Late blog due to my being totally involved, and exhausted by, our church's annual Christmas concert, Lessons & Carols. For the tenth year in a row Susie joined me, helping me belt out second soprano, trying to be heard despite umpteen first sopranos giving it their all! Susie also soloed, singing "Have a Merry Little Christmas." (Photo below.)
While we're talking about the choir, the grandson of two of our members is not only taking pilot training, like our Cassidy, he is a cooking aficionado (as is Cassidy). Below, the dessert he entered in a cooking contest, receiving the award, Best Presentation.
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| Dessert by Noah Daley |
Susan Coventry titled the pic below, "Deer Party." Taken in her back yard.
And now to my favorite Gulf Coast town, where I lived my first twenty-five years in Florida. (And a special thanks to whoever put me on the Venice pic list!) I always loved the annual Christmas Boat Parade, lining up along the Inland Waterway in South Venice. But I have to admit, the decorations appears to be a lot fancier than when I lived in Venice.
When my parents moved to Venice in 1964, one of the warnings they got, besides "Never swim in the Gulf after four o'clock" was "Never swim in fresh water."Why? Because there is NO fresh water without an alligator, or ten. (Sometimes they even stray as far as downtown.)
I recall being totally shocked when I moved to the Orlando area and saw swimming beaches on the shores of Orlando-area lakes. Yes, they have alligators, but evidently not enough to deter swimming. (Not me, however. Wouldn't set foot in a Florida lake.)~ * ~
I tried to retire, I really did. But, of course, I couldn't do it. After several weeks of climbing the walls, I VERY slowly worked my way into the idea of a novella, each creative step taking three or four times longer than in the past. (Taking it easy, as the semi-retired should.) At this point the title is tentative, and the only realistic ending is one I fear will make readers cry, "Oh, no!" But a sugar-coated Happily Ever After for a heroine of dubious repute . . . ? Only time will tell if I can find a way out for my beleaguered heroine.
Special Note: Because the premise of this story is so dramatic, so just plain "different," I've attempted to insert a good deal of humor (as you will see in the Prologue) to keep it from turning maudlin.
This week, I was finally at the point where I could go back and see how the story flowed from Prologue to Chapter 5, and I got a surprise. I had SLAVED over the Prologue, still having only the vaguest idea of my hero and heroine, yet somehow the Opening stood up to scrutiny (maybe just because my eyesight isn't what it used to be), enough so that I thought it might make fun reading even if it isn't a holiday tale.
So . . . below please find the Prologue to what I've tentatively titled: Lady Lost.
Prologue
Robert Reignald Foxwood, fourth son of the Earl of Montfort, scowled out the window of the thrice-bedemmed stagecoach rumbling north over the godforsaken wilds at the end of the earth known as Staffordshire. Beyond recognizing white puffs of sheep hovering on increasingly steep hillsides in the distance, he could only wonder how the people here scraped a living from the soil. Certainly, there were fields sown with something, but not a single glimpse of the waving stalks of wheat, barley, oats, or hops vines grown in the south.
To compound his discomfort, he was but one of far too many packed onto the coach’s well-worn squabs. Robert was currently hip to hip with a portly wine merchant who did not hesitate to broadcast his consequence to the trapped passengers, eliciting Robert’s supreme disinterest and an occasional disgusted harrumph from the dyspeptic elderly gentleman seated on his far side. Across the narrow aisle—where knees threatened to bump the knees of perfect strangers—was a hearty gray-haired countrywoman on the way to visit her grandchildren, the gift of a plump hen caged in her lap, the bird not hesitating to squawk its objection to the bumpy ride.
Next to her, a non-conformist clergyman who had kept his head down, his nose in a frayed copy of the Bible since boarding the coach in Manchester. To complete the roster of uncomfortable inside passengers, a woman of middle years who had somehow remained stiff-backed and upright despite the constant jolting of the coach. A governess, Robert suspected, off to a new position. And squeezed into the far corner, a young woman clutching a baby which she vainly attempted to hush, the babe no more enamored of the uncomfortable coach and dubious scents of strangers than the hen and, face red as a raspberry, proclaiming his disgust in loud wails.
