Places stayed. Hovingham – one free night. The Worsley Arms.
Easingwold – The George Hotel.
Places would stay again – 1
Places visited. Hovingham, Coxwold, Helmsley, Easingwold, York, Ampleforth Estates.
Places driven through by mistake…rather a lot. …
Places not stayed. The Old Vicarage Easingwold now closed.
Walks – Ampleforth Estates. York Walls
Hecklers spotted- One
Attractions visited – Railway Museum York
Attractions not visited. The Minster- there was a wedding on as in NOT just the ceremony….place closed.
Kippers spotted – On the menu
Pubs visited – The George Hotel, Easingwold, Yorkshire Terrier, Three Legged Mare, Guy Fawkes,York. Fauconberg Arms, Coxwold -where Malice spent her non wedding night with her her cousin/hubby in the Viking and The Coutesan backstory. The Malt and Shovel, Hovingham.
Faux Pubs – The Cricketers Arms, Hovingham.
Alcohol consumed – No telling.
Dundee mentions – one
Book character mentions- one
Pairs of shoes and boots worn – all of them.
‘Twice, the sight of him had almost caused her to expire. When she had walked into the church at Coxwold and seen him standing there with a carnation in his lapel—their wedding day—and then that night in his apartment. Very well. She lied. It was thrice. When she had knocked on the door of his room at the little inn across from the church.
Now, seeing him chucking wine down his throat as if the vineyard was about to run dry, casting his eye over some serving girl–her backside rather—and wagering what Lady Grace possessed, nausea rose in her gorge. When she considered a man who made her heart pound–a man who she should not be thinking of here–her heart also pounded wastefully. Whatever the problem with Cyril—and there were a good twenty dozen—you knew where you stood with him. That was nowhere at all.
She glided closer. She had come to speak with him, wife to husband. And she had chosen here to do it because it was public. Those who thought the sun shone from the backend of his brown velvet breeches had a lot to learn.
“My lord.”
Of course, she might have known Cyril would be more interested in looking at her breasts than her face. Maybe she should have ventured in here topless? Still, at least he was looking at her.
“Cyril. Husband.”
Now that jerked his chin up. If ever there was a way to bring a dog to heel, this was surely it.
“I knew I should find you here before me, my dearest. And involved in a wager too. My lords, you must excuse Cyril, especially when he does not possess the money to pay any debts. And, we are shortly to require every penny we own.”
“Malice?” He peered at her closely. “Malice? Is that you?”
“Most certainly it’s not Aunt Carter’s silver teapot, my dearest husband.”
Stillmore. Sorry. I do not know if I was listening there. Didn’t you mean the winner?
Stillmore. Oh, what is wrong with you dudes and this unbearable whining? You must know how it does my head in. Obviously cheating is the only way to beat me. And if you do that you deserve to be shot. Now then, let’s open shall we?
Stillmore… Hang it all where has that piece gone?
Stillmore. Oh stop sounding like Splendor.The one that was there a moment ago. I know I am not mistaken about this. any more than I am mistaken about anything. Ever.
Stillmore- Or should I say two pieces? Well, it matters not. Certainly I am not about to be beaten by a hamsterous bunch of cretins.
Stillmore- ObviouslyShey wanted me to look my best so she used several of the most famous chess games in historyas the basisfor these bits of the book. For example the Splendor /Baxby final, where she offers her queen early, was based on a famous Russian game and worked like this…. Excuse me, where’s that piece gone?
Stillmore- If YOU are meaning THE first one where Splendor cheated–
Stillmore. Where’s that piece gone?
Stillmore–Let me say to you what I said to her…’You never let me finish.’
Stillmore — Right. Where’s my king?
Stillmore–Believe me… the waste of a bullet that would be.Now, if you don’t mind I have far better things to do with my time than sit here listening to this cretinous chatter.
Extract.
Drawing his collar up as protection against the chill night air, Stillmore strode to the edge of the curb. “Hang it, Chasens, my cane. And find the woman a carriage. She looks like she needs a ride home.” Well, wasn’t this a dilemma. How the bloody blazes could she have lost and that check still be in his pocket?
“Thank you, but I shall walk,” Splendor said, her chin held high and her face whiter than if she’d seen a ghost.
“Suit yourself.”
She must want to spend the night with him. How else could he explain her sitting there like a moonstruck mouse messing up every single move she made? How was he meant to reward such imbecility? By making himself look stupid? He’d tried. He’d let her have his rook, his bishop, his knight, and half his pawns. But his queen? No. There were things he drew the line at. God knew he had tried every trick he knew to throw the game in her favor without making it glaringly obvious, and she had still lost. She was a damnable woman. Not at all his type. Too tall. Too argumentative. Too vexing. Too much trouble.
He withdrew his watch from his pocket and snapped it open. “Although you must know you are being perfectly ridiculous insisting upon walking at this hour. It’s late. It’s been a long day. And you don’t exactly live close at hand.”
“And that is somehow your concern?”
“Well, no, now you come to mention it.” Having admired the watch’s pale face glinting in the moonlight for several seconds, he flicked it shut. “I was merely trying to be helpful.”
Her widened eyes left him in very little doubt that she didn’t just believe the concept of him being helpful was as far as the stars beyond him, she believed it was going to stay at that distance for some considerable time. Probably forever.
He was just going to have to keep the ten thousand pounds. Anything else would make him look a fool. His gaze flitted over the oval of her face, shadowed by the street lamps. They’d had a wager, hadn’t they? He might as well get his wager’s worth.
“But I shall pick you up tomorrow evening at seven. Be ready.”
‘Lady’ Splendor better not think of bolting either.
Announce your win with a post, and link the blogger who nominated you.
Include the featured image on your blog post.
Nominate 10 bloggers (or as many as you can think of) and link your awardees in the post.
List 7 things you love about yourself. (This can be about your appearance, your personality, your achievements, etc.)
Rules
Don’t use negative connotation (i.e. Don’t say things like – “I’m prettier than an average person.” or “People have told me I’m smart.” You are pretty. You are smart.)
Mrs Ferret: Beggin’ your pardon your furryship creatures an’ meanin’ to give no affront. or that, but I thought it was seven things about me?
Mrs Ferret : Well, I must say, again meanin’ no disrespect, it’s not whot was agreed.
Mrs Ferret : You won’t be doin’ no Cossack dance, nor drinkin’ no vodka here. Beggin’ your pardons and meanin’ no affront or that, not unless you wants ter meet with me broom handle and be swept out into the doostbin you won’t. And you won’t be bullyin’ me like you did that artist hero of Shehanne’s whot came here and never got a word in yet. Now then . Three things about me that I like.
Well, contrary to the many words what are spoke about me
I’m secretly very soft hearted, soft-hearted as any can be whot has been left ter fend for themselves in a bitter, hard, cruel world, one step away from the workhouse at sixteen with a sister and young brothers ter support. You can ask Splendor herself about me soft heart. But I got a good nose for sniffin’ out whot people are inside. I can always recognise another servant and I will look out for them. I just won’t be taken a loan of is all. But if I see someone needin’ a helpin’ hand, well, I think I can be counted on.
2 I love that I like people, people whot are interesting. Them that might have secrets. But I aon’t no gossip.The things I could have told Stillmore about his ‘wife’ and her friend–cos, meanin’ no affront but I reads the newspapers and I knows about that Sisterhood lot. But I never. As for the goings on of him at Catterton whenever he deigned to visit …..
I was discreet.As for me figuring out they wasn’t really married, he must have thought I stitched up the back of me mob cap.
3 I know I may only be a servant but I am very good at me job, unlike some I could name whot drinks on the job, I see everything runs like clockwork whotever house I am in, Catterton,
or His Grace’s place in London. That’s because I take pride in knowing whot people want. Of course, meanin’ no affront and provided anyone would have had me. it would have been nice to have had me family roundabout me and a man to love me, but families require keepin’ and it really isn’t easy for women of my social class that way, as I found out when my husband left me.
Thank you very much for letting me come by and get a word in.
