Wordless Wednesday: Frederick Morgan, Off for the Honeymoon
Author: Leenie Brown
Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).
Music Monday: Let It Be Me, High Valley
High Valley. “Let It Be Me (Official Music Video).” YouTube, 09 July 2012.
THE LINK BETWEEN MUSIC AND STORY:
I don’t think there is much explanation needed to see the link between this song and the excerpt I have chosen this week. I admit that picking songs and story excerpts is proving to be challenging for this story. There are a lot of twists and turns, and I don’t want to spoil any of the surprises along the way. However, we know that this will end in a happily ever after, so why not share the proposal scene from chapter five?
[Hmmmm….A proposal – and not a forced one – so early in the book? You do realize that it probably means trouble lies ahead, right? So, enjoy this little bit of sweet and peaceful. I can’t promise next week’s peek will be so pleasant for our characters.]AN EXCERPT FROM His Inconvenient Choice:
Richard looked at the door for a moment as he gathered his thoughts before he turned to Kitty. “I am not romantic ─ “
“I know.” Kitty lifted his hand and brushed her lips against his knuckles. “A simple question is all that is required.”
“But, what about the pretty words that all women wish to hear?”
She shook her head. “I see your love for me in your eyes and the things you do. You have chosen me ahead of family and fortune. There is no need to put it in words.”
“I would choose you before I would choose myself.” He placed a hand that had been made rough from working with his men in the militia and the wood he loved on her cheek. “I do not have the means just yet to support a family,” he began.
“But you will.” She squeezed his hand tightly.
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, I will, and when I do, I would very much like to create that family with you. Will you marry me when I am established?”
A smile lit her face and eyes as she nodded. “I would like nothing better.”
“It will not be a life of ease,” he cautioned. For a moment, he doubted whether he was doing the right thing in asking her to share such a life. His thumb caressed her cheek. “You deserve so much more.”
“I love you,” she said pressing her cheek more firmly against his hand. “I will be happy nowhere else save at your side.”
He knew that he felt the same. It was why he was prepared to defy his father. No matter the money and property he may be losing by choosing her, he knew his life would never be as pleasant with those things as it would be with her at his side. Still, he could not resist asking, “You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“Then, may I ─ “
“Yes. You must kiss me.”
And he did ─ soft as a butterfly landing on a delicate flower in a garden. But even though it was a brief, gentle kiss, the emotion that passed to her through it ─ to be thought of as so precious, so treasured ─ melted her to her very core. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him close so that her head lay on his heart. And so they stood until a soft knock at the door drew them apart and sent them on to dinner.
Wordless Wednesday: Edmund Blair Leighton – The Question
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Lucy did not flee, but she did take a place in the shade, next to a small wall that ran part of the length of the field before crumbling into ruins, a remnant from years gone by. She plucked a blossom from the flowers that grew around the wall and twirled the flower in her fingers.
“My sister said you wished to speak to me,” said Philip as he approached her.
She swallowed and bit her lip as she looked up at him. He had taken out his handkerchief and was drawing it across his face to wipe away the perspiration that was there. His jacket had been discarded, and his cravat hung loosely about his neck. His sleeves were rolled halfway to his elbows, revealing sinewy forearms. She had always found him handsome, and in such a disheveled state, she found him even more attractive. However, instead of spending a few moments admiring him as she wished to do, she turned her eyes toward where his sister still stood with Mr. Darcy and Mr. Williams. “It would be more accurate to say your sister wishes for me to speak to you.”
[from And Then Love, Willow Hall Romance book 1]
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Music Monday: Foreigner, I Don’t Want to Live Without You
“Foreigner – I Don’t Want to Live without You (sub Español) ~ Orgullo & Prejuicio.” YouTube. Video created for and uploaded to YouTube by Carmen De Rivera. 29 June 2012.
THE LINK BETWEEN MUSIC AND STORY:
Yes, this is a Darcy and Elizabeth video, and no, my current work in progress is not a Darcy and Elizabeth story, since I am, of course, working on His Inconvenient Choice, the next book in the Choices Series. However, this song goes very well with the story. In fact, it really could be Colonel Fitzwilliam’s theme, which I hope is evident in the excerpt below.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Colonel Fitzwilliam has always known his father would try to force him into a marriage of convenience, but after Kitty Bennet captures his heart as she shivered in the cold on the streets of Meryton, he realizes his only chance at happiness lies in making an inconvenient choice. However, it is a choice that will not go unchallenged, and as family secrets are revealed, it is a choice that, in creating happiness for the colonel, could destroy his family.
AN EXCERPT FROM His Inconvenient Choice:
Richard drew his coat more tightly about his neck as he hurried along the street. He had chosen to leave his horse and travel as most did, on foot. “Pardon, me,” he said as he quickly stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding a collision with a footman, who was assisting a lady to a carriage.
“Richard?” said the lady.
He stopped and turned back. “Lady Matlock,” he greeted her with a proper bow. “A pleasure to see you.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Is it? I had thought you had forgotten about me completely seeing as I have heard naught of you for four days.”
He gave her a sad smile. “I apologize, but is that not that to which we must grow accustomed?”
She motioned toward the carriage. “Sit with me. Just for a moment. I shall not try to force you to return home with me, but the wind is biting, and it would be far more pleasant to speak if we were out of it.”
He saw her shiver and knew he could not refuse her. “I shall not tell you where I am staying or precisely how I have been keeping myself,” he warned.
“Very well. Then you shall just have to listen to me complain about your aunt. That woman is truly lacking in social grace!” She continued on for a few moments about the demands made on her staff by Lady Catherine and how Anne has spend the whole of her stay so far in her chambers. “I am certain she is not as ill as she pretends, but I cannot blame her for using the only means available to escape that woman. For that reason alone, I would like to see you marry her.”
“I should marry her to save her from her mother?” He shook his head. “She deserves to marry, but it shall not be to me, Mother.” He drew a deep breath and took her hand. “I wish I could marry her just so that I could remain your son, but I cannot.”
Lady Matlock placed a hand on his cheek. The war of what she thought should be and what she wished for him played on her features. “You are certain?”
He nodded and turned his head to place a kiss on her gloved palm. “I am, and though I shall regret leaving you, I cannot bear to face the regret I would have if I stayed. I love her, Mother.”
“More than me?” she asked softly.
He shrugged.
“Oh, my son,” she stroked his cheek.
“I am sorry, Mother.”
“As am I.” She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his cheek. “Perhaps your father will relent,” she said hopefully.
“You know as well as I that he never relents.”
“I must hope.” Her lips trembled slightly as she attempted to smile at him.
ONE MORE NOTE:
The full first chapter of this story (part of which was included at the end of the last book) can be read (in its first draft state) here.
Music Monday: The McGuire Sisters, Let’s Start the New Year Right
So, these holiday songs are not supposed to have a story connection, but I could not help but think of Mary and Lord Rycroft when I watched this video. If you have read No Other Choice, you will know that the story ends very happily at the turning of one year into the next…at a ball. Unfortunately, His Inconvenient Choice, which begins in the morning following that ball, does not start on such a happy note as Kitty and the Colonel must say goodbye to each other. I have been working on their story over the past few weeks, and I should be ready to start posting some little snippets of it starting next Monday — if I can find songs to go with them. 🙂