ARISAIG. Shey on the rocks without a drink too… DAY ONE. The walk was to Rhu Point and back. Shey and the Mr were full of day one walking anticipation, so they howfed the three and a bit miles there, then back again.
ARISAIG Shey on a moth-eaten swing. Strangely this was without a drink although you might not think it. The Highland Games Dance was yet to come….
ARISAIG A deserted set of swings without anything….
And a phone box somewhere in Glen Roy that took Shey’s fancy largely cos you can’t get a mobile signal… BUT MAYBE there’s a ‘ beam me up Scotty,’ story here, OR It’s the TARDIS… As you can see …many writing prompts here.
DAY TWO. Shey at the Silver Sands, Morar before she and the Mr clocked the incoming tide…. and had to walk miles back to the road… or water, lots of it would have been what they were drinking…
MORAR
DAY two the Silver Sands of Morar from a safer viewpoint.
DAY TWO Unperturbed by the diversion at Morar and dancing half the night away, Shey and the Mr drove to Glencoe and tackled the Duror Trail feeling very brisk and loving the joys of walking. So much so they even walked along to Am Torr and back later before howfing it into the Boots Bar.
Glencoe
GLENCOE DAY 3. Despite the sun now beating down Shey and the Mr. set off to bag Meall Mor. From 1500 feet already up –on a forestry road to Ballachulish no less– with the last bit, straight ahead there, through the bog, round the sheep fence, through the gate and up the slope, just to go, what could be simpler. In Glencoe, there is no such thing as simple…
The view looking down from the top was quite something.
As for the five and a half hours all told it took Shey and the Mr to do the entire bagging-yes you can spot him there, thinking how one slip would result in him taking the express route down to Loch Leven…, while Shey tried a more zigzagging approach well….that was something too…
But returning…, or rather crawling back…to the Clachaig a surprise awaited. A bottle of lovely bubbly from the staff there for the wedding anniversary. So obvi this picture and all the ones taken after had a drink in them, in fact they had many, and no wonder.
Now this as blogger Ralpha will know is THAT sign again which Shey, no longer so full of the joys of walking, but rather full of fizz and cask aged cider tried to vary pose-wise.
DAY 4. GLENCOE/BALLACHILISH. Despite outright rebellion in the ranks, the Mr fell into step and did the lonely, overgrown, Brecklet Trail where Ping Pong Monsters lurk….. Monsters that tasted delicious…….
Dundee rocks! I got my first degree (history) at Manchester Uni in 1984, but 2017-2018 I did a Master’s degree in Writing Practice and Study at Dundee Uni! It was hard, but that’s because I did it in one year whilst running my photography business AND writing my debut romance for Mills & Boon – so it was a heavy load to carry. The course was great though – took me into reading and writing territory that was new and exciting. I particularly enjoyed the lyrical/creative essay form and poetry.
Ella Hayes – Okay, this is sort of tied up with question 3 – path to publication etc. I’d been writing for a while. I wrote a romantic suspense novel, then a coming of age story set in Scotland but getting an agent, getting published seemed so hard. I wanted feedback on my writing, so that’s why I applied to do the M.Litt at Dundee Uni.
At about the same time a friend of mine sent me the link to a Mills and Boon competition in Prima magazine, and to be honest, I wasn’t sure about it… but then I had a story idea, and thought, why not? So I wrote the first chapter and an outline (that was what the competition was asking for) and sent it in. I didn’t give it much thought until I got an email telling me I’d been shortlisted! I was really surprised. Of course, once you know you’re on the shortlist you can’t help wondering about how it would feel to win. Anyway, about three weeks later I got the call! I’d won! I nearly dropped the phone. So, the deal was that I then had to write the rest of the book, working with an editor from M&B. It was a real education, learning the ropes of the romance genre, but it was great. Because the degree was so demanding, I could only work on it during holiday time, so I’d hand in my end of term assignments, take a deep breath and switch into romance mode. I didn’t draw breath for a year.