I am going to give you with the names of some bloggers. It would be more but Sallly has already bestowed the award on many whot come here and might like doing this kind of thing. Not everyone accepts awards. Though if YOU would like doing this, please do feel free. Meaning no disrespect but that you’re not here is probably on account of Shehanne not having time to look all the links up.
So Splendor’s death hadn’t happened. Instead, the front door had swung open, because there weren’t any rugs on the flagstone floor to stop it. Splendor thought that was why the door didn’t just swing open, it almost removed itself from its hinges and careered across said floor. Before she was anywhere near it, which was not always the case. Penetrating cold blew out, not in. The sun hadn’t just gone behind a cloud on a nice day, Arctic winter had followed.
Ferret was an unfortunate name. The woman herself had the appearance of having dropped a guinea and found a farthing. Some people were so devoid of the desire to better themselves that they dressed in pinched black to match their expressions. Splendor’s desire was to show his majesty how unfazed she was by this rapid and unprovoked downturn in events. London and Babs Langley. She fixed a smile on her face. Her best.
“You will pardon me, Your Grace, openin’ door in advance of you ringin’.” Mrs. Ferret ignored the smile and her. “But Bates told me you was here. And had brought company. Young ladies.”
Was it a crime to be one? Splendor had never thought so before. But the look Mrs. Ferret failed to cast her said her education was sadly lacking that way.
“Yes.” Stillmore strode over the stone threshold into the pale white hall. “My wife and her friend.”
“Wife? Wife?” Mrs. Ferret’s voice rose. “Mr. Bates never said nothing about no wife.”
Stillmore stared at the ceiling. “Perhaps because he’s not married to her. Well. It happened, whether Bates said so or not. If I say she is, it should be good enough.”
Splendor swung her gaze around. “You mean, you take my getting out that cart as assent—?”
“Oh, sir, I never meant…” Mrs. Ferret interrupted. “Oh bless me no. I mean, I wouldn’t, bein’ mindful of me position here’n all, dream of offerin’ an affront. Excuse me, Your Grace.”
Mrs. Ferret touched a feeble hand to her breast, as if she wouldn’t take issue with him arriving on the doorstep with a two-headed hamster and saying he’d married it.
“Will I just show her downstairs, same as usual, Your Grace?”
“I will do that. Thank you.”
As usual? Splendor turned her gaze back, swallowed the hot tide that rose. Thank God in some ways. Remove this old bat from the equation and Catterton House might have her otherwise. From the outside it looked like a two-roomed cottage with a tower that stood like a sentinel. Inside though, it was a completely different fish. A whitewashed palace, with steps leading down to other levels that were set into the steeply dropping cliffside. It would be private here. The kind of place Topaz would be safe. The kind of place they could both hide.
Not if it was home to his women. Not when she’d thought London.
“But, of course, Your Lordship Grace.” Mrs. Ferret curtseyed so low it was a miracle she didn’t keel over on the flagstone floor. “And what about the other…lady, sir? Will she just be left sitting out there in the cart, while you…you know?”
“Yes. No. I… I mean…” Splendor burst out before she could stop herself.
“Not at all,” Stillmore said. “She will be coming in here. But would you have a problem with that, Mrs. Ferret?”
“No, Your Grace. All I were doing was asking.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Fine then I won’t. I’ll just go tell Bates to start peeling the vegetables for lunch. A light one will it be, Your Grace? Or do your guests require stuffing?”
The only thing he hates more than losing at chess is marriage…
For Splendor, former servant to the London’s premiere jewel thieves, the Starkadder Sisterhoiod, pretending to be someone else is all in a day’s work. So when she learns of a chess tournament—a men’s chess tournament—with a ten thousand pound prize, pretending to be a man is the obvious move. The money will be enough to set her fiancé up in his own business so they can finally marry, and more importantly, it’ll pay off her bills and keep her out of debtor’s prison. But she doesn’t plan on her opponent, the rakish Kendall Winterborne, Earl Stillmore, being a sore loser—and a drunken one, at that. But before she can collect her prize, she finds herself facing the most merciless man in London across a pair of dueling pistols at dawn. Chess may be Splendor’s game, but she’s never fired a pistol. And dressed as a man with ill-fitting shoes on the slippery grass and borrowed glasses that make it hard to see, she’s certain she’s finally tipped her own king.
Bitter divorcee Kendall Winterborne, Earl Stillmore, is the ton’s most ruthless heartbreaker. And he’s got three pet peeves: kitchen maids, marriage…and losing. So when he realizes the “man” opposite him has entered the chess tournament under false pretenses, he’s in the perfect position to extort the little chit. But that’s before the exasperating woman begins to slip beneath his skin, and soon all he can think about is slipping beneath her skirts. But the confounded woman is engaged to someone else, and worse—she’s nothing but a former kitchen maid, just like the one that lured his father into the marriage that ruined the family name. And his ex-wife taught him more than he cared to know about why marriage was the worst kind of checkmate of all…
“Well, I…I do want a divorce but only because… I mean only so…”
“You can marry her for her money?”
“Malice…I am vexed you think so little of me that I would do that and set the law on you into the bargain…”
Her heart began to pound so loudly it drowned the strains of the Haydn minuet drifting through the open doors. After all these years. Years in which she had waited. Abandoned hope in. Lived like a drudge at times on a penurious income. She had him at a disadvantage. She reached inside her reticule.
“So you can live in a state you should like to become accustomed to? Ruining her as you have me?”
“Well, the thing is, the thing was, I had no choice regarding the law. That woman you sent to do whatever she was meant to do, she let you down badly.”
“Really?”
“I’m sure that your other ladies aren’t so workshy. Why, your business came highly recommended.”
She unfolded the square of gauze. His expression as she placed the square on her head then arranged it over her face was worth a king’s ransom. “That woman was me.”
Every scrap of color drained from his face. Not that there had been a great deal to start with. There never was. It was one of his many attractions, what gave him that boyish look at the age of thirty.
“You?”
“Yes Cyril.”
“Y-you mean… Well, Malice.” Give him his dues, his recovery was excellent. But then it had every reason to be. “May I say how very—”
“You may say nothing. But I will say I think we will agree there will be no divorce. How can there be when we are so very happy, so joyous together?”
“I don’t—”
“That I am having your child?”
“What?”
Was it any wonder his eyes widened? Widened so the wonder was they didn’t pop clean out his head and ping about the paving slabs? She tilted her chin. If there was ever a doubt she shouldn’t do this, that moment was past. What was he going to do? Have it all over London his wife ran a marriage wrecking business? That he was a cad who stole from the woman he had abandoned? Hardly. No, the man was a leech she would do well to stay married to. And one who would support her from now on.
“Yes, husband dearest. From that night, the one that was so special to both of us.”
“That’s a damned lie. That night you disappeared. Vanished right before my eyes. I shut them for a second. One second only and poof.” He snapped his fingers. Indeed, his face had contorted with such rage, the only wonder was he didn’t snap more with his fingers, he didn’t snap her neck. “If it was so damned special how come I don’t remember the first damned thing about it?”
“What do you think? I told her that her precious son was lost at sea.”
“You didn’t!” Fury did her best to keep her voice lowered, even though the Blue Chamber stood at the other end of the landing. The prescience that this only made things worse intensified. As if Thomas’s ghost had risen up to haunt her for pushing him on that staircase and keeping him in a box. “How could you?”
He frowned. “Because you didn’t leave me a whole lot of choice with that little story you told about his holiness, the Pope.”
“What was I supposed to say? That Thomas is lying dead at the bottom of the bay, because you put him there, after I kicked him down the stairs and kept him in a box in the cellar for several days?”
He canted his jaw. “Well, how about a thank-you for getting you out the hole you were in?”
“It wasn’t a hole. I just didn’t know he was a freemason. They keep these things secret.”
“And you didn’t seem to know he was a protestant either. Is there anything you do know?”
