Exclusive excerpt from Slowly Rising

Today I'm sharing with you an excerpt from my newest release. Enjoy!

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            As Amalie strolled around the stone markers that day, the sun went in and marbled clouds gathered with a swiftness that was not rare for an English summer afternoon, but the silence that came with it did strike her as unusual. All the birds had abruptly tucked themselves away and the village dogs—usually a lively, rowdy bunch over whom manly commands held little sway— paused their barking, waiting. For something.

            Before too long she felt a soft sprinkle of fresh rain, and with it came the sensation of being watched. Amalie turned, and there, in the shadow of a yew tree, stood a man in a mud-spattered greatcoat. At first glance he was little more than a muddled smudge of shadows, some deep and others shallow, but then a breeze moved the tree branches and let more bluish light catch upon his rugged face turning a charcoal sketch into a watercolor.

            With one, thick-knuckled, ungloved fist he swept off his hat and gave a quick bow. "Af'noon, miss." His hands were scarred and rough. She noticed this at once, even from a little distance and as he tried to hide them from her view.

            She answered hesitantly, "Good afternoon," and would have moved on, but then he said,

            "I seek a house called Slowly Rising. Do you know the place?"

            Amalie stopped and squinted as the rain quickened. A mounting breeze spat drops under her bonnet brim, into her face. "Slowly Rising?"

            "Aye. There's no one else about to ask and nobody answers their doors to strangers around here, it seems. Even the church doors are bolted." He gave a wry smile. "They must have been warned I was coming."

            She realized now that they were utterly alone. Quite suddenly. Earlier she had seen a few villagers on the common and passed some in the lane, but now there was not another soul in view. They must have taken flight indoors at the first darkening of cloud. Like the wildlife, they huddled away, waiting for whatever might come.

            "But I'm glad I found you here," he added, taking another step forward just as the clouds ripped open and the rain fell in earnest. "You'll do for me."

            "I beg your pardon?"

            "You're a pleasant sight to refresh the blood and bones of a tired man, miss. That's all I meant." Apparently he did not care if he drowned in the downpour; he barely flinched, but kept his gaze fixed upon her, hat in his hands, and seemed in no haste to go anywhere. "You're a real tonic. I don't reckon I've seen prettier in all my days. I thought you weren't real at first. That you must be a lovely ghost driftin' among the gravestones."

            "The house is just that way." Amalie pointed briskly, ignoring his strange remarks. He was a man, and they said stupid things quite often. Best not to encourage them by showing any reaction. "Up the hill and through the copper beeches."

            "Is it much farther?" he murmured.

            How weary he looked. "Not too far."

            "I've had a rough journey you see," he said, looking down at his dirty coat. "I'm hungry."

            "Well, you'd best make haste then."

        

    Still he did not move. He began to look like an abandoned pup begging for shelter and supper, his hair slick to his head, the tips of his ears poking through.

            In a sudden burst of sympathy, she relented her sharp tone to add, "I am on my way there now. I can take you, if you like."

            "Do you live there?"

            "I work there. What business do you have at the house, sir?"

            A smile broke across his damp face, shaking off the rain. "I'm to look after you, ain't I?" It was as if he'd suddenly thought of it, or had forgotten his purpose there until that moment.

            She tried to shake off the sudden foreboding— a mood as grey and heavy as the clouds that had stolen away the sun. Usually she liked the rain; this afternoon it began to hurt her skin. Or perhaps she simply felt more sensitive to it. More alive.

            "'Tis my job," he said, nodding. "What I'm meant to do."

            She raised a hand to her coat collar, pulling it up against that chill. A gust of wind tossed those needles of rain about, soaking the long grass at her feet and lifting the hem of her skirt, as if it meant to blow her clean away.

            "Do they expect you at the house?" she demanded.

            "They should know I'm coming. Lady Bramley sent me, didn't she?"

            Well, that was something of a comfort at least. Amalie had nothing but the greatest respect and fondness for her former mistress, and faith in her judgment.

            Leaning forward to stay upright against the thrusting rain, one hand holding the crown of her bonnet, she shouted, "Then we had better take shelter under the lych-gate until this rain passes and then you can follow me back to the house."

            He nodded again and wordlessly waved her on with his hat. But when he stepped from the thick tufts of slippery grass to the wet path, he almost lost his footing and she instinctively put her hand out to hold his coat sleeve. He was unsteady as a newborn foal. His boots were scuffed and dirty, like his coat, his breeches not much cleaner. There was even dirt on his cheek and a nasty set of scratches. He looked as if he'd been in the wars, she mused. When his gaze found her fingers on his sleeve, she quickly took them back, surprised at herself.

            "I don't know why you think anybody else needs looking after," she muttered, recovering her customary no-nonsense tone. "From the state of you, it seems you're in greater need of help at present, sir." Turning away, she added, "Make haste, or you'll catch your death."

            A moment later they were shoulder to shoulder beneath the old slate roof over the churchyard gate.

            He was a big man, thick-necked and swarthy. Now that she saw his bare hands closer, she could verify the existence of scars upon his knuckles. They were many and deep, some old, some recent. No wonder she had been able to see them from a distance. When he saw her looking, he held his hat behind his back with both hands and peered glumly at the sky, head ducked behind the upstanding collar of his coat.

            Perhaps the wind and rain had knocked the breath out of him, for he had nothing to say for several minutes, except to mutter, "Remember your etiquette and polite conversation, you daft clod," in a deep, gravelly voice. Every so often he stuck his head out to check the progress of those bleak clouds and fidgeted with the hat behind his back.

            Amalie also consulted her knowledge of what was right and proper conversation with a stranger. They had not been introduced, and she did not even know his name. Before she could remedy that fact, he swayed toward her and said,

            "Where the dickens did this rain come from? It were a fine day when we set out."

            "The weather is changeable, even in summer."

            Yes, the weather was probably a suitable topic. Lady Bramley would approve. Besides, it was the reason they found themselves stuck there, clumped together in