Ella Hayes. Well… it’s about an artist called Milla O’Brien who’s been jilted by her fiancé – she flees to an off-grid artist’s residence in the wilds of Scotland to lick her wounds and focus on her work but on the way she gets a flat tyre and is helped at the roadside by enigmatic laird’s son, Cormac Buchanan. He’s a troubled hero, a Royal Engineer who’s lost his best friend in a traumatic skirmish in Afghanistan. He’s grief-stricken, weighed down with survivor guilt. He’s only come back to the family estate because his sister is getting married. Neither Milla nor Cormac is looking for love but fate has other ideas…
Ella Hayes.- Being a brand new author myself, I feel unqualified to advise other writers, but what I would say is that it’s important to network and find support in the writing community – writers understand other writers better than anyone. Oh, and I suppose after the experience I’ve had, I would encourage aspiring writers to enter competitions! You’ve got to be in it to win it!
Ella Hayes– I actually live in the countryside a couple of miles out of Kinross, but it’s a lovely little town –
we’ve got Loch Leven and the brilliant Heritage Trail that you can walk, run or cycle around.
There are some decent eating places, some quirky little shops and it’s right on the M90 so easy for getting anywhere. It’s a friendly place, with a good community spirit.
Ella Hayes- At the moment I’m writing another romance for Mills and Boon and there will be another book after that. I also want to push forward with my Scottish coming of age story. It’s a love story rather than a romance, and the writing style is very different. I’ve had really good feedback on the story and the initial part of the manuscript (I submitted that as my degree dissertation) so the plan is to keep revising and polishing the first draft, then I’ll be looking for an agent/publisher!!
Twitter: @EllaHayesAuthor
Facebook EllaHayesAuthor
Instagram @ellahayesauthor
A kiss under the Northern Lights…
Running from her broken engagement artist Milla O’Brien retreats to the Scottish Highlands. Only to arrive during a lavish wedding on the estate!
She finds the bride’s brother and brooding heir, Cormac Buchanan. Could they heal each other’s hearts?
Her Brooding Scottish Heir (Harlequin Mills & Boon) is published on 27th December and can be pre-ordered on Amazon:
It’s about roots and turbulent times and love which endures and more…but I was also trying to create characters whose values are out of sync with the world around them but refuse to be cowed. They use their intelligence wit and humour to deal with it.
John Quinn,
I’m not Farrell Golden although it is a family name in my family tree. So I’d be lying if I said there aren’t autobiographical elements there. Probably more than I’m comfortable with admitting.
John Quinn
No comment. AS for a day in Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital? Morning at the National Museum of Scotland followed by a pub lunch at Maggie Dickson’s in the Grassmarket or the Abbotsford on Rose Street. Walking round the city rounded off with some live music in the evening at Sandy Bell’s pub. With Shey of course…..
John Quinn,
I tried the usual routes and got what might be termed a modicum of interest. I was going to self-publish but then….oops that involves Shey… Sorry. Did I say something wrong? I think the important thing as with so much in life is to have faith in yourself and keep going. As for what I am doing. How kind to ask. I’m about 10,000 words into another novel, also I’m working with a musician I know to write song lyrics which I hope will in due course become an album to raise money for a child poverty initiative in Dundee .. Lastly…more poetry.
Available Amazon UK 99p and Amazon US 1.29c
State … Security … Secrets …
Scotland 1972. A turbulent place – miners’ strikes, blackouts, Clyde shipyard workers defying the British Government, oil discovered in the North Sea and the long and deadly arms of conflict in Ireland reaching across the Irish Sea.
Farrell Golden is a bright working class kid from Dundee with an Irish heritage. But he hasn’t always paid it much attention. Thanks to his family he’s made it to the University of Edinburgh against the odds. But does he want to stay there?
There’s beer and there’s women – in particular a beautiful ethereal English girl called Maggie. She’s out of the London stockbroker belt but she’s not all that she seems. Then there’s an Irish girl who is somehow familiar …
Roisin O’Malley’s not like any trainee teacher Farrell’s ever seen. What is she getting away from in Edinburgh? What are her family’s links to the Troubles? What of her ex-boyfriend?
At a Bloody Sunday protest march Farrell sees Roisin in trouble and goes to help. He’s knocked unconscious. When he wakens up he finds he’s stepped down a rabbit hole of Irish history, family ties and state security. Is there a way back? Should he have paid more attention to the family heritage? Who is Roisin O’Malley really?
