Character Interrupted. An interview BY Jean Lee

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Black Wolf Books, Character development, Fallen Princeborn Stolen, Historical romance, interview, Jean Lee, London Jewel thieves, Loving Lady Lazuli, Shehanne Moore, Small Press, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood, Ya author

 

#Author #Interviews: #historicalromance #writer @ShehanneMoore discusses #character development, #series #writing, #research, & starting a #smallpress #publisher

Jean Lee – Let’s first begin with what you write—smart, sexy, historical fiction. You delve into various time periods with your books, such as the 9th century in The Viking and the Courtesan and the 19th century in Splendor. What process do you go through when choosing the right century for a story’s setting? That is, if Splendor took place in another century, would it still be the Splendor we know?

Probably not. The stories are influenced by the time, the characters too, although they don’t always abide by the constraints of them. Mind you Splendor would be a shopaholic , running up debts galore in any time because some things are timeless. She’d be having to manage everything too. So I guess a bit of both would be true. I generally stick to the Georgian/Regency period—it’s a sort of genre in own right. BUT I do like to dabble and I do spend time thinking of how I will set a book physically within that period, in terms of imagery etc.. There’s also things that happen when I write.

I mean there was never meant to be a Viking in The Viking and The Courtesan. That was a straight Regency. But then halfway through chapter two, the little voice whispered, ‘You know that Viking story idea you have, the one you’ve never really got the idea for the heroine ‘s goal in? How about you just use it here?’ Much as I want to ignore that little voice, I can’t.

Jean Lee. – Such a question should mean I ask you about research, too. I know you’re very passionate about your research to keep the period lifestyle true to history. 

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Jean Lee. What’s your process in making the research phase as productive as possible?

You know people think I do a lot of research. I don’t . Too much can kill a story and read like a Wikipedia cut and pastes. At the end of the day I don’t want to know every detail of the time a story is set. I can read a history book for that. I want to read of the things that are universal. The things that stand the test of time. But I have always loved history, especially social history, ever since I can remember. I guess that’s what I have at my fingertips when I write. And of course, I will check a historical timeline detail where it is pertinent to a character, or setting, if I want a certain backdrop.

Jean Lee – One thing I love about all your books is that these characters are layered with feeling. They desire, they hate, they aspire, they love, they fear. Your books are so, so much more than the “meet-cute” kinds of romances out there populated by characters with little more than a single quirk each. These characters can get downright wicked, like Devorlane Hawley in Loving Lady Lazuli. How do you bring together both light and dark natures into your characters to keep your stories compelling and un-put-downable?

SHEY – Now Jean, it’s all right, I won’t set the dudes on you and the check is in the mail. You are way too kind. I just love characters. I want to write about the human condition and let’s face it sometimes it’s downright ugly. Okay, Devorlane Hawley, for example, page one, is not a man you would want to meet. He’s plainly gone to hell in a hand cart, is behaving outrageously and now he’s come into the dukedom because his older, perfect brother is dead, he’s for turfing out his sisters, his late mother’s ward, installing some floozie he’s scoured London to find and setting up a pleasure palace in the ancestral home. By page two/three he’s noticing that his home is nothing like he remembered, it’s a mess, his oldest sister is a drunk and that’s needling at what humanity he has, because it’s plain these years have been hard and the family have regrets. The fact is he’s the family black sheep, the man who made the kind of messes we can all make when we’re young. And that law-abiding, God fearing family let him go down for a crime he never committed, largely for  the sake of peace. By the end of chapter one he’s spotted the woman who did commit that crime and his goal instantly changes. Now he’s becoming the architect of his own doom in many ways.

No-one’s all bad—I think it’s important to remember that when you write. But we are all flawed in some way, a bundle of contradictions, the sum and substance of our life experiences. That’s what I’m trying to blend. Ultimately underneath everything Devorlane Hawley isn’t a bad man. In some ways he’s man interrupted by his earlier experiences– and what has shaped his life since has been hardship and brutality. So the race is on then to see if he can become the man he could be, or are the flaws going to get in the way. I spend a lot of time peering through my fingers going… I wouldn’t have done that, to my characters when I write. AND I let them drive everything. I seriously never have any idea where a story is going next.

Jean Lee- Yet another thing I dig (someday I’ll learn to write questions better), particularly where the  London Jewel Thieves are concerned, is that the series doesn’t just revolve around one heroine; rather, each book focuses on a different character of a group. I love how these different perspectives give us a richer look into their world, as well as fresh looks at characters we’ve met in the other books. Which heroine came to you first? Did she bring all the other thieves with her, or did they start telling you their own stories later on?

Good question. Actually the heroine of a short story I have yet to turn into a full length, came first. The idea was there of the jewel thief gang and being forced into stealing because for one reason or another they’ve fallen into the clutches of the man who runs this gang. BUT Cassidy Armstrong aka Sapphire from Loving Lady Lazuli came first in terms of the writing. Originally it was a standalone but as I wrote it, and I was working the background, I thought of that short story and the whole thing just fell into place. The idea of giving the women the name of a jewel, of the Starkadder Sisterhood, and of setting the books after the gang has broken up. So it’s about them having to find their feet by whatever means and keeping one step ahead when there’s prices on their heads.

