| July 2014 |
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Gentle Reader,
First of all, TA-DA: the first scene of Darling Beast
for your reading pleasure! I just turned in the galleys for the book
which means we’re on track for release on October 14th. If you’d like to
get an alert notice in your inbox on the day of the book’s release,
sign up for my The Book is Out! newsblast.
Now for some
slightly less fun news: my publisher is Hachette and at the moment
Hachette and Amazon are squabbling. Amazon has decided to take down the
pre-order links on all Hachette books for Kindle. I’m holding out hope
that by the time Darling Beast is released all this will be resolved, but for the moment you can’t pre-order the book for Kindle. You can pre-order Darling Beast
in all other ebook formats and you can pre-order it in paperback on
Amazon and every other book retailer. You can also buy all my other
books on Kindle—it’s just the pre-order books that are
affected. I’m sincerely sorry for this situation. I’ll be sure to post
to Facebook, Twitter, my website, and in this newsletter to let you know
when things are back to normal.
Finally, I’m ending on a happy note with the announcement of Phoebe and Trevillion’s book title: Dearest Rogue will be out late spring 2015…which means I’d better get writing!
Enjoy!Yours Most Sincerely, 
CHAPTER ONE
APRIL 1741
LONDON, ENGLAND
As
the mother of a seven-year-old boy, Lily Stump was used to odd topics of
conversation. There was the debate on whether fish wore clothes. The
deep and insightful discussion over where sugared plums came from and
the subsequent lecture on why little boys were not allowed to break
their fast with them every day. And, of course, the infamous controversy
of Why Dogs Bark But Cats Do Not.
So truly it wasn’t Lily’s fault that she did not pay heed to her son’s announcement at luncheon that there was a monster in the garden.“Indio,” Lily said with only a tiny bit of exasperation, “must you wipe your jammy fingers on Daffodil? I can’t think she likes it.” Sadly, this was a blatant lie. Daffodil, a very young and very silly red Italian greyhound with a white blaze on her chest, was already happily twisting her slim body in a circle in order to lick the sticky patch on her back. “Mama,” Indio said with great patience as he put down his bread and jam, “didn’t you hear me? There’s a monster in the garden.” He was kneeling on his chair and now he leaned forward over the table to emphasize his words, a lock of his dark curly hair falling into his right, blue, eye. Indio’s other eye was green, which some found disconcerting, although Lily had long ago grown used to the disparity. “Did he have horns?” the third member of their little family asked very seriously. “Maude!” Lily hissed.
Maude Ellis plonked
a plate of cheese down on their only-slightly-singed table and set her
hands on her skinny hips. Maude had seen five decades and despite her
tiny stature—she only just came to Lily’s shoulder—she never shied away
from speaking her mind. “Well, and mightn’t it be the Devil he saw?”
Lily narrowed her
eyes in warning—Indio was prone to rather alarming nightmares and this
conversation didn’t seem the best idea. “Indio did not see the Devil—or a
monster, for that matter.”
“I did,” Indio said. “But he hasn’t horns. He
has shoulders as big as this.” And he demonstrated by throwing his arms
as far apart as he could, nearly knocking his bowl of carrot soup to the
floor in the process.
Lily caught the
bowl deftly—much to the disappointment of Daffodil. “Do eat your soup,
please, Indio, before it ends on the floor.”
“’Tisn’t a dunnie, then,” Maude said decisively as she
took her own chair. “Quite small they are, ’cepting when they turn to a
horse. Did it turn to a horse, deary?”
“No, Maude.” Indio
shoved a big spoonful of soup into his mouth and then regrettably
continued talking. “He looks like a man, but bigger and scarier. His
hands are as big as…as…” Indio’s little brows drew together as he tried
to think of an appropriate simile.
“Your head,” Lily supplied helpfully. “A tricorn hat. A leg of lamb. Daffodil.”
Daffodil barked at her name and spun in a happy circle.
“Was he dripping wet or all over green?” Maude demanded.
Lily sighed and watched as Indio attempted to describe
his monster and Maude attempted to identify it from her long list of
fairies, hobgoblins, and imaginary beasts. Maude had grown up in the
north of England and apparently spent her formative years memorizing the
most ghastly folktales. Lily herself had heard these stories from Maude
when she was young—resulting in quite a few torturous nights. She was
endeavoring—mostly without success—to keep Maude from imparting the same
stories to Indio.
