Character Showcase - Georgiana Hathaway

The heroine of my new release is only sixteen the first time she encounters Commander Sir Henry Thrasher. At that time she is fascinated to learn that most people refer to him as "Dead Harry", because it's truly a miracle that he is still alive and, in fact, his obituary has been printed twice in the newspapers.
Georgiana has the sort of imagination that draws her toward complicated souls and she strongly believes that nobody is beyond saving. She has an eagerness for interesting company and is not shy to hold back her own opinions. Although her desire to do good and serve justice often gets her into trouble and generally causes havoc, it doesn't put her off trying.

* * * *

Being in possession of what her stepmother termed a "deliberately contrary disposition", Georgiana had— even into her sixteenth year— retained a stubborn preference for young men of an unlikely sort. She would still much rather choose the company of a boy with an interesting collection of insects in a jar, or a nasty, oozing scar to show off, rather than one with haughty manners and an obsession about keeping his clothes clean.

The story soon progresses, leaping forward a few years until her next meeting with the Commander, when she is nineteen and has suffered some years of "tutelage" at The Particular Establishment for the Advantage of Respectable Ladies". By then Georgiana is ready to spread her wings in the world and find proper adventure. And she has no intention of letting Society dictate her future. She has already begun penning an anonymous satire called "His Lordship's Trousers", which is printed weekly in her father's paper, and she hopes one day to parlay this success into a career as a journalist.

But meeting "Dead Harry" again threatens to distract Georgiana from her course. She soon finds herself waylaid with a new mission.

* * * *

Now here she was, a guest in the house of Commander Sir Henry Thrasher— a man of whom so little was known in recent years, a man who had withdrawn from life to become something of an enigma. Here before her was another opportunity, for with his experiences and adventures, the Commander had much to share with the world. If he could be persuaded to do so. This could be her chance, she realized excitedly, to pen something more serious than His Lordship's Trousers.

            Spending his days in isolation here, he clearly lived as he pleased, a bachelor who greeted ladies in his shirtsleeves, with his neck-cloth undone, his hair tousled and his shirt half-untucked. A man who stared at Georgiana, not only as if he'd never seen anything remotely like her, but that he might possibly decide to eat her with a bit of bread and some butter.

            Naturally, if this was a Grand Romance, she would be very beautiful with long hair the color of honey and wheat, and a neck like a swan, while he would be a tortured, brooding soul who pounded his chest while reciting poetry. And they would fall in love. At least, until she tumbled to her death from some tall place and her skull was, quite tragically, crushed.

That was the way Grand Romances usually went, of course. 

            Luckily she was far too clever to fall in love. She had too many adventures ahead of her and an entire world to put to rights, without the complication of love to get in her way.

 

Read more about Georgiana and Dead Harry in The Trouble with His Lordship's Trousers - out now!

 

Happy Reading!

 

Jayne