Robert closed his eyes, picturing traveling the countryside in the comfort and silence of a post chaise. Or, better yet, his very own coach. Someday, he promised himself, letting out a long, soft sigh. Yet such was the fate of a fourth son. His oldest brother, Wesley, was the heir, a position of responsibility to which Robert had never aspired. Nicholas, the next oldest, had joined the cavalry with what appeared to be a right good will, and miraculously, though sorely wounded at Waterloo, survived the long war with Bonaparte. A hero was Nicholas, and about to contract a marriage to a young lady of beauty, distinguished blood lines, and a munificent dowry. Hail, Nicholas.
Clive, as expected of a third son, was destined for the clergy. Fortunately, he seemed to have an aptitude for it—always the peacemaker as they were growing up. Sadly, this could be said of only a few of the noble sons forced into devoting their life to the church, willy-nilly. Thank the good Lord for the few with a true calling. And a willingness to hold out a helping hand to a brother fallen on hard times.
And then there was Robert. No vocation, no income save for a meager allowance—barely enough to maintain a room in London and put clothes on his back. More fortunate than most, however, he had “expectations.” Why else had his mother saddled him with a name like Reignald? Her Uncle Reignald Carleton Rutledge, also a fourth son, had been sent off to India to make his fortune and done exactly that, returning a wealthy nabob, and so devoted to his wife who had died in far-off Calcutta, along with her babe, that he had never remarried, designating his niece’s children his heirs. Hopefully, with a wee bit more for the nephew bearing his name. But Uncle Reignald was still hale and hearty—Heaven forfend Robert should wish him ill!
Ignoring the near-Bedlam around him, Robert contemplated memories of better times—ironically, his situation had been less dire during the war. A former classmate—recalling the sharp analytical mind Robert worked so hard not to display—recruited him to an obscure office in Whitehall where he was valued for his ability to pick kernels of importance out of endless seas of incoming information. Resulting in six years of relative comfort, as well as the satisfaction of actually doing something useful, despite never setting foot outside London.
But now that Bonaparte was finally tucked up on Elba, Robert had, of necessity, returned to surviving on his charm, his good nature, and a better-than-average skill at cards. Inevitably, however, there were occasions when his luck ran out. So here he was in a common stagecoach headed into the hinterlands to visit Clive at his new living in a modest village north of Stafford, while doing his best to avoid admitting he was on a “repairing lease,” a term used when a young man of slender means retired to the country, throwing himself on the charity of relatives.
Robert Reignald Foxwood in a stagecoach. In Stafforshire. Surely the end of the world!
The coach hit a pothole that was more like a cavern. It lurched, tilted right, sending the voluble merchant and the dyspeptic elderly gentleman tumbling, flattening Robert into the unyielding side of the coach. The staid governess screamed as she toppled onto the clergyman, whose Bible went flying, hitting Robert in the head. The chicken did its best to out-crow a cock. Shocking words blued the air.
When all four coach wheels returned to terra firma and the spate of profanity had dwindled to low grumbles punctuated by a few soft huffs and puffs, Robert cast a final dour glance over what appeared to be untamed wilderness outside, then leaned back, settled his top hat over his face, and attempted to convince himself he was not fleeing London. It was merely long past time he visited his elder brother. Not fleeing. Not pockets to let. Truly. Lies he kept repeating until he finally dozed off some ten miles short of his destination, the modest village of Upper Wolcote.
~ * ~
This week's featured book - my other Christmas novella for Ellora's Cave:
Marriage, yes. Love, no. Lady Christine Ashworth's glorious Season
in London comes to an abrupt close with the death of her father. Her
home now belongs to someone else; her fiancé is conspicuous by his
absence; and her younger sister is as miserable in their new home as she
is. What can she do but accept an offer from the despised heir, even if
Christine now considers all men anathema, particularly the perfect
stranger who has taken her father's place?
~ * ~
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