a sword.

As the butler announced him, he took a deep breath and stepped into a pretty parlour, tastefully furnished, where the duke and duchess greeted him with warm smiles.

The duchess invited him to sit. The duke asked after his wife. The duchess poured him a cup of tea. Simon found himself relaxing.

Then the duke gestured to the folder Simon had put on the table before him. “Your designs?” His Grace asked. “Would you like to explain them to us, Mr Marshall?”

“No, Your Grace,” Simon said, then blushed at the look of surprise on the duke’s face and explained. “I believe, Your Grace, that if they need to be explained, they are not good enough.”

The duke nodded, and the duchess smiled. “That makes perfect sense, Mr Marshall. My husband and I shall look at what you have brought us, then, while you serve yourself one of Fournier’s little cakes and enjoy it with your tea.”

Simon Marshall is the hero of Zara’s Locket, my story in the new Bluestocking Belles collection, Belles & Beaux. Belles & Beaux is on preorder at the sale price of 99c, and is published next week. Find out more on the Bluestocking Belles website.

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Spotlight on Room at the Inn and Zara’s Locket in Belles & Beaux

Room at the Inn: By Caroline Warfield

A fatherless child requires a village to care for it, provided they have room in their hearts. When a cold-hearted baroness makes it impossible for the tenants of Little Hocking to care for one little boy, the Honorable Declan Alworth steps up to make room in his heart and his home for the little treasure. How can the vicar’s niece, Maera Willis, resist either one of them?

My comments: I certainly couldn’t resist them. I have never read a story by Caroline where I didn’t love both the heroine and the hero. This hero is a particularly lovely one. Caroline has a deft touch with a thoroughly satisfying short story, and Room at the Inn is a gem.

Zara’s Locket: By Jude Knight

A run-in with the adult son of the household leads to dismissal for governess Zahrah ibnit Yousef, or Zara MacLaren as the household knows her. Turned out on a Christmas Eve, her circumstances go from bad to worse when she is robbed and then arrested.

Goldsmith and jeweler Simon Marshall recognizes the locket a young aristocrat tries to sell, and it leads him on a hunt for Zara, the friend of his childhood. He finds her. He finds trouble, too, and joins her in her incarceration.

They need a Christmas miracle. It will take a pair of charitable gaolers, a little Christmas cheer, and the timely intervention of family to bring this story to a happy ending.

No comment on this one. You’ll have to read it and decide for yourself.

Find out more

Read all about the set on the Bluestocking Belles website, and preorder at the special prerelease price.

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Stereotyping on WIP Wednesday

This charming English cottage was once the village gaol and police station. It dates from 1859, But I like to think that the Barkers, bless them, had a similarly nice situation.

In Zara’s Locket, my heroine is arrested because she has brown skin and black hair, is bedraggled after being caught in the rain and running away from an assailant, is on foot, and has money.

This is evidence, think the villagers, that she must be a thief.

The village lockup was at least dry, and the constable’s wife brought Zahrah a couple of warm blankets as well as a pot of tea and two large slices of fresh bread with cheese. “For while you are in my husband’s custody, you are his responsibility, and I won’t have you starving to death or shivering your way into an ague,” she insisted.

For all her brisk manner and her practical reasoning, her eyes were kind, and she thawed still further when Zahrah thanked her. “Someone taught you nice manners, even if you are an Egyptian and a thief.”

“My father was born in Egypt, but my mother is as English as you are, Mrs. Barker,” Zahrah said. “And I am no thief. The money was my own, my pay from the position I left this morning, and all that I have left after I was accosted by an actual thief.”

She had told the constable that when he arrested her. She had limped into the village, her gown torn, her hair a bedraggled mess, and attempted to use a silver crown to pay for a room at the inn. The innkeeper refused to believe she had come by it honestly, and the righteous citizens present in the taproom dragged her to the Barkers’ house and insisted that the constable lock her up.

“As to that,” Mrs. Barker replied, “you can tell the magistrate all about it, but not until after Christmas, for he has gone to visit his daughter and her children in Birmingham, bless the dear sprouts. Meanwhile, I will make sure you have a share of our meals, and you will have a warm bed out of the rain. If you would like, we can decorate in here for Christmas! Now don’t you worry, dearie. Sir William—that’s the magistrate—he’ll sort it all out when he returns.”

She bustled off, closing and locking the door between the lockup and the Barkers’ family quarters. The lockup was divided into three spaces. Bars formed two cells for prisoners, and the rest of the room held a table, a chair, a bookshelf, and a fireplace.

The constable was not, at the moment, in the room. He had locked Zahrah into one of the cells, chivvied the jeering onlookers out through the outside door, and disappeared through the inner one.

He had not returned, but Mrs. Barker had lit the fire when she came with her tea tray, blankets, and good advice. The woman was clearly in favor of looking on the bright side, and she was not wrong. Zahrah was grateful for food and shelter.

Grateful, too, that if English justice proved to be unreasonable, at least she would not be hanged out of hand. She would undoubtedly have time to get a message to her family, if she could find a way to pay the postage. Perhaps she could sell her boots? Perhaps Mrs. Barker would help her?

She regretted the loss of her book, though with the storm outside making the sky dark, reading was probably not an option. Not without a good lamp, and she lacked even a candle.

(The term Egyptian–short form, gypsy–is an outsiders’ name for the Romani, and many Rom find it insulting. It is based on the mistaken belief that they were originally from Egypt.)

Zara’s Locket is part of the Belles & Beaux collection, available to order for the special preorder price of 99c.

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First kiss on Work-in-progress Wednesday

I’m working on three works in progress at the moment. I thought I’d finish the short (now long short) story today, but not quite. I still need to finish with a kiss. I’ve written their first kiss, though, and here it is. Share yours in the excerpt? (Fictional if you’re an author, or feel free to share a real life one, if you like.

They finished their evening quietly, listening as Mr Barker read from the first chapters of the Gospel according to Luke. After that, it was time for bed. Zahrah and Simon said goodnight to Mr and Mrs Barker at the foot of the stairs, as the older couple’s bedchamber was on the main floor.

Upstairs was under the eaves, with the box room and two little bed chambers. Zahrah paused with her hand on her door handle, reluctant to see the evening end.

Simon was looking up. She followed his gaze with her eyes. A bunch of mistletoe hung from the ceiling. That wasn’t there earlier today. Was it?

Simon looked a question at her. With the sense that she was about to take a leap into the dark, Zahrah stepped up to him and looped her arms around his neck. Now what? She had experience of men attempting to steal a kiss, but none of freely giving and receiving one.

Simon bent his head, going slowly, and softly laid his lips upon hers. She felt the tingle run through her body. She pressed closer, and he deepened the kiss, covering her lips with his own, one hand firmly on her back.

Zahrah’s thoughts scattered. She lost track of her surroundings and everything else except the sensation of Simon’s lips, his tongue sliding across hers, his firm hand anchoring her to his body, his other hand gently caressing one breast.

When he broke the kiss, she stared at him, dazed. He looked no less befuddled.

She leaned towards him again and he pressed a light kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I hope this means you are open to my courtship,” he murmured. “Or do I need to apologise?”

“Don’t you dare apologise,” she scolded. She was recovering a few of her wits. “Courtship, Simon?”

Anxiety flickered in his eyes. “If I do not presume. If you could imagine marrying a tradesman of little fortune and murky birth.”

“Very easily.” If the tradesman in question was Simon. “Yes.”

His anxiety melted into the beginnings of a smile. “You can imagine?”

“Yes, you may court me. But first, kiss me again.”