John Quinn’s Twitter profile tells him he’s a persistent Dundonian, left footer, ex-teacher, global justice worrier and “wid be scriever.” His poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Poetry Scotland, Northwords Now, Mind the Time, and Lallans. He has performed his work including slam poetry in various places ranging from public parks to coffee shops and pubs. However, unlike his Dundonian predecessor, Oor Wullie McGonagall, he has found that to date, people have only thrown words at him. He is also the author of the play ‘O Halflins an Hecklers an Weavers an Weemin’ about the history of Jute and its impact on the City of Dundee. In 2017 the play was performed in the High Mill at Verdant Works Museum accompanied by the music of Michael Marra. John Quinn lives above the River Tay with his wife.
Scotland 1972. A turbulent place – miners’ strikes, blackouts, Clyde shipyard workers defying the British Government, oil discovered in the North Sea and the long and deadly arms of conflict in Ireland reaching across the Irish Sea.
Farrell Golden is a bright working class kid from Dundee with an Irish heritage. But he hasn’t always paid it much attention. Thanks to his family he’s made it to the University of Edinburgh against the odds. But does he want to stay there?
There’s beer and there’s women – in particular a beautiful ethereal English girl called Maggie. She’s out of the London stockbroker belt but she’s not all that she seems. Then there’s an Irish girl who is somehow familiar …
Roisin O’Malley’s not like any trainee teacher Farrell’s ever seen. What is she getting away from in Edinburgh? What are her family’s links to the Troubles? What of her ex-boyfriend?
At a Bloody Sunday protest march Farrell sees Roisin in trouble and goes to help. He’s knocked unconscious. When he wakens up he finds he’s stepped down a rabbit hole of Irish history, family ties and state security. Is there a way back? Should he have paid more attention to the family heritage? Who is Roisin O’Malley really?
John Quinn’s Twitter profile tells him he’s a persistent Dundonian, left footer, ex-teacher, global justice worrier and “wid be scriever.” His poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Poetry Scotland, Northwords Now, Mind the Time, and Lallans. He has performed his work including slam poetry in various places ranging from public parks to coffee shops and pubs. However, unlike his Dundonian predecessor, Oor Wullie McGonagall, he has found that to date, people have only thrown words at him. He is also the author of the play ‘O Halflins an Hecklers an Weavers an Weemin’ about the history of Jute and its impact on the City of Dundee. In 2017 the play was performed in the High Mill at Verdant Works Museum accompanied by the music of Michael Marra. John Quinn lives above the River Tay with his wife.
Cold enough for you? I’ve been reading through all the warm coastal Christmas posts and want to say I also live on the coast five minutes walk from the one pictured above, near Dundee. Not this Dundee-
That’s in New South Wales, this one in Scotland.
where right now temperatures are well in the minus and hamsters will get their asses booted if they don’t butt out and get on with finishing my latest book which is actually set on the Cornish coast not long before Christmas.
I recently did a post about my the heroine of this book, who would sell her soul for a Christmas garland, and about how, when it comes to Christmas decorations…..
It’s not just the memories we hold onto, it’s the life we live, the life we’ve made while understanding that that life evolves constantly, which makes what we have right now in our hands, all the more precious. I’m not going to be waking up ten times a night to see if Santa’s been, or woken by my girls running in to ask me if Santa’s been. Now me and the Mr, get up, get the tea on and open the parcels. Christmas in Scotland can be weather dependant, so we always hope our family are going to be able to get from one end of the city to the other. A few years back a tree fell right outside our door blocking one of the two roads into where we lived then. Of course folks were soon out tying bits of tinsel on it and Santa Stop here signs. We also hope there’s not going to be any accidents like the year the oven door fell off first thing on Christmas morning and broke on the tiled floor…..
It would be lovely to stroll down to Broughty Ferry Beach and castle–pictured several images above– five minutes away but the family are all coming for a traditional dinner, turkey and duck.
I don’t know what you’re all cooking but here’s the menu.
Thank you for decorating the dining room table fellahs…
making the cakes to hand round with the mulled cider to the arriving guests.
and for offering to make the meal…….