Jean Lee – Lastly, congratulations on beginning your own small press! I’m so excited to see what Black Wolf Books will bring to readers—your own books, and the books of other authors. You’ve been writing for publishers for a number of years, but now you are both publisher and writer. How would you say your earlier experience prepared you for this change? What’s been the biggest “culture shock,” as it were, with donning the publisher robe?

Shey – Thank you so much Jean and ALSO for having me here today AND congrats on your own forthcoming release. Sure to be a rip along read. MAY I SAY HERE ON TO MY FOLLOWERS, JEAN IS WELL WORTH CHEKING OUT.

Shey- I have wanted to set up Black Wolf Books for about four years now but life got in the way. But I’m there now. I think the writing industry is in a constant state of flux. When I first subbed back in 2012, you still went the traddy route. Yes there were self published books but not so many, nor the same amount of tools to do it. I mean Amazon makes it so damned easy actually now. I have a lot of experience in the writing business that goes way back before 2012 and I’ve been able to use most of it now.

I think the biggest shock…well learning curve was formatting for ebooks and for paperback. Amazon does make it easy I just got in a flap till I mastered it. I initially paid a formatter for the print version for Splendor. I was too scared to do it, in case I messed it up. But when it came back like a dog’s dinner, I stood at the foot of the mountain and told myself to get up there. That it wasn’t anything like the time I took over the editing and design of a magazine and didn’t know how to draw a text box…

Jean Lee. Are you looking for submissions right now? If so, what kind and do you have any guidelines to share?

Shey – Well we are not officially open in that I didn’t want swamped. I wanted to feel my way, get out my books, and the Mr’s book, before dealing with what could be an avalanche. And often I think publishers can take on way too many authors without concentrating on the ones they have. But we already have a signing of a YA author who has a trilogy. So I say to folks, contact me through my blog contact right now. And really so long as it’s good, I’m not laying down all kinds of conditions.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this is that I’ve seen a lot of authors get raw deals, not been able to get a book out cos it’s not fitting the mold, despite having books out. My aim in setting up BWB is to help authors. Believe me, I know how brutal this biz can be.

Jean Lee –  Lastly lastly I’m hoping you’ll allow the little Hamstah Dudes, that precocious batch of knowledgeable cuties  who share amazing author interviews & writing advice on your site, to come on over for a moment and have the last word, as they’ve been very good and patient all through our chat.the last word, as they’ve been very good and patient all through our chat.

 

Jean Lee – Many thanks to Shey for sharing her experience and stories with us! And don’t worry, Hamstah Dudes–Blondie’s working on a Halloween picture just for you. Hopefully I can stop by Shey’s site to share it! 🙂

 

 

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We interrupt abnormal service……

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Black Wolf Books, Jewel thieves, Never giving up or in, Newbook, re-released book, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood, writing

 

I woke up on with pneumonia and flu on New Year’s Day to discover that, contrary to having six books out, I now only had two, after one of my publishers had removed the books of all us foreign authors, without actually telling us.

The first thing in order for me to have any hope of seeing these books, which represented hours of work, out there again was to get my rights back. Even as I fought that corner I was busy planning on setting up my own wee publishing house, Black Wolf Books, to publish these books, that of Mr Shey and any other authors I saw getting a raw deal. Oh.. and recovering from pneumonia and flu.

Plans took a step back when these backlist books had an invite to a new home–oh and did I mention there was the broken rib and the eye haemorrhage? AND let’s not forget the Mr’s play which I directed– Anyway, I was dancing on air to feel wanted, that my books were worth something,  after New Year’s bombshell NOT to mention the fact that backlist books can be notoriously hard to find  a new home for unless you DIY them. Or you’re some mega huge, rich best seller, in which case, you’d be better off DIY’ing them frankly so you’d be even richer.  And I concentrated instead on using that steep learning curve of formatting, cover size, cover designers and the world of Fiverr, you name it, to put out my Mr’s book. Oh and finish my seventh one, O’Roarke’s Destiny.

But feeling nice and wanted and being able  to ‘swank’  doesn’t sell books. Two weeks ago, I made a decision regarding the four backlist or orphaned books and my present unpublished book.  That was to let no more grass grow and revert to my original plan certainly for the four backlist books…

Yep….  AND Basically having sworn this

 

 

 

My new cover for Splendor arrived on Friday, after I bought the license half price in a Labor Day sale and gave it to a Fiverr designer at a damned good price, the next. A cover I feel represents the actual book.  Any expected hiccups–delays rather–  re me being the copyright owner did not materialize when I uploaded the final formatted book to KDP, later that day. My advice there is to make sure your license and copyright page is correct when a book has been with a publishing house.

I can now announce that as of yesterday Splendor is on ebook preorder for a pretty good price 99p and 1.29c.  AND she will also be available for the first time in print–October 1st. (Handing that to Fiverr formatter this week…) I’m hoping that Starkadder Sister, Sapphire, will be joining her on the 1st, that  they will be partying together. And that I have very good reason to clear the decks on these four books right now. If I don’t, I don’t. Its certainly made me focus on this decision.