They were going to quarrel. It was not the place with Lady Margaret along the corridor. Maybe Flint had left Susan with her. But no doubt Lady Margaret had disposed of her and had her ear to the wall. Then there was Malmesbury. The thought of Malmesbury made Fury sick to the pit of her stomach.
“Flint, I am grateful. It’s just her. Lady Margaret. You have no idea how much she hates me.”
“Isn’t that funny? She was soon guzzling out my hand.”
Of all the nasty, recalcitrant, self-seeking toads. She supposed she should just be grateful. Even Lady Margaret wasn’t immune to this man. But when Fury thought of all she had suffered at that woman’s hands, and Thomas too, because of her silly dictate…
“Of course, you like to imagine.”
It was just the thought of Flint encountering that lack of immunity with other women. Women far younger and more beautiful than Lady Margaret. He was going to now. There was no question of it. Despair engulfed her.
It wasn’t wrong he was so handsome, so beautiful. It wasn’t wrong she had succumbed to him as all other women did. It was terrible.
Sighing deeply, he turned his face to the side. “Look, I did it for you.”
“Me?” Oh, that was rich.
“Hell. It’s not exactly like it’s a lie, you stop and think about it for a moment. It’s probably quite smart. Smartest thing either of us could come up with in the circumstances. ’Specially if his body ever washes up.”
But it is not your first unsettling experience, is it?
That got your attention!
Many of you fear you are going mad or perhaps caught in some nightmare; which is unsurprising after your recurring vivid dreams and the recent dislocation experience.
You are frightened and alone. Let me assure you. You are not alone. We have all been through the same thing: because each of us is related.
I see you looking at the different styles in the room, clothes, hair, cosmetics, and wondering if I joke. You think you know your family: parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. You were brought up to view family as those around you. You do not to think in terms of deep time: about generations past and those to come. But you will learn. Believe me.
Why am I here? You want to ask.
We all carry a double recessive gene from our common ancestress that makes us time travelling mutants.
Oh dear! How to put this simply?
Genes are what make you look like your parents or grandparents. If grandparents, you may have been told it skipped a generation: this is a recessive gene. Over centuries, families separate. Generations later, distant relatives meet and fall in love. When this happens often enough, you are the result.
Our common ancestress lived in the early 21st century. Her name was Brittany Carter. She wrote romantic fiction distinguished by the fact her heroines time travel: her granddaughter to the Viking age and another, in a thinly veiled autobiography, to the 18th century.
I know many of you read her classic novels when studying English Literature, and perhaps experienced a thrill of recognition in their pages. No doubt you were taught they were written by that literary giant Shehanne Moore. A pleasant fiction I am afraid. Brittany Carter wrote these works. Shehanne Moore was merely her nom-de-plume. A ruse used at the insistence of her publishers.
But time travel I hear you protest, surely you need a machine like the fabulous TARDIS of legend, or perhaps a sacred circle of standing-stones to concentrate the Gaia force. Not at all! Our research at the Institute, shows time travel is simple. It is caused by the relatively common ability of psychokinesis: the power to move objects with the mind.
Historical records show many of you experienced poltergeist activity when you hit puberty. Would it shock you to learn poltergeist activity is in fact involuntary outburst of psychokinetic energy, brought on by hormonal changes? As you grew older you no doubt noticed the violent outbursts subsided.
About the same time lucid dreams began. Lucid dreams are a psychological term for vivid dream states where your conscious mind remains aware making it seem you are actually experiencing the dream as reality. If it seems so, it is because you are.
Such dreams are a psychokinetic by-product; a telepathic bond with your ancestors and descendants. It is widely known Brittany Carter wrote about her granddaughter, Malice, under the influence of such dreams. This is why we time travel during moments of heightened sensation, usually, but not exclusively, during sexual arousal.
At this point I need to tell you everything you understand about time is wrong. From an early age you were taught to view time as a progression of events paralleling birth, growth and gradual decline towards death.
Here are some ancient flick-books, please take one and pass the rest on. See how each photograph, taken exactly a year apart, shows the person moving from birth to death at a fixed rate.
Normally we do not question this.
But think for a moment, even identical twins do not die at exactly the same time. Age is relative. It depends on a series of complex interactions governed by genes and environment.
In the 20th century the oldest person on the planet died at the age of 140 – which is nothing now; while children with the disease progeria died of advanced old age when no more than ten. Some individual cells, like cancer, never die. Others can be indefinitely held in suspension, such as the 5,000 year old seed from a Chinese tomb that grew into a magnolia tree when planted by archaeologists.
Aging is not due to minutes flowing into hours; days into years.
Aging is not time travel. The minutes and hours of your life merely mark the earth’s revolution on its axis and the year its orbit around the sun. Even a light year is a measure of distance, 5.9 trillion miles to be exact.
Stephen King claimed time particles, or chronons, were formed by the past colliding with the present and evaporated when the present dissolved into the future. Michael Moorcock agreed. Moorcock envisaged humans, called Time Dwellers, evolving to live permanently within a single moment. For Moorcock the only answer to the question: ‘What is the time?’ was ‘The present’.
Einstein, the father of science, did not believe in time. He said it was nothing other than a measurement of space like height, width and depth. To him we were no more capable of seeing the bigger picture than a word printed on the page can read the novel it belongs to. Like fish in a barrel we cannot see or understand the world outside, never mind swim in it. He explained it thus:
If a fish swims in a tank at 4 miles per hour, inside an airplane travelling at 500 mph, that is flying across the earth rotating at 1,000 mph at the equator, and orbiting around the sun at 68,400 mph, in a solar system spiralling around the Milky Way at 515,000 mph, in a universe expanding at 158,000 mph. How fast is the fish swimming? The answer is 4 miles per hour. That’s relativity.
If we stepped outside relativity, we would see the past, present and future happening concurrently. It would be like looking at a road from a hilltop. This is how Brittany saw her granddaughter’s life 800 years in the past.
You must understand atoms are not like specks of dust. They are infinitesimal amounts of electrical energy clustered into a nucleus of protons and neutrons and orbited by electrons. If the nucleus was the size of a tennis ball, the atom itself would be four miles across. This means most of the universe is empty space.
The universe expands in every direction at approximately 158,000 mph; as does every atom in it. Think of drawing two circles on a balloon then blowing it up. The bigger the balloon gets the more distant the circles become and the bigger they get.
If we could compact or expand an atom, it would automatically shift to the point when the universe was at the same density. In other words it would time travel.
The electro-magnetic force holding the universe together is the same as Gaia, the life force within every living creature. Outbursts of psychokinetic energy are measurable electric currents. This is how we time travel. Psychokinetic outbursts cause our atoms to contract or expand, hurling us through time.
The final question I am asked in this introductory session is: Am I immortal?
Yes and no.
Remember Michael Moorcock’s Time Dwellers living within a single moment? Like them we can dwell in a single moment of time and so do not age. But in that case, how did Brittany and Malice manage to live with their lovers?
That is relativity. As we cannot exist outside our immediate space-time environment, we take it with us, like a deep-sea diving suit. It is perhaps no more than an atom’s thickness but enough to keep us safe.
If you would care to get to know each other and work out your complex and often confusing relationships, there are refreshments next door. However, before you leave let me assure you, my fellow time-travelling mutants, you have long and interesting lives ahead of you, and many difficult skills to master. But master them you will. For we already know your future.
Paul Andruss is the author of 2 contrasting fantasy novels
Wanting to engage readers and build an audience 2 novels are available as free downloads in different E-books formats.
Thomas the Rhymer – a magical fantasy for ages 11 to adult about a boy attempting to save fairy Thomas the Rhymer, while trying to rescue his brother from a selfish fairy queen.
If you enjoy the Harry Potter & Narnia books & films? Thomas the Rhymer is right up your street
Finn Mac Cool – rude, crude and funny, explicitly sexual and disturbingly violent, Finn Mac Cool is strictly for adults only
Finn mac Cool is a modern retelling of the Irish Myth cycles with a science fantasy edge.
