Today is summer
solstice! This day plays a role in the current book I’m working on, a Regency
Highland romance that is part of a four book continuity series with three other
lovely historical romance authors.
When my heroine, the
plain and penniless widow Jo Langdale, has to comfort her new charge, the
widowed Duke of Lochmore’s son, she tells him the tale of the magical mice –
how summer’s solstice is the one the day in the year when magic descends on
cats and mice and they remember that once in the distant past, before a wizard
cursed the animals, they were friends.
And it is on the day
of the annual Highland ball held at Lochmore that my heroine and my hero
Benneit, the handsome, widowed, single-father Duke of Lochmore have their own
magical moment of transformation...
Here is an excerpt
from the Summer Solstice Ball…
Jo felt the guests staring as Benneit drew her onto the dance floor and
her gaze fell to his shoes and her slippers, somehow moving to the lovely
music. She did not recognize it – it was light and dream-like, as if the
composer had crawled inside her head and listened to a long lost dream of hers
as she had watched Benneit lead Bella and a dozen other beautiful women onto
the dance floors of London, their hands in his, earning his smile and his charm
and eventually his love.
It made little sense that he was dancing with her now, his hand warm on
hers through her glove, his fingers shifting slightly on her waist as he guided
her.
‘Are you counting your steps? You don’t need to, you dance beautifully.’
He said and there was laughter in his voice and something else she could not
read. Was she embarrassing him? She looked up and smiled.
‘I’m sorry. I was listening to the music. It is so lovely. There is
something so…wistful about waltzes. Sometimes I think they should be danced
with eyes closed.’
‘If everyone did that it might wreak havoc on the dancefloor.’
‘That is a very practical consideration but not at all relevant to
daydreams.’
‘Ah, this is day-dreaming Jo. What tale would unfold behind your lowered
lids? Wizards and magical mice again?’
She shook her head, embarrassed to have even said as much, but he
continued.
‘You could do that now – close your eyes and dream away.’ His voice
sank, and there was heat in it but also a raw edge that brought with it the
memory of that brief, wild embrace on the cliff path; the aftermath of fear and
fury and the grasping at life.
She didn’t tell him that this time she did not want to close her eyes.
That there was no daydream that could outdo this moment. It was a dream come
real but with the bitter twist of all such dreams – it was still out of reach
and all the more vicious for that chasm. She did not want the moment ruined by
bitterness so she kept her smile and forced herself to look up from her
contemplation of orange and blue pattern of his kilt.
It was a mistake. She had been warm before but the look she surprised in
his eyes seared her skin. In this civilized setting the stark desire in his
eyes reached out and grabbed her like a dog sinking its fangs into a rabbit.
‘Jo.’ His voice was so low she felt rather than heard the word, it
reached her through his hands on her and the air around them. She could hardly
feel her feet on the floor. Had no idea if she was dancing or suspended in his
arms like a rag doll. All she could do was feel him; that she was already part
of him.
Then the music slowed and the world returned – noisy, colorful, buzzing
with chatter and laughter and the scuffing of shoes on the floor. It sounded
strange, unrelated to her.
When his hands left her she made her way towards where the butler stood
overseeing his small army of footmen. She wanted to be useful. Useful was where
she was safe.
Author
Contact Links
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LaraTemple1
Twitter: @laratemple1
Wild Lords Series:
#1: Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress: http://mybook.to/HuntersCinderella
#2: Lord Ravenscar’s Inconvenient Betrothal: http://mybook.to/Ravenscar
#3: Lord Stanton’s Last Mistress: http://mybook.to/Stanton
2 comments:
lovely excerpt
denise
Thanks, Denise! My first Highland setting and I loved revisiting my trips to Scotland. 🌸
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