Maybe not eennee theeng but you sure said plenty thing.
Now after the meal you will be sure to light the log fire, won’t you? having stocked up all the log baskets first? We don’t want the guests to be cold in our Scottish climate. Or to have to go outside in the frost and rake about in the shed for more wood.
Mind you, I suppose you have fur coats? Then I need you to get the games started, Pass the Parcel and Pin the Star on the Tree, which the grandbaby ses he is well gonna win, Doorman and these other games you still need to plan, for when the evening guests arrive, cos you know evening time is ‘partay’ time.
Indeed it is. Now you’re getting this. I’m thinking maybe Rapid Response and Limericks but we need a few prize winning games, so get the thinking hats on.
Forget that presents stuff, Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without our family and friends around us, good food, good cheer AND the games to really get the party started. For me these are the things that make Christmas Day, the things I want to stand here again and see. The big things.
Now…a bit about this coastal romance group. They are authors and readers who love reading romance by the water, whether it be the ocean, a lake, a tropical island or any other body of water where heroes and heroines fall in love and live happily ever after.
Well actually now I think about it, there’s a swathe of Lady Fury set on a coast, not to mention backstory set on various islands, Malice and Sin from The Viking and the Courtesan get shipwrecked on an island, the Black Wolf from His Judas Bride lives in a cave on a shore, AND did I mention that Brittany from The Writer and The Rake is no stranger to Dundee?
AS for Christmas? Well, I believe Loving Lady Lazuli has a lot to do with Christmas.
Anyway, you can enter the rafflecopter by clicking on the link but in addition to the Gift card and the 30 ebooks, second prize, there’s also a daily chance to win an ebook. All you have to do is visit the authors on the list and leave a comment on their Christmas blog. Prizes will be drawn on Christmas Eve.
The post before mine is Rich Amooi. And tomorrow’s is Fiona McArthur
FIona. Hello, dear hamster dudes! Yes, I am indeed, I’ve been running tours for 6 years now! But no, I’ve not ever thought of doing a hidden hamster tour.
Well, sadly, so far I’ve not found any record of hamsters doing anything significant in Aberdeen!
But, I’m sure they did! Just because things are not written down, doesn’t mean to say they didn’t happen! There were loads of secret tunnels and cellars they could have hidden in and witnessed some local dramas over the centuries – although they’d have to be careful of cats!
BUT, sadly hamsters did not arrive in Britain until 1939! You’ll love this though – the name hamster comes from a Persian (Iranian) word meaning “oppressor”!
It all started because I lost my dream job in Portsmouth as Conan Doyle Projects Officer! The funding was never renewed, so I just had to come back home. I decided there and then to never ever work for a council again, cos every council job I’ve ever had I’ve been made redundant from!
Anyway, I kinda started it even before I went to the south of England, as early as the spring of 2010, when I took a group of photographer friends around Old Aberdeen, which is where our main university campus is and has the oldest buildings in the city. At that time I had a job as curator for Grampian Police, so I got to indulge my interest in crime history – I planned to write a tour going round the sites of famous murders in the city, and when I came back in 2011, folk were like, “When are you doing this murder tour?” I wrote it up, put an event page on Facebook and 25 people turned up. It was scary! But folk liked it, so I kept doing it. I have 18 different routes now with 4 new ones planned for next year already. Basically, I take people around a set route and tell them stories about the different sites. I also do three routes which are “ghost tours” – which means that they are street theatre walks involving local actors who are playing real people from the past. That goes down very well. Tours involve a lot of writing to start with, then a lot of walking and talking!
Because, sadly, almost all of our historic buildings have been demolished and the folk in charge don’t seem to care! I have always wanted to know “what was there before” and take people back in time, if only in their imaginations. Our city was founded as a royal burgh in 1176 AD, but there’s evidence going away back to Neolithic times, so people have lived in the area for thousands of years.
Loads of them! But my real favourites are Johnny Milne, Aberdeen’s last executioner who only got the job because the city needed a hangman and it was a better alternative to being transported to Australia which he would have been as he had been arrested for stealing beehives from his employer. He had a bossy wife who made sure he took the job!