Finn Mac Cool is a must for those with Irish ancestry or anyone interested in Irish legends and folklore. Ever since being a child Paul was fascinated by the phantasmagorical and strange. Blessed with the type of mind that squirrels away peculiar facts, he supposed it was only natural these should become a central feature in his novels.
As Paul got older he often forgot where he found these oddities in the first place. Odds and Sods: A cabinet of Curiosities was born as an on-line notepad and sort of grew from there. Now it showcases the curious stuff he’s come across when researching his novels. He also get a tremendous kick from sharing it with friends.
I can confirm Shehanne Moore is no Miss Barbara Cartland.
Now there is two ways you can take this news. If you are anything like me it will be with a lusty huzzah and an air punch. I was never one for simpering virgins and sex scenes discretely ending outside the bedroom door.
Shehanne Moore writes historical romance with a sci-fi twist that’s unapologetically smexy. For those who don’t know, smexy (her word, not mine) is a cross between smutty and sexy… raunchy romance in the raw… or is that with a roar? Cos, boy, does the gal deliver!
If you want a complex heroine, so feisty she could bitch slap you in a stand-up row, meet tough but vulnerable Brittany Carter – ‘brittle as porcelain and deadlier than shattered glass. An irresistible combination.’
If you like a ruggedly handsome man, oozing animal magnetism, you can’t go far wrong with Mitchell Killgower. He’s not so tough. Underneath them smouldering looks and icy demeanour beats a heart to make you melt. At least something will be wet by the end of the novel.
By that I mean if a ‘good man who needs saving from himself’ don’t bring a tear to your eye then you are no Brittany Carter – not matter how smexy and gorgeous you are – ‘darling!’
Brittany is a struggling historical romance writer and no simpering virgin. Like most good-looking modern women in their mid-twenties, she’s had her fair share of men; all of them disappointments.
The book opens when a stranger called Morte stops Brittany for her autograph. Or so she thinks.
To be honest she’s not taking much notice. The girl’s got a lot on her mind. Off to straighten out her finances with some crap-head she used to date – he took everything but somehow managed to leave her name on a mortgage he’s not paying.
Morte’s weird, more stalker than fan. As his ominous warning about making the right choice rings in her ears, lightning strikes him. Brittany does the decent thing: calls an ambulance; helps Morte live.
Wrong choice!
Next thing Brittany wakes up in a sixteen year boy’s dusty bed. Wound tight as a cheese wire garrotte, she desperately plays it cool, frantically struggling to keep herself together while figuring out what the hell happened?
The boy’s furious. Handsome dad’s furious too. Not with her; with each other.
All the while she’s praying it’s a nightmare and she’ll wake up. Gradually it dawns. She’s somehow travelled through time, back to 1765 to be precise. To a crumbling stately home in Georgian England and the middle of a bitter inheritance feud between handsome rakish father and puritan unloved son, and with a cow of a sister-in-law holding the purse strings and fuelling the whole debacle.
The Writer and the Rake starts at 100 miles an hour and never flags. It is an unrelenting tour de force; a dazzling pas-de-deux of searing wit and laugh out loud moments between Brittany and Mitchell. The frisson between them is tangible, popping and fizzing across the pages as they slog it out to gain the upper hand, only to have the other snatch it back.
Despite wanting to return to her own time Brittany can’t take her eyes off Mitchell; while he can’t keep his hands off her behind. So, what about Morte? Don’t worry, he’s there too. Intent on sealing his Faustian bargain.
When Mitchell sees Morte with Brittany, he’s jealous as hell of her secret lover. It’s just the spark they need for scorching emotions to boil over into reckless sex. Even if you don’t smoke, you’ll be reaching for that post-coital cigarette Brittany can never have because she ran out in the first few days.
Casual sex has consequences. Hell, Brittany knows that. But she’s not prepared for what they are. Ok it’s not the first time she’s woken in a strange bed. But this one’s oddly familiar. She’s leapfrogged forward to her own time to find she’s been missing for weeks, presumed kidnapped, and her books are now best sellers.
Bingo!
Morte picks his moment to explain it all; a drunken night out with the girls. Apparently she’s a time mutant – the mother of a dynasty. Shame she’s too pissed to take it in.
Talk about sealed with a kiss. One drunken snog with some bloke in the club and Brittany’s back to Mitchell’s crumbling house. Only one thing for it, seduce Mitchell and use the ride of her life to hitchhike through the centuries back to her duly deserved fame and fortune.
Here lies the rub.
Mitchell’s the man she wants, the one she’s been waiting for all her life. She knows it from the moment he sweeps her up in his strong arms and drops her on his big old bed. From the second he unbuttons her bodice, and she his breeches. If only he was from her time. If, if, if…
If this is her last kiss; the last time she can make love for fear of ricocheting through the ages with every orgasm, then there is no one she would rather do it with.
Life’s never that simple, is it Brittany? Not with destiny calling… loud and clear.
The Writer and the Rake is a genre-bending adventure. It confirms Shehanne Moore as an author who know today’s woman is as likely to be into science fiction, playing computer games or watching light porn as reading heavy romance. And Moore’s not afraid to give her readers what they want … without ifs, buts or apologies.
The dialogue is racy, witty and thoroughly modern. This is no cod 18th century comedy of manners. That would get in the way of the lust and punishing pace. Her characters are real: gritty, decent and flawed as the rest of us. And ultimately, as redeemable by love we all are. Though it’s bloody hard work for them sometimes!
And in case you are thinking this is just for the girls, I’d advise you to give it a shot, lads. Cos let’s face it… it does no harm knowing what your woman wants.
‘You wait ages for one Shehanne Moore book and then two come along at once! Hot on the heels of her irrepressible timeslip novel The Writer and the Rake, comes her long-awaited Regency – Splendor – sequel to the fabulous Loving Lady Lazuli. Shehanne has the knack of creating unforgettable heroines set against an authentic historical backdrop.
Here she talks about some extraordinary women on the late 18th/early 19th century.’
In terms of being a wife in ruination only which is what he has just asked, you can see my latest hero, Kendall Winterborne, Earl of Stillmore, is following in well-trodden footsteps when it comes to my heroes. As for Splendor the heroine? Well, being up to her neck in it, goes with the turf.
I recently did a guest blog for the lovely poet Christy Birmingham, on the pretty awful lot of Georgian Women. Splendor is set in a slightly later time, Regency more than early Georgian, where the hunt for a husband was a serious business, families spent a fortune on their daughters, ‘coming out’ and unattached ladies had but one goal, NOT to signal what that goal was. But what happened when they achieved that goal?
Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelley—and a woman who defied convention– had published her Rights of Women in 1792.
It highlighted the ‘means and arts by which women had been forcibly subjugated, flattered into imbecility and invariably held in bondage’. So all good for women then? A great time being spent in pursuing frivilous goals? On going to dances with wet skirts as a means of showing off their legs and getting lots of attention from the male sex, of arriving dirt-poor from the country and passing oneself off as an heiress to bag a rich suitor? All things that went on, things that are alluded to in Splendor. So, a jolly good time for women then? Right?
Well, no. Contraception, childbirth etc, had not greatly improved. For women, chastity before marriage, was often as much a matter of necessity.
Also women were still their husband’s property. My hero Stillmore may be divorced, he certainly got all his wife’s money beforehand. In fact marrying her saved the family fortunes after his father ran off with a kitchen maid who bankrupted them.
So, given all this, you can understand Splendor being glad when Stillmore informs her that while this ’thing’ he’s asking her in such polite and patient terms, involves marriage, it will be one in name only, since he utterly despises and actively fears the institution. In fact he regards anyone foolish enough to take that trip down the aisle, as he once did, as an imbecile.
He has his reasons by the way.
You can also see, given the only slightly improved lot of women in the early 19th century, why quite a few of them wanted to be a man. And that is something Splendor is masquerading as at the start of the book. Not because she especially wants to be a man but because the prize money in a certain chess completion is much greater in the men’s part of the tournament, than the ladies. Nine and a half thousand guineas greater to be precise. Money she needs—badly.