Her gaze drifted
around the rather decrepit room they’d moved into just yesterday
afternoon. A small fireplace was on one charred wall. Maude’s bed and
her chest were pushed against another. Their table and four chairs were
in the middle of the room. A tiny writing table and a rickety dark-plum
settee were near the hearth. To the side, a door led into a small room—a
former dressing room—where Lily had her own bed and Indio his cot.
These two rooms were all that remained of the backstage in what had once
been a grand theater at Harte’s Folly. The theater—and indeed the
entire pleasure garden—had burned down the autumn before. The stink of
smoke still lingered about the place like a ghost, though the majority
of the wreckage had been hauled away.
Lily shivered. Perhaps the gloominess of the place was making Indio imagine monsters.
Indio swallowed a big bite of his bread and jam. “He has shaggy hair and he lives in the garden. Daff’s seen him, too.”
Both Lily and Maude glanced at the little greyhound.
Daffodil was sitting by Indio’s chair, chewing on a back paw. As they
watched she overbalanced and rolled onto her back.
“Perhaps Daffodil ate something that disagreed with her tummy,” Lily said diplomatically, “and the tummy ache made her think she’d seen a monster. I haven’t seen a monster in the garden and neither has Maude.”
“Well, there were that wherryman with the big nose,
hanging about the dock suspicious-like yesterday,” Maude muttered. Lily
shot her a look and Maude hastily added, “Er, but no, never seen a real
monster. Just wherrymen with big noses.”Indio considered that bit of information. “My monster has a big nose.” His mismatched eyes widened as he looked up excitedly. “And a hook. Per’aps he cuts children into little bits with his hook and eats them!” “Indio!” Lily exclaimed. “That’s quite enough.”
“But Mama—”
“No. Now why don’t we discuss fish clothing or…or how to teach Daffodil to sit up and beg?”Indio sighed gustily. “Yes, Mama.” He slumped, the very picture of dejection, and Lily couldn’t help but think that he’d someday make a fine dramatic actor. She darted a pleading glance at Maude. But Maude only shook her head and bent to her own soup. Lily cleared her throat. “I’m sure Daffodil would benefit from training,” she said a little desperately. “I suppose.” Indio swallowed the last spoonful of his soup and clutched his bread in his hand. He looked at Lily with big eyes. “May I leave the table, please, Mama?” “Oh, very well.” In a flurry he tumbled from his chair and ran toward the door. Daffodil scampered behind him, barking. “Don’t go near the pond!” Lily called. The door to the garden banged shut. Lily winced and looked at the older woman. “That didn’t go well, did it?”
Maude shrugged. “Mayhap could’ve been better, but the lad is a sensitive one, he is. So were you at that age.”
“Was I?”Maude had been her nursemaid—and rather more, truth be told. She might be superstitious, but Lily trusted Maude implicitly when it came to the rearing of children. And a good thing, too, since she’d been left to raise Indio alone. “Should I go after him, do you think?” “Aye, in a bit. No point now. Give him a fair while to calm himself.” Maude jerked her pointed chin at Lily’s bowl. “Best get that inside you, hinney.”
The corner of
Lily’s mouth curled at the old endearment. “I wish I could’ve found us
somewhere else to stay. Somewhere not so…” She hesitated, loath to give
the ruined pleasure garden’s atmosphere a name.
“Uncanny,” Maude
said promptly, having no such trouble herself. “All them burnt trees and
falling-down buildings and not a soul about for miles in the nights. I
place a wee bag of garlic and sage under my pillow every night, I do,
and you ought as well.”
“Mmm,” Lily
murmured noncommittally. She wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up to the
reek of garlic and sage. “At least the workmen are about during the
day.”
“And a right
scruffy bunch, the lot of them,” Maude said stoutly. “Don’t know where
Mr. Harte got these so-called gardeners, but I wouldn’t be surprised if
he found them in the street. Or worse”—she leaned forward to whisper
hoarsely—“got them off a ship from Ireland.”
“Oh, Maude,” Lily
chided gently. “I don’t know why you have this dislike of the
Irish—they’re just looking for work like anyone else.”
Maude snorted as she vigorously buttered a slice of bread.
“Besides,” Lily said hastily, “we’re only here until Mr. Harte produces a new play with a part for me.”
“And where would he
be doing that?” Maude asked, glancing at the charred beams over their
heads. “He’ll need a new theater first, and a garden to put it in afore
that. It’ll be at least a year—more, most like.”
