Sunday Snippet, Going for a Swim.

A Formulaic Romance

This is the start of another story Amelia and I are putting together. There’s a pun in the title that will become obvious in time.

The story starts with Rachel, Lady Hayforth, throwing the dice in a desperate try at the marriage mart and coming up short when her carriage breaks down in the middle of nowhere. After a complicated string of happenings, she ends up engaged to Rupert, Lord Hartshorne, an aspiring chemist who did mysterious things for the war office in the recent past. His notebooks have gone missing, and a mysterious Mr Oliver is involved. Last week Rachel and her friends went to look at the stars after an eventful afternoon.  George has left for the village. One might think that Rachel’s life would get simpler without this distraction, but that would be no fun.

Rupert showed he has something that connects his shoulders to his hips. Last week, the start of a new chapter shows that another of his talents is important.  We discovered why it was so important that Rupert come with Sir Roger recently. Rachel awoke below decks in a ship (a channel barge). Despite the sterling reputation of the English as cooks, the crew ask Rachel to cook for them. Her choice of seasonings has their desired effect this week.

When you’ve finished with this tripe, take a look at the better authors in Snippet Sunday.

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The preventive officer lay there, staring at her. She put her hand to her lips, signalling silence, and then cut his bonds. “Quiet.”

“What about the crew?”

“Sick.” She smiled, “They didn’t like my cooking. Can you move?”

The man rubbed his hands and stretched his legs, “I think so.”

“Good, we have to get off of this boat.”

“Ship.” The officer paused for a moment, “Where are the crew?”

“Hanging over the side of the boat. I laced their dinner with calomel, the wine with tartar emetic.”

“Good lass.” The officer stifled a laugh.

****

Henri heard something behind him and looked up from the dark black water below. The water that carried what was left of his dinner downstream. The moonlight, while bright enough to tow the ship, didn’t give enough light to see the brown colour and floating debris that he knew was there. “What did you put in that food, Woman?”

Moments later, he joined the debris in the river, followed shortly by his compatriots. The boy, who led this stage of horses, didn’t bother to look back at the splashing. He’d been warned and well paid to ignore anything the ship dropped over the side. Besides, ships always dumped their slops overboard. It wasn’t until he reached Hook and stopped to change teams that he noticed anything amiss.

“Where’s that Frenchie?”

The preventive officer shouted back, “Gone bathing, for his health. We’ll tie up here.” Then he turned to Rachel, “Ma’am, I think it best we find the local militia.”

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I’m walking. Not without pain, and not without a little bit of a limp, but I’m walking. It turns out, if you’re ever in this situation, that it’s important to restore flexibility.  You can walk through the pain. I moved from my Philmont boots to a pair of trail runners, the same type as I used in Wales last summer.  It hasn’t stopped me from field research this summer.

A sunken path in Exmoor. I expect Exmoor will feature in one or the other of our next works.

Amelia reminded me to put a link to our book page.  The first book in our series, The Art of Deception is now available for sale with an extract on instafreebie as a teaser.