In that respect she’s not the first woman to decide that going about this as a man was the way to ensure her future as a woman. Katherine Ferrers—The Wicked Lady anyone—was said to have taken to the highways as a man in her husband’s absence, to sort out the little blip in her finances, get them on a more even keel.
Too bad that she was apparently shot, exhorting a victim to stand and deliver, which they did, killing her in the process. Looking on the bright side, at least her financial worries were at an end. Something Splendor certainly considers when she gets challenged to a duel by Stillmore. Just one of the little drawbacks of entering a man’s world.
Very well, Katherine’s case has never actually been proved but the idea of women dressing as men is not stupid. Shakespeare chooses to make his main character in Twelfth Night, Viola, a cross-dresser. She wasn’t laughed off the stage either. all right she was no doubt being played by a man dressing as a woman, masquerading as a man.
Shakespeare also has each of the three women in the Merchant of Venice, dress as men at certain points of the play, for perfectly valid reasons. Again, the idea wasn’t derided.
Why does Viola cross-dress? Because, ship-wrecked and needing to find her brother, she is also faced with the harsh economic reality of finding work and the only opening? Yep, you guessed it. It’s for a man.
There are several instances of women cross dressing for that reason.
Christian Cavanagh, an Irish-born mother, left her children with her mother and a nurse to pursue her husband who had disappeared, into the army. Christian the subject of a book by Daniel Defoe, fought in several battles before it was discovered it was Mrs. Davies not Mr.
Pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read never masqueraded as men but they certainly lived as them.
Lady Caroline Lamb, as mad, bad and dangerous to know as her lover, the poet Byron, being rich, didn’t need to dress as a man to make her way in that world, unlike her poorer ‘sisters.’ But when she fancied a quickie with Byron, she did find that sneaking into his chambers was a lot easier, if she was dressed as a boy.
Author and mistress of Chopin, George Sand, who I forgot to mention in the original post- (How the hell could I ever miss out George?) never dressed as a man because she wanted to be one, took the name George either. Originally she only wanted to go to the theatre, to the cheap seats where women were forbidden. Why did she want the cheap seats? Because she couldn’t live with her husband any more, divorce was illegal and he cut her monthly allowance. I reckon that women, were doing what resourceful women, have done from time immemorial, and that’s survive. Whatever the era. And freed from having to be a woman certainly seemed to make them quite as dangerous to know in some instances too. Catherine Cavendish, thank you so much, lady and writer extraordinary for asking me to your wonderful blog today.
And now? That duel.
Extract from Splendor: Shehanne Moore
He was an unashamedly driving, look-at-me male. Unless he knew her body was shaped differently? Did it mean he wasn’t going to shoot her? She could stay in the tournament? Win the ten thousand pounds? If he knew she was a woman, he was surely going to say…
“For God’s bloody sake, you’re damn well meant to move,” Stillmore snarled. “Stop bloody arsing, will you?”
In all of her intimate brush with the Starkadder Sisterhood, she had never been told to stop doing such a thing, especially not by a man whose buttocks seemed glued to hers. She felt him turn his head.
“Don’t damn well add miscounting to cheating.”
“Miscounting? Me? When you—”
“Fram, start the count again. As for you, try to do what he says this time if it’s not beyond you.”
Despite the fact the pistol felt like ice in her hand, she gritted her teeth. “Do you somehow think it’s my fault I’m not? Look, Your Grace—”
“One.”
Whether it was her fault or not, the shock she got at hearing the word yet again and the difficulty of forcing her feet to move, meant she took a giant step forward, almost sliding on her said arse on the wet grass. These damned boots of Gabe’s were too large and thin as milk dribble on the soles. But so long as Kendall Winterborne didn’t think this was another trick on her part to delay the action, it would be all right.
“Two.”
Another step. She could barely keep hold of herself as she took it. But, count her blessings, her senses weren’t being accosted by the feel of him. The man…good God…who might kill her.
“Three.”
A drag of air into her tortured lungs. All she had to do was get off one round. How hard was that? Her finger tightened on the trigger. What if she killed the earl? Was he so black-hearted he deserved to die?
And all because he’d undermined her when she’d meant to say, I’m a woman. You can’t shoot me. Or had she undermined herself, precisely because she was a woman?
“Four.”
For God’s sake, was it five paces or six? Seven even? She could not remember for the mist snaking into her nostrils. And she needed to remember. As surely as her name was Dora Malachi whom everyone called Aurora Splendora, she needed to remember. She would be shot in the back otherwise. Then…then she’d be dead.
“Five… Six…”
But there was no sharp retort, no searing agony, no impact of a bullet tearing cloth and flesh, so obviously, obviously, when it came to how many paces, it wasn’t, five, or six. It couldn’t be. It must be…
“Seven.”
The word wasn’t even out when she seized a breath and swung on her heel, managing just to keep her balance in the dew. Her fingers squeezed the trigger. She should have aimed, but it wasn’t as if she could see, so it made no difference. The crack ricocheted through her head, reverberating around every cavity in her eardrums. Crows rose like a screeching blanket from the ground. It was nothing to the noise Kendall Winterborne, the Earl of Stillmore, made as he hopped on one foot.
“Jesus bloody Christ. Jesus suffering bloody Christ.”
Nothing to the way he limped about, blackening the air with curses as she stood trying to look knowledgeable either. The buzz in her ears swelled. Starkadder and his silver watch fob chain she never got to polish, she hadn’t hit him, had she? How on earth she had managed to get that shot off, she had no idea. How it had blasted him in the foot either. But she had blasted him. Oh God, oh God, oh God. She had fired. He hadn’t. It meant one thing.
Even the somewhat large, staggered first pace she’d taken had not substantially increased the distance between them. For that she’d have had to bolt. So now…now he didn’t just stop hopping, he stopped dead center in the space opposite, the space he’d occupied just before she’d shot off her pistol, the smoking pistol that slithered from her palm, making a funny thudding noise as it struck the soft grass.
He raised his arm. Raised one eyebrow too. Her gaze widened in an involuntary spasm, so she saw the drizzle-sprayed mist, and his eyes primed on her like flintlocks above the shining barrel of the gun. The one now leveled at her breast, so carefully aimed, he could not miss.
A shudder shook her as his eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. His finger fastened slowly on the trigger.
Then he drew it slowly, deliberately toward his chest.
BLURB
The only thing he hates more than losing at chess is marriage…
For Splendor, former servant to the London’s premiere jewel thieves, pretending to be someone else is all in a day’s work. So when she learns of a chess tournament—a men’s chess tournament—with a ten thousand pound prize, pretending to be a man is the obvious move. The money will be enough to set her fiancé up in his own business so they can finally marry, and more importantly, it’ll pay off her bills and keep her out of debtor’s prison. But she doesn’t plan on her opponent, the rakish Kendall Winterborne, Earl Stillmore, being a sore loser—and a drunken one, at that. But before she can collect her prize, she finds herself facing the most merciless man in London across a pair of dueling pistols at dawn. Chess may be Splendor’s game, but she’s never fired a pistol. And dressed as a man with ill-fitting shoes on the slippery grass and borrowed glasses that make it hard to see, she’s certain she’s finally tipped her own king.
Bitter divorcee Kendall Winterborne, Earl Stillmore, is the ton’s most ruthless heartbreaker. And he’s got three pet peeves: kitchen maids, marriage…and losing. So when he realizes the “man” opposite him has entered the chess tournament under false pretenses, he’s in the perfect position to extort the little chit. But that’s before the exasperating woman begins to slip beneath his skin, and soon all he can think about is slipping beneath her skirts. But the confounded woman is engaged to someone else, and worse—she’s nothing but a former kitchen maid, just like the one that lured his father into the marriage that ruined the family name. And his ex-wife taught him more than he cared to know about why marriage was the worst kind of checkmate of all…
There was nothing wrong with pistols at seven paces at dawn. Except dawn was at eight o’clock tomorrow, and Splendor had a dressmaker’s appointment then. Three thimbles and the scissors had smacked into the back of the Chinese dressing screen the last time she’d wandered in ten minutes late. Madame Renare had said these were meant for her assistant, that paying customers, even those who were behind with their bills, were sacrosanct. Splendor knew she lied, that Lady Haskins, who always had the next appointment, would depart wearing Splendor’s guts for garters if she were late again. And if she didn’t bring the money to pay her the bill.