So sorry for interrupting the dudes’ service…

What can I say about this writing business? Mainly? That even when you’re there as I thought I was in 2012 when I landed my first contract and entered the world of websites and twitter, signing contracts electronically and burning oil till 4 am to finish edits on time because your publisher is breathing down your neck for them, while writing your next book, you’re not. Once the happy dance dies down you’re on a pretty rickety ride. The important thing? Even when you hit all kinds of obstacles and brick walls, stay on the bike, adapt, change, whatever it takes. Just don’t ever give up. Not if you want to get there. Oh…AND Mr will be here next post I promise.

I even get a blurb that reflects the book….

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?

Interview With the Earl. Take 2.

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Chess, Etopia Press, London Jewel thieves, Regency, Shehanne Moore, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood

https://thecontentedcrafter.com/

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Stillmore. If they cheat I will.

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- Obviously Shey wanted me to look my best so she used several of the most famous chess games in history as the basis for 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.

 

It’s a Man’s World. The lot of women in later Regency times.

Tags

Caroline Lamb, Christian Cavanagh, Etopia Press, George Sand, Katherine Ferrers, Mary Wollstonecraft, Regency, Romance, Shaakespeare, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood, The Wicked Lady, Twelth Night, Women, women in Regency times

 

 

It’s A Man’s World – with Shehanne Moore

‘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 19^th 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…

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Splendor. (London Jewel Thieves.) Shehanne Moore Chapter One

Tags

Etopia Press, London Jewe Thieves, New book, Regency, Romance, Shehanne Moore, Splendor, Starkadder Sisterhood

 

 

Splendor CHAPTER ONE

https://www.booksandbenches.com/single-post/2017/05/23/SPLENDOR-Shehanne-Moore

London 1810

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?

 

Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect

Tags

London Jewel thieves, Loving Lady Lazuli, Shehanne moore. Etopia Press, Starkadder Sisterhood, writing

 

Which means it’s really…

My last themed week to do with each of my books.

 

 

Hmm. You and one or two others. Sorry fellahs, that’s as maybe, we got to move on to my last couple, Saff and Dev, who are…well…

  

I mean it wouldn’t do to have had them different from the other couples now would it? One of these days I must surprise myself and write someone nice.

How did this pair end up like this? Well, the real answer is in the genes, the personalities and the family fit…. AS for Saff…

 

Saff’s been made to steal since she was five.

Enough. We are trying to be sensible here.

Okay. So..we have the seeds of discord so to speak Now…

OOPS Vonnie, did you mean to look like Tonto?

 

Well….Anyway, the catalyst is the night this pair first meet. He’s been sent home, having drunk enough port to ‘sink the British fleet at anchor’, when he clocks this absolute babe at the side of the road. In more ways than one, since the plans aren’t just laid, that’s what he fancies getting.

But Saff has other plans. A valuable necklace is burning a hole in her pocket  and a road block lies ahead. So she planks the necklace on him and scarpers. She sure did. After kissing him first too.

When Devorlane rolls home with the necklace in his pocket his family have had enough. His protestations fall on deaf ears.

He’s seen off into the military as an ordinary recruit. Boy the fun the other recruits have with that.

When Saff goes home without the necklace…well, she’s already late so her invalid brother has been turfed into the gutter to die. The beating she gets is nothing compared to that.  Now scroll forward ten years of mistreatment.  They’re hardly going to be nice, well-rounded people. Of course the catalyst didn’t have to be each other that night. In addition to looking at what shapes your characters ..and let’s face it, what shapes them, makes them the people they are on the page, good, bad, scarred…whatever… the ping pong effect is also very important in writing. Sure, it is. But it’s educational. Ahem.

 

Oh…..Not now you’ve got the door back eh? What is this? A day with Flint and look at you.

Oh and he’s so Mr Good Guy…not.

Look. For today I’m just, you know, talking about the importance, not just of goal, motivation and conflict and also understanding why your characters do the things they do, it’s making sure that everything that happens in the story, is  action, reaction, action, stemming from these characters.  That you don’t just create a plot to stick them on. 

You create your story drivers. Pinning  them, to a plot is  a common top ten writing mistake to make.

Tomorrow…Well, let’s just see what that brings…..

***

 

Only one man in England can identify her. Unfortunately he’s living next door.

Ten years ago sixteen year old Sapphire, the greatest jewel thief England has ever known, ruined Lord Devorlane Hawley’s life. Now she’s dead and buried, all the respectable widow, Cassidy Armstrong, wants is the chance to prove who she really is.

 But not only does her new neighbor believe he knows that exactly, he’s hell-bent on revenge.  All he needs is the actual proof.  So when he asks her to choose between being his mistress, or dangling on the end of a rope, only Sapphire can decide…

 What’s left for a woman with nowhere left to go, but to stay exactly where she is?

 And hope, that when it comes to neighbors, Devorlane Hawley won’t prove to be the one from hell.
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