Fiona-Jane meets Johnny Milne
I also love all the street characters who sold food, goods and generally made a nuisance of themselves, e.g. “Blin’ Bob”, aka Duncan McGillivray, a hawker who would make up all sorts of nonsense to sell anything. He once bought a stock of old newspapers at the time of the Crimean War, and sold them pretending they were current. He was accused of being a liar, but he said, “Aa newspapers print lees, so I should be allowed tae sell lees an aa!” I have a huge cast of characters in my head most of the time when I’m on a tour.
They vary! Every Halloween since 2011 I have put on a street theatre performance at a specific place featuring tragic, horrible and scary stories, that’s what the ghost tours came out of. One year when we did “Ghosts & Ghouls of the Aultoun” which goes round the uni area I mentioned earlier, we had fifty people on the tour, it was mad! It was also downright freezing! But folk love being scared. I think it’s because deep down they know it isn’t real, but they like the thrill of being scared in a safe way. I don’t dabble with real spooks! .
Last year we had our first indoor performance at the old medical school in Marischal College, it was called “Burkers, Bodysnatchers & Bloody Surgeons” featuring true and semi-fictionalised stories from the time of Burke & Hare, only in Aberdeen, it was the students themselves who would go and dig up bodies to dissect. There was also a storyline about two girls who disguised themselves as boys to study medicine as no woman was allowed near a university until 1891 in Aberdeen. It ends up with the two girls being found out and bumping off the lecturer who uncovers their secret – they are then helped to hide the body by the horrible, scary Sacrist Pirie, who already has his own trade in killing off Travelling people to sell to the surgeons! It was such hard work, but it was so impressive! To hear and see the cast bringing my work to life was fantastic, it’s the best compliment an author can have to see their work on stage exactly as they wrote it!
Oh I was writing about other things long before I wrote local history! I’ve actually been writing stories since I was about six years old! I got inspired by “The Little Match Girl” and after that I just seemed to come up with fantastical plots and characters.
Eventually I realised that it was easiest to write about things I knew, so the first novel I wrote was all about North-East fisher folk and it was published online in 2012.
Indeed, see above, I was employed as the project officer for the Lancelyn-Green Collection, one of the world’s biggest collections of books, artefacts and other ephemera about Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve always liked Holmes since the Granada TV series and Jeremy Brett. My Mum bought me the complete Holmes short stories years ago and I devoured them! The reason that the collection was left to Portsmouth City Library is that ACD had his first medical practice in Southsea, which is the seaside bit of Portsmouth/Portsea Island (yes, it is an island, but joined to the mainland by a road now), and he got bored so he invented a detective based on his old tutor, Dr Joseph Bell, from Edinburgh who had taught him the skills of observation and deduction. Bell was a nicer man than Holmes though, and was married!
I have written a play and a novella featuring the traditional Victorian Holmes & Watson, but I also wrote a piece of fan-fiction about the BBC Holmes, which was great fun. I have a half-written novella called “The Riddle of the Dancing Dragons” which is Holmes again in his Victorian days, and features him and Watson going to visit a relative of John’s who has been looking after her two nieces. One of the girls is about to be married to a confectioner, but the younger sister can’t stand him. The relative also has an “adopted” son who we would probably describe as autistic in modern language, but he’s different, he’s detached from ordinary folk and Holmes is the first person to be able to talk to him. It promises to be a good one if I can ever get back in the right mindset for it!
Yup – my pen name is Janet Swan and I’ve self-published a novel “Of Fish & Folk”, a novella, which is a pastiche of Ian Rankin’s Rebus, but has a female police detective in Edinburgh called “All the Sinners Saints” and a poetry collection called “A Different Gunpowder Plot.
Hidden Aberdeen 2 – which would be my fourth history book with Black & White Publishing (if they accept it) and I’m in the middle of the sequel to “Of Fish & Folk” – also planning to write a new script for Halloween, and a special war-time performance set in a real concrete air raid shelter. I do hope you like your knitted hats – that’s one of my stress-busting hobbies, knitting! Love to you all and be kind to each other, thanks for inviting me onto the blog! Mwah! xxx
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?
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