Despite the pulse beating in her throat and her desire for the black-and-white checkered floor she stood upon to open up and swallow her, she’d promised Gabe there was nothing to this. She wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to herself, wouldn’t be found out. Yet just five minutes in this damnable tournament and look at what had happened. Every dull clod-pate in the room was looking at her, glaring holes in her loose fitting jacket—Gabe’s—as she stood there. The grandfather clock in the nearby alcove appeared to be holding its breath midtick, the potted palms to have frozen. The silence stretched from window to window, slipped between the heavy crimson drapes, wound around the yellow tassels, hung from the poles, all the way to the entry salon on the ground floor of Boodle’s Gentleman’s Club.
Worse than being found out, she was going to be shot at dawn. Or rather, eight o’clock.
Checkmate. If she’d known that one word was going to cause all this trouble, would she have said it?
The spectacles she wore, which did not belong to her, rendered her blinder than a belfry of bats. Nonetheless, she removed her gaze from the shining silver buttons on the waistcoat of the man who stood before her and looked straight at his face.
Young, handsome, divorced, the third Earl of Stillmore was a rake, a killer in every way, in the bedroom and on the chessboard. Or so her sources had said. Impatient, foul tempered, drunk, and a conniving fiddler was more accurate.
“My second, Your Grace?” she asked, speaking in carefully lowered tones as if duels were things she was challenged to fight every day of life. Challenged by the best shot in London too.
“Yes, boy,” Kendall Winterborne, the third Earl of Stillmore, snarled. “Your second. Who’s it to be?”
“Well… I… Well. You see, Your Grace… About that. I was really hoping that you and I might—”
“Oh, hang it all to hell and back. Chasens!”
His terse huff was followed by a terser finger snap. Please God, not another brandy to add to the lake the drunken earl had already drowned himself in.
The man standing behind him, a blur in black, snapped to attention. “Yes, sah.”
“You might as well fetch me some paper and ink to go along with that snifter. Then I can pen my autobiography while I’m waiting.”
Gabe’s warm breath brushed her cheek as he stepped up behind her. “Come on, Splen. Leave now while you still can. His nibs gets wind of the fact you belong next door, in the ladies tournament—”
“Where the prize money is less?” She fought the little ripple that always spun in her blood when Gabe brushed against her. “Nine-and-a-half thousand pounds less, to be precise? Gabriel, I can’t.”
“I ain’t needing to be bought into the clergy.”
“Well, I ain’t needing to go on as we are. Besides, he’s drunk.”
A voice cut across the hall. “Would someone mind telling me what the devil is going on at table number seven?”
Her heart almost sprung through the bindings around her chest. The tournament organizer, the Duke of Brampton. While she couldn’t see him for the spectacles, she instantly recognized the cultured tones of the elderly man who’d been so nice to her earlier. “Well? Kendall, why has play stopped? Surely you have not fallen out with your opponent?”
Gabe’s hand snatched at her sleeve, crushed her arm. “Splen… I mean it. Ten thousand pounds ain’t no bleedin’ good if you ain’t around to spend it. ‘Cos you know where you’re headed next, if they find you out, don’t you? And I ain’t talking the cemetery.”
She knew indeed. The place Starkadder had taken her out of. Prison. Her gaze froze behind her spectacle lenses. Even now, despite the thick fug of cigar smoke clouding the high ornate ceiling, that festering stink of prison, of centuries-old dirt, lay loose as a winding sheet on her skin. Gabe was right. Besides, the money was no good if tomorrow was the lateness to end all latenesses.
“Very well.” She caught his bony wrist. “Let’s go.”
“Excuse me.” The Duke of Brampton, blurry in purple and blue, a powdered wig on his head, squeezed between the tables. “Now then, Kendall, everyone is looking. Sufficient to say, yet again it is at you. Be a good fellow and sit down, won’t you?”
The duke pressed his be-ringed hand on Stillmore’s black-brocaded chest and pushed him down into his chair.
She hesitated. She’d thought everyone was looking at her. But if Stillmore was known for being looked at, perhaps they weren’t looking at her at all. Perhaps she could wait one more moment and see…? She didn’t just need that ten thousand pounds to get Gabe bought into the clergy. She needed it to pay off Madame Renare—without Gabe finding out. If he found out about her dressmaking bills, he’d kill her.
“Splen…”
“Shh.”
“But—”
Win the prize money. Clear her account with Madame Renare. Buy Gabe with his soft dark hair and soulful eyes into the clergy. Marry him. Benefit the poor. Live happily ever after. Stop spending money like water.
This, as her dear papa always said, wasn’t over till it was done. Stillmore could bluster all he wanted about duels. When it came to it, she’d beaten him fair and square, and that was all he could have on her.
Stillmore’s chair clattered to the checkered floor. “No, I don’t mind if I don’t. I abhor sitting down.” Crystal clinked on the silver tray floating in her vision. “Especially in the presence of cheats.”
“Well, that’s a great pity.” The Duke of Brampton’s voice was silky smooth. “But perhaps you haven’t noticed this is a chess tournament? In love, in war, challenging a man is all very well. But surely even you can see it’s not the done thing to go around shooting your opponents in a chess tournament?”
“When they cheat, I damn well will.”
“Oh, for God’s sake man, have you any idea of how unreasonable that makes you sound?”
“Not half as much as you telling me, me, who’s won this damned thing three years in a row, that I’ve just been beaten in five minutes in the first round by some nincompoop schoolboy in britches. Some…some jackass turkey just out of the nursery?”
Won this thing three years in a row? If this was the standard, she could dispense with any doubts that she’d not win. She just needed to dispose of the arrogant, drunken earl. Or rather, leave the Duke of Brampton to do it for her.
Never let it be said that this was anything her humble position in Lanthorne Street—at Starkadder’s and the Sisterhood of London Jewel Thieves’ beck and call—hadn’t prepared her for. When she’d served as the Sisterhood’s skivvy, she’d burned holes in petticoats, cinderized the odd stocking or two, and suffered sundry pots, pans, and ladles bouncing off her temples. But she never forgot one thing: to remove the sting from the situation, even if humiliation burned in the very pit of her breast, she must always smile.
She flicked a stray strand of her strawberry blonde hair back behind her ear. “And what, pray tell, would be the purpose of me cheating, exactly, Your Grace? Hmm?”
“Ten thousand bloody pounds. That’s what.”
The growl froze her smile to her teeth backs.
“Anyway, I didn’t say you cheated. I said there has been some…”
He stepped closer, and her heartbeat froze. A heady concoction of mint, brandy, and sandalwood tickled her nose.
“Some…”
She’d glanced over her spectacle rims. When she’d sworn not to. She held her breath right down in the furthest corner of her lungs. In fact, she possibly held it in her stomach. Tousled black hair, black brows knitted with perfect disdain above coal-black eyes that were coldly leveled on her, sinfully sensuous lips and a dusting of stubble on his jaw gave him a wolfish air. Her heart battered her rib cage with metal hammers, his stare was so bold.
He canted his jaw, drawing his brows together. “Some discrepancy…of play. Forgive me for saying so, but…”
His words hung in the air as he stared at her. Her jacket hadn’t burst so that her breasts hung out, had it? “Your Grace,” she said, darting her gaze back behind the safety of the thick lenses. “I don’t forgive you anything. Certainly not you looking…” Down her front? Looking more handsome than any man she’d ever seen? “Saying… Saying I’ve cheated you. It was bishop to that square, and you…well, you…”
Stillmore wrinkled his nose and sniffed deliberately.
Her soap. Essence of Violets. She froze. How, in all the preparations she’d undertaken at Mrs. Hanney’s, had she forgotten that one vital thing? Perhaps she should have kept her mouth shut and let the Duke of Brampton deal with this after all.