Lily winced and
opened her mouth, but Maude had gotten the bit between her teeth. She
shook her piece of bread at Lily, showering crumbs on the table. “Never
trusted that man, not me. Too charming and chatty by half. Mr. Harte
could sweet-talk a bird down from a tree, into the palm of his hand, and
right into the oven, he could. Or”—she slapped a last daub of butter on
the bread—“talk an actress with all of London at her feet to come play
in his theater—and only his theater.”
“Well, to be fair, Mr. Harte wasn’t to know his pleasure garden and the theater would burn to the ground at the time.”
“Nay, but he did know it’d put Mr. Sherwood’s back up.” Maude bit into her bread for emphasis.
Lily wrinkled her nose at the memory. Mr. Sherwood, the
proprietor of the King’s Theatre and her former employer, was a rather
vindictive man. He’d promised Lily that he’d make sure she’d not find
work anywhere else in London if she went with Mr. Harte and his offer of
twice the salary Mr. Sherwood had been paying her.
That hadn’t been a
problem until Harte’s Folly had burned, at which point Lily had found
that Mr. Sherwood had made good on his promise: all the other theaters
in London refused to let her play for them.
Now, after being out of work for over six months, she’d
gone through what few savings she’d had, forcing her little family to
vacate their stylish rented rooms.“At least Mr. Harte let us stay here free of charge?” Lily offered rather feebly. Fortunately, Maude’s reply was nonverbal since she’d just taken a bite of the soup. “Yes, well, I really ought to go after Indio,” Lily said, rising.
“And what of your luncheon, then?” Maude demanded, nodding at Lily’s half-finished soup.
“I’ll have it later.” Lily bit her lip. “I hate it when he’s upset.”
“You coddle the boy,” Maude sniffed, but Lily noticed the older woman didn’t make any further protest.
Lily hid a smile. If anyone coddled Indio it was Maude herself. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Maude waved a hand
as Lily turned to the door to the outside. The door screeched horribly
as she pulled it open. One of the hinges was cracked from the heat of
the fire and it hung askew. Outside, the day was overcast. Deep-gray
clouds promised more rain and the wind whipped across the blackened
ground. Lily shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She should’ve
brought her shawl.
“Indio!” Her shout was thinned by the wind.
Helplessly she
looked around. What had once been an elegant pleasure garden had been
reduced to sooty mud by the fire and the spring rains. The hedges that
had outlined graveled walks were burnt and mostly dead, meandering away
into the distance. To the left were the remains of the stone courtyard
and boxes where musicians had played for guests: a line of broken
pillars, supporting nothing but sky. To the right a copse of straggling
trees stood with a bit of mirrored water peeking out from behind—what
was left of an ornamental pond, now clogged with silt. Here and there
green poked out among the gray and black, but she had to admit that,
especially on an overcast day like this one, with wisps of fog slinking
along the ground, the garden was ominous and rather frightening.
Lily grimaced. She
should’ve never let Indio out to play by himself, but it was hard to
keep an active young boy inside. She started down one of the paths,
slipping a bit in the mud, wishing she’d stopped to put on her pattens
before coming outside. If she didn’t see her son soon, she’d ruin the
frivolous embroidered slippers on her feet.
“Indio!”
She rounded what once had been a small thicket of trimmed trees. Now the blackened branches rattled in the wind. “Indio!”
A grunt came from the thicket.
Lily stopped dead.
There it was again—almost an explosive snort. The noise was too loud, too deep for Indio. It almost sounded like…a big animal.
She glanced quickly
around, but she was completely alone. Should she return to the ruined
theater for Maude? But Indio was out here!
Another grunt, this one louder. A rustle.
Something was breathing heavily in the bushes.
Good Lord. Lily bunched her skirts in her fists in case she had to leg it, and crept forward.
A groan and a low, rumbling sound.Like growling. She gulped and peeked around a burned trunk. At first what she saw looked like an enormous, moving, mud-covered mound, and then it straightened, revealing an endlessly broad back, huge shoulders, and a shaggy head.
Lily couldn’t help it. She made a noise that was perilously close to a squeak.
The thing
whirled—much faster than anything that big had a right to move—and a
horrible, soot-stained face glared at her, one paw raised as if to
strike her.
In it was a wickedly sharp, hooked knife.
Lily gulped. If she lived through the day she was going to have to apologize to Indio.
For there was a monster in the garden.
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