Music Monday: Catherine and Mr. Tilney, Your Hand in Mine

“Bea likes to be prepared for all eventualities,” Graeme offered.

“Different sides of the same coin, then,” Mr. Norman muttered.

“Quite,” Graeme agreed.

“It seemed to me that such is also true of Shelton and his wife.” Walter’s lips tipped up as he finally found for whom he was looking. Mr. Shelton was bending to hear what a very pretty young lady named Grace was saying. Miss Love was it? “Is that your guest with Mr. Shelton?” he asked Graeme.

“Yes, that is Miss Love. Would you care for an introduction?”

Yes, yes, he would very much like to meet the secretive Miss Love. “If it is not a bother,” he replied with an air of indifference before following Graeme across the room.

[from Her Secret Beau, Touches of Austen Book 3]

Published to YouTube by AuburnAfterglow on January 8, 2018.

We will be at the Assembly Rooms in this week’s chapter of Her Secret Beau, so I thought a video featuring Northanger Abbey would be a good choice.

In writing news: 

I wrote nearly one chapter each of Her Secret Beau and Persuading Miss Mary. Persuading Miss Mary‘s chapter needs to be finished.

And…drumroll…

I finally started my third work in progress. Just barely, but it is started. Remember how I said it was going to be titled Robert: something to something? Well, I was wrong. It turns out that it is going to be called Addie: To Wager on Her Future (or something very much like that). 🙂

Who’s Addie? Well, I know that she is going to end up with Robert Eldridge, but I am still discovering exactly who she is and how that is going to happen. Below, I am going to share what I have written of the story so that you can also find out a bit about her.

I can’t promise to have any other excerpts of it any time soon, but hopefully, it won’t be too long. After all, Loving Lydia has published so that removes it from the to-do list and should make time for Addie’s story.

“What? Wait! Loving Lydia is published? Didn’t you say last week that you were going to share pre-order information with us today?” 

Well, yes, that is what I said and what I had planned. However, when uploading my files for the book on Friday, I forgot to check the pre-order box and hit publish instead. So, the book is published early. 🙂 Oops! The print book has also been published, but the ebook and print editions are not yet linked.

(Please note the page count for the ebook on Amazon (176 pgs) will go up to match the print edition (288 pgs) after the books have been linked.)

I have an Austen Author’s post tomorrow which talks about this book, so hopefully, you will get a chance to stop by and read that.

And one last writing news item: As mentioned in June’s Friday Feature post, Confounding Caroline is on sale for 99 cents USD (other currencies also reduced) until July 4, 2019, in both the Kobo and Kindle stores.

And now, for the first ever excerpt from Addie: To Wager on Her Future. (What do you think? Does it hold promise to be a good story? And you’ll notice that the estate still needs a name.)

“Look. See how he rises from his seat just before his horse begins to fly down the course?” Adela Atwood only spared a glance at her companion. She would not be distracted from watching such a fine beast and rider. How she wished she was still allowed to ride astride instead of constrained by society to ride aside. One could certainly cover a great deal of ground in a short amount of time while seated like a proper lady, but one could not stand in her stirrups and urge her horse to thunder across the ground such as the horse she was watching did.

“That.” She spared her friend a second glance. “That is what James needs to do. He rises but not so high. Nor does he lean so far forward. [Estate]’s horses are fine animals, but they do not show as well as they could. If one – just one — of our horses could place near the front of the field, we could charge ever so much more for the stallion’s services.”

“But he will not listen to you,” Susan Price reminded her. “You know nothing of horses.”

Addie groaned. “He has become such a ninny.”

It was his stupid friends who were the problem. They seemed to think it a great sport to make fun of her and her friends, and James was too complacent to not follow their lead. Why must college change a fellow so much? He never used to think of her as incapable of thinking as well as he did.

“I likely know as much as he does,” she grumbled. “It is not he who has been helping the grooms with the stables because he has been too busy doing whatever it is that his friends decide he should do.”

“He has only this term and then he shall be done with college,” Susan reminded her. “Surely, being away from his friends for long stretches of time will help. Will it not?”

Susan was as sweet as a freshly baked apple pie. She was always attempting to find the good in a situation. Unfortunately, Addie was not certain there was much good left in her older brother.

“Do you not think so?” Susan repeated her question.

Addie shrugged. “Two of his friends are set to travel once they complete their schooling. James was going to go with them until… well…”

Susan reached across from the grey mare on which she sat to grasp Addie’s hand. “It is a terrible thing to have a father or an uncle fall ill.”

And never recover, Addie added to herself. Susan still expected her uncle to regain his health and strength, but again, Addie had to disagree with her friend. A severe injury was not the same as a stroke, but the result was often the same as the patient was either left in a weakened, nearly useless condition such as her father was, or, more mercifully, succumbed to death before he was confined to his chambers to waste away during his remaining months or years. Of course, she could not and would not wish death upon her friend’s uncle, but she also could not hope for him to survive in such a state as her father did.

“I almost wish he would be gone longer than a term. Mr. Shepherd heeds my advice because it is so similar to Father’s. I fear things will not go well once James returns.”

“Tom can help him, and if not Tom, Edmund is very good with numbers and so wise.”

Addie chuckled. It was just like Susan to offer help. She was excessively charitable, much like her sister Fanny. Providence had most certainly smiled upon her to give her friends such as Susan Price and Fanny Bertram, for Addie was given to seeing dark clouds of trouble on the horizon rather than the sunshine Susan seemed to carry about with her.

It had not always been so. Addie used to be nearly as cheerful as Susan, but then, James had gone to school, her father had had three strokes in as many years, and with the last apoplectic seizure six months ago, the running of the estate in its entirety had fallen largely on her for her father could not write or do much for himself but he also would not keep James from school either.

“I am certain James would benefit greatly from their assistance. If my brother will seek help from them, that is,” she replied. That was likely her greatest fear in the whole ordeal. Her brother might take advice from others to help him settle into his new role as master of [estate], but would he accept it from a knowledgeable source or would one of his friends move in and become co-master? She shuddered. If any of his friends were to do such a thing it would likely be Mr. Willet. That gentleman was a slippery as a snake and likely just as dangerous – at least, to a lady’s virtue, for the gentleman did seem to be the overly friendly sort of fellow who said what he must to charm whom he willed.

~*~*~

MAILING LIST PATREON SOCIETY6