“For goodness’ sake, Kendall, sit down, now, before you fall. Or you’ll leave me with no choice but to throw you out.” The duke set the spindle chair back on the tiles. “Everyone here knows you’re foxed over that business with Baxby.”
“Baxby?” Crystal shattered as the stem of the snifter in Stillmore’s hand snapped in two.
Baxby, whoever he was, apparently inflamed the earl almost as much as being checkmated.
There was nothing to be done about that now. It was Gabe’s dearest dream to become a clergyman, and it was down to her to see he succeeded. Then there was the little matter of the dressmaking bill. That was down to her too. Benefiting the poor was all very well. But sometimes, to do so you had to look the part. Spend in order to receive. Papa had always said so, although he had liked to spend money he didn’t have, as well.
If the earl shot her tomorrow at Blackfield Heath, it would certainly solve her bill problems, though.
“You think this is about Baxby?” Once again, the earl’s voice held notes of the darkest modulation. “That it’s of any consequence to me that the sneaky, damn, bastard son-of-a-whore is here? Dancing on my grave?”
“We’re hardly in the cemetery. But yes. Baxby. And a certain lady with whom you are the talk of London, my boy. So if you want to continue making a damned fool of yourself…”
“I’m not your boy unless my mother was as big a whore as that certain lady. And even if I were your boy, do you think familial loyalty would stop me from calling you out for that?”
Splendor froze. Did the earl descend from wolves? Growling, trigger-happy, pistol-toting ones who thought nothing of calling half the hall out at dawn? What if he shot the Duke of Brampton? Perhaps Gabe was right, and they should leave now.
The earl drained the contents of his glass down his lace-clad throat. “If you must know, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Baxby and Lady Langley.”
“Well, then, if it isn’t, you will see that this boy here—”
“This boy? This boy? Oh, that’s a good one. This boy.”
Splendor’s heart hammered as if a boa constrictor had slithered across the polished floorboards, climbed her leg, and wrapped itself around her rib cage. At all costs she couldn’t afford to sink to the floor. Imagine the sensation it would cause if she did and someone loosened her, or rather Gabe’s shirt?
In another minute the Earl of Stillmore would succumb to the pleasant, manly smile she cast him. If he didn’t, she’d have to accuse him of cheating.
The Duke of Brampton shifted beside her and looked at the chessboard. “Kendall, from where I’m standing the last move was this bishop to that square there—”
“I don’t give a bull’s toss whether the last move was the Archbishop of Canterbury to that square there. The Archbishops of York and Durham too. Every damned archbishop in the country to that square. I know what I saw. Exactly what I saw.” The earl turned to her and pointed a finger at her chest. “Now boy, find yourself a second. And be on Blackfield Heath at eight. Don’t waste time with a physician; by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll need an undertaker.”
BLURB
He hates to lose. Especially to a man who’s not.
One move to win ten thousand guineas in a chess competition. One move to marry her fiancé. Another to face the most merciless man in London across a pair of duelling pistols. For Splendor, former skivvy to the London’s premiere jewel thieves, it’s all in a day’s work. But when one wrong move leads to another, can she win and keep her heart intact, against the one man in London with the potential to bring her down? Especially in a chess game where the new wager is ten thousand guineas against one night with her.
The Endgame to end all Endgames
One move to pay back his ex-mistress. One move to show the world he doesn’t give a damn he’s been beaten in every way. The ton’s most ruthless heartbreaker, bitter, divorcee, Kendall Winterborne, Earl of Stillmore’s, pet hates are kitchen maids, marriage and losing. Knowing Splendor has entered a male chess competition under false pretences, he’s in the perfect position to extort her help, regardless of the fact she’s engaged to someone else. He just doesn’t bank on having to face up to his pet hates. Certainly not over the kind of skivvy who ruined his father and set him on this course.
As one move leads to another, one thing’s for certain though. His next move better be fast if he wants to keep the ‘Cinderella’ he’s fallen for. But the clock is ticking. When it strikes twelve, which man will she choose?
The Writer and The Rake. Chapter one the illustrated preview version. Time Mutants series.
Chapter 1
Present Day. Dundee, Scotland.
If life was what happened as she dreamed, then what a bloody nightmare hers was right now. Flashlights pinged. “Sign this, Ms. Carter,” “Ms. Carter, over here,” “Brit-tany, Brit-tany,” screeched legions of adoring fans.
Some were trampled underfoot as she sashayed up stairs that dripped in red velvet, her carefully coiffed, exotically scented, chestnut hair framing her face, pink lips pouting, figure, slim as an ice pick in the little lime-green number she’d ordered from Saskia’s online. A snip at a thousand quid.
At least, in her fantasies people asked her for her autographs, her fans were being trampled and the dress cost that.
The truth?
Not even a mouse at her book signing in some shitty Scout hall.
Another parking ticket to stuff in the overflowing glove compartment. If only the compartment was a magician’s box that would make it vanish. A thwack, as one windscreen wiper tangled with the other, breaking it off and pinging it across the car bonnet in the rain battering off the tarmac.
And need she ask herself what that noise was? The tinkling of a broken tail light. Not hers. As for the dress? Sufficient to say that Zaskia’s wasn’t Saskia’s. So it was stuck in transit somewhere over Europe. She’d fit it all right. For the past week yogurt was all she could afford. Her stomach growled with hunger.
She stuffed her cigarette in the ashtray and creaked open the car door.
“Well, doesn’t this just make my day, ma’am? Stoopid. Stoopid.”
The icing on the cake. A shaven-headed, Neanderthal in a long leather coat, down on his haunches, squinting at his car bumper lying in the road. American, so probably born with a legal writ in his hand. She’d planned on picking up Rab by nine and it was already ten minutes to.
“Look, please don’t blame yourself.” She dragged her cigarettes and lighter from her raincoat pocket. “An accident can happen to anyone. I’m perfectly certain if it’s the first time—”
“Do you think I meant me?”
Forget being sued. On a sliding scale in a galaxy of last things, Rab disappearing to the pub for a quickie because she was late, was her biggest fear. She flicked her lighter, dragged the hot smoke into her lungs, let the heavenly scent waft up her nose.
“Well, darling, I sincerely hope you aren’t meaning me. I mean, I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Brit. Hey, doll, is something up?”
Rab, proceeded by his beer belly, dark quiff plastered to his forehead, his feet rammed into unfastened trainers, splashed through the puddles, guzzling what looked like a half bottle of voddie in a brown paper bag. Or was it a full bottle? It didn’t bode well for taking her revenge on Sebastian when she was doing her best to stay calm.
“You might say, darling.”
“Fine. Why don’t I just get in the car then? Just—”
He almost fell his length while pawing the door handle. When she’d thought about picking him up, she should have realized it would be out of the gutter. She glanced the other way. At least he was here. Sebastian’s was only a fifteen-minute drive through the city and over the road bridge. They’d be there by nine thirty.
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.”
“Yes?”
Ignoring Rab, and the butterflies rising in her stomach, she flicked her gaze over the man on his haunches, streetlight gilding his face.
“Did he just say, Brit?”
She forced a smile. If he had her name and went to the police with it, that would be the end of the plan to sort Sebastian.
“Brita? Yes.”
He stood up, wiping grit and plastic specks from his palms, his voice just audible above the water gurgling down the drain, inches from her toes. “An unusual name. It’s not short for something, is it?”
“It’s second generation Norwegian actually.”
“Really? You don’t sound Norwegian.”
“Oh, I don’t sound a lot of things, that’s why everyone up here calls me a Sassenach. But my grandfather was Norwegian and my mother is English.”
“You don’t say. Brittany Carter? Yes?”
“And what’s that to you?”
Cold trickles of rain ran down her spine as she shot a glance at her car and more importantly Rab sitting like a mountain inside. With that long shiny raincoat and shaved head, this stranger’s faint scent of hot exhaust, mugging old ladies, and extorting money at knifepoint from women like her, were probably as much as he knew. Not that she had much money. He’d be sadly disappointed. Even if he read her books, it wouldn’t do to go leaping about the street. The trick was to appear calm even if she was actively fighting the urge to finger her neck. Waft a little smoke his way. “Well?”
