Her Convenient Forever is on sale this month, so I thought that today, I’d share an image that goes along with an excerpt from that book.
If you’ve read the first three books of my Touches of Austen series, you will have met Felicity Love, and you probably really don’t like her. She’s not nice in those stories. I did a good job of making her unlikable if I do say so myself. And then, while writing book three, I knew that I was going to have to write a story for her. I didn’t really want to. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to make her likeable. But it simply had to be done.
Her Convenient Forever is that story.
It is set near the sea in Kent where Mr. And Mrs. Love have rented a cottage for the summer and where Felicity is coming to terms with the mess she has made of her life through selfish living. In fact, the opening chapter shows her in the very deepest kind of despair. This somewhat lengthy excerpt is from that first chapter.
The sound of someone calling and boots crashing through the long grass filtered into Felicity’s awareness.
“Miss, are you well?” A gentleman knelt beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder.
“I barely know,” she answered. She was breathing and not dead, but she did not know whether that was a good thing or not.
“What can I do to help you?” He asked as he removed his hand from her shoulder.
“There is nothing which can be done,” she answered honestly, more to herself than to him. “I must just bear this.” There really was no other choice, was there? How she longed for there to be another choice.
The warmth of his person, which lingered inside his jacket, wrapped around her.
“Do you live far from here?”
“Quite far,” she replied. “My home is half a day’s drive from here, but my parents and I are staying in a cottage just down that road.” She pointed behind her and to the left. “It is the first house you come to.” She attempted to smile at him. He was not so handsome as some, but he had kind brown eyes and longish, windblown brown hair with tinges of golden sunlight, that gave him a sort of dashing appearance.
“Then, allow me to assist you in finding your way home. Can you walk?” His hand was on her elbow.
“I am sure I can so long as the dizziness does not return, and my stomach does not churn too much.” With his help, she rose to her feet.
“We can stop so often as you need,” he assured her.
“Thank you.” She began to remove his jacket, but his hand on hers stopped her.
“No, put it on. You are unwell, and, therefore, you must stay warm.”
“I am quite recovered,” she lied.
Her protest was met with a raised eyebrow and a stern expression.
“Very well,” she acquiesced, putting her arms into the sleeves of his jacket with his assistance.
“And now, you must take my arm. A lady who falls to her knees on such a fine day as today requires assistance.” He held his arm out to her and smiled.
“I appreciate it.” And she did. Having an arm on which to lean was a very helpful thing when one was feeling wobbly.
“You were standing very close to the edge,” he said after they had walked halfway to the road. “When I was coming up from down there,” he used his walking stick to indicate the direction to the left of them, “I was fearful you might slip and plunge over the edge.”
“There was no need for your concern, sir. I was not going to fall.” At least she was not going to fall by accident.
They walked on in silence until they reached the road.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I have just realized that I have not yet given you my name. It was a terrible oversight on my part; however, now that my heart has returned to beating as it should rather than as if it wished to outrun a prize stallion, my mind is free to remember what I should be doing.”
She had frightened him – a stranger who did not know the first thing about her?
He stopped, removed her hand from his arm, and, said with a bow, “Mr. Boyd Hedrington at your service, ma’am.”
Felicity curtseyed. “Miss Felicity Love.”
He presented her with his arm once again. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Love.”
“I find I concur, Mr. Hedrington.”
He glanced at her skeptically. “Are you certain?”
She blinked. “Why would I not be certain that I am happy to meet you?”
“You looked over the edge of the cliff as if contemplating something of a grave nature.” He paused, before adding softly. “I thought perhaps I had prevented you from holding to your purpose.”
“You have a very unusual accent,” Felicity replied, turning the subject. “I am sure I have not heard it before.”
“Ah, yes, it is difficult to hide that one is not originally from England if one does not sound English.”
“You are not from England?” She had never met anyone who was not from England before. She knew several people who had travelled to various destinations and returned, but they were from England no matter where their journeys had taken them for a time.
“No, indeed, I am not.”
“Then, where are you from?”
“Nova Scotia by way of the American Colonies.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Which I do know are not colonies any longer. However, they were colonies when I was born and were only recently not colonies any longer when my family fled to Nova Scotia.”
“You were there during the war?” She had met soldiers who had been in a war, but this was the first person she had met who had lived where there was a war.
“I was, though, I really had very little idea what war was or was not at the time. I was only four when we moved.” He straightened his shoulders. “And now, my son is four, and we are here.”
“You have a son?”
He nodded. “He is a quiet little scamp.”
“Do you have any daughters?”
“No. It is just me and Matthias.”
Her brow furrowed. Did he mean to say he had no wife? Felicity wished to ask but knew it would be far too forward.
“My wife died shortly before we were set to sail for England.”
Felicity gasped. “How sad!”
“Indeed. The loss of a life always is, is it not?”
“I suppose it is.”
Their conversation lapsed into silence as Felicity considered a young child losing his mother and a husband being left suddenly without his wife. Had he loved his wife? She glanced up at him.
He caught her glance and held her gaze. His expression was as serious as any she had ever seen. “Did you think about death when you were looking so intently over the edge of the cliff?”
Her eyes widened, but she did not look away. She could not. Her lips trembled as tears welled in her eyes.
“What prevented you from falling?”
Should she tell him?
“I shall not judge you.”
“I fear that is an impossible promise to keep,” she replied.
“I will do my best to keep it,” he assured her.
She looked ahead of them. They were nearly to the cottage. She drew a breath and released it as she considered if she should reply or not. It was not as if she would see this stranger again, and it might be best to discover what censure she would face once her condition became obvious to all.
“What prevented you?” His voice was soft and gentle.
She placed a hand on her abdomen, and without lifting her eyes from the study of the path before her, she admitted her folly to him with two simple words. “My child.”
[from Her Convenient Forever]
Such a rude reader, I didn’t read the entire excerpt. Just the blurb makes me want to read it again.
The painting idyllic, in that who amongst us has not wanted to live in or at least visit a cottage by the sea? Thank you for this little respite. I went into daydream land as soon as I saw the art.
I find this painting has a peaceful feeling. I’m glad you enjoyed it.