“Fame, success, riches.”
“I think you must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Nope.”
“Trust me, darling.”
“Fame, success, riches.”
“In your dreams. Last month’s royalty statement wouldn’t pay for a loaf of bread.”
His lips cinched. “I should have added, the choice is yours. So long as you do it wisely.”
“Goodness. That sounds just like a book blurb.”
“Perhaps.” He dug in his pocket. “It only takes one thing.”
Good God Almighty. An autograph? He was a fan? A man like him? Her publisher had stressed the importance of appealing to all sorts. Men. Women. Why argue? Especially when she hadn’t appealed to anyone and this man pulled out a folded square of soggy paper. This was an awful lot better than exchanging insurance details.
“Hold on.” She opened her bag. She wasn’t exactly short of pens. “Although I must ask, do you mean, perhaps it only takes one thing? Or, perhaps? And then, it only takes? Oh, never mind. You’ve bought my books? The Captive Viking? The Captive Viking’s Bride? Then, of course, there’s my latest, A Viking for the Saxon Prince. It’s not as it sounds. The Viking is a lady. Her name is Frigga. Yours is?”
“My name? I don’t see what my name—”
“Unless you want me to guess, which I have to tell you darling, I’m in no mood for. You want a personalization, don’t you?”
She stared at the silver raindrop trickling down his face. An escaped lunatic was the last thing she needed tonight.
“Well, I—I just need you to sign if you are Brittany Carter, then all these things I mentioned can be yours.”
“How kind, but I still need your name.”
“Morte.” His voice rumbled like distant thunder in his chest.
“Mort? How interesting. Short for Mortimer, or Mortmain, is it?”
He shrugged, his face dead as stone. The smile wasn’t a smile. “If you say so, lady.”
“Well, if you’ll just open the paper?”
She waited while he pulled the ends of the piece of paper apart. Screeds on it, in fancy rain-smeared lettering she could barely get her eyes in gear to decipher, stranger than the black symbols etched into his shaven head.
What were they? Crude attempts at reproducing crop circles? A problem with his barber? She screwed her eyes up tighter. She’d signed that mortgage with Sebastian without thinking after all. Now he kept defaulting. She couldn’t even get a credit card company to touch her. Shouldn’t she at least try to see, look knowledgeable, prevaricate? This might be an insurance disclaimer. He moved closer.
“Is there something wrong?”
She jerked up her head.
“Oh I—I—”
“Let me, ma’am.” He shrugged and turned around.
“I’m sorry?”
“You can sign it right there. Use my back as a desk.”
How obliging. More so than any man she’d ever met and she wanted to get to Sebastian’s tonight. Besides, she’d dreamed of this. What possible harm could there be? She tossed the cigarette aside, stepped forward, wedged the piece of paper between his soaking shoulder blades.
“All good wishes.” She scrawled in the wet creases. “‘To Mortimer, my only, I mean my number one fan, with love from Brittany Carter.’ How’s that? Now, if you don’t mind, I really must be getting on my way.”
“Not at all, Brittany. It’s very good of you to sign. Just . . . just remember what I said about choice. It’s important you choose wisely, do you understand?”
“Your car . . .”
He’d asked for her autograph and now she glanced down in the yellow light. That was quite a dent in the boot.
“Don’t worry about it.” A shrug of his expansive shoulders. “I won’t need it where I’m going.”
“Somewhere close at hand, is it? After all, you wouldn’t want to get wet in all this rain if there’s a problem with it.” Or cadge a lift. She dropped the pen back into her bag. “Now, talking rain, I really must go. But, so lovely to have met you, Mort. Take care of yourself, won’t you?”
She nearly shot out of her skin. Thunder clapped right above her head. The street lamps flickered. Sparks showered on the cobbled road inches from her toes so she’d done her damndest to stand there and muffle the shriek. Mort merely stared.
“You should go.”
“Yes.”
“Now.”
“I will. Don’t hang about yourself. Goodbye.”
She sloshed towards the car, relief and alarm coating her skin. Rab had fallen over and was sprawled across her seat. She shoved him upright, squeezed inside.
“There you are, Brit. What was all that about?”
She stuck a cigarette between her teeth. “Not that you were paying any attention, but it was a fan.”
“You?”
“Well, I do have some, darling.”
“Did I say you didn’t?”
“You didn’t have to.” She glanced in the mirror. “His name’s Mort and he wanted my autograph.”
So badly he was splayed on his knees kissing the paper in a dancing sea of rain, raising it heavenwards, the hem of his coat frothing in a perfect circle around him. The unlit cigarette dangled from her lower lip. Who needed a legion of fans when she’d one like this? She’d better be careful driving away. It would be terrible to run him over.
“Jesus!”
Rab’s yell split her eardrums. The bolt of lightning hadn’t just struck behind them. It had struck Mort. Her fan. Her only fan had flames licking all over his coat. And he knelt there, doing nothing. She must save him. She couldn’t lose her only fan. There would be no one to buy her next book.
“Quickly Rab, the extinguisher.” She raked under the seat. “Get the car rug. Hurry. Hurry. Phone 999.”
“Jeez, Brit, what the hell do you think I am? Superman?”
“Now. Now.”
She stumbled out, grabbed the extinguisher. Flames pooled at the hem of Mort’s outspread coat. They spread like golden butter up the coat itself while he sat with his eyes closed, his dark brows in a straight line, his lips too. The acrid smell of burning leather stung her nostrils. Fortunately her eyes didn’t water. She could see.
“Mort!”
Her unlit cigarette was still wedged between her teeth. It gave her something to bite down on as she took aim. Foam scooted in a frothy jet, spattering Mort’s rugged face, covering his eyelids like snow. “It’s fine, darling. I’ve got you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
Shock obviously did things to a person. It’d done things to Mort. He couldn’t see blackened, smoking holes punctured his coat and seared his flesh. He hadn’t even fallen over.
“Rab has phoned an ambulance.”
“That too.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve interrupted a process here.”
She bit her lip, the cigarette along with it, scooshed more foam. “Well, if that’s your head going up in flames, I’m glad I did. Or you’d be crisped, darling. Now, just let me get that blanket for you.”
“Do you think that is going to solve anything? A goddamned blanket?”
She turned. The poor man. She shook the blanket out and tucked its soft folds around his shoulders before he got even more aggressive. At least it would be warm. Good for shock.
“There. Let’s just get this properly round you. That’s it. There. Till the ambulance gets here.”
His dark eyes, weary beyond ages held hers. “No. You don’t understand. This is about choices. You just made the wrong one.”
He saw her coming. If he’d known her effect he’d have walked away.
When it comes to doing it all, hard coated ‘wild child’ writer, Brittany Carter ticks every box. Having it all is a different thing though, what with her need to thwart an ex fiancé, and herself transported from the present to Georgian times. But then, so long as she can find her way back to her world of fame, and promised fortune, what’s there to worry about?
Georgian bad boy Mitchell Killgower is at the center of an inheritance dispute and he needs Brittany as his obedient, country mouse wife. Or rather he needs her like a hole in the head. In and out of his bed he’s never known a woman like her. A woman who can disappear and reappear like her either.
And when his coolly contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and stay there, will And when his coolly contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and remain, will having it all be enough, or does she underestimate him, and herself?
Da forma mais espontânea possível quero passar para você a maneira como enxergo a vida, sobretudo as dificuldades e interpretações ao lidar com os muitos aspectos dela e espero que assim eu possa te acolher, através de um remédio que considero muito eficaz – as palavras, levando a mensagem de que você não está sozinho(a) ao atravessar os desafios da vida. Todos nós já passamos por algo que alguém já passou!
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She glided closer. She had come to speak with him, wife to husband. And she had chosen here to do it because it was public. Those who thought the sun shone from the backend of his brown velvet breeches had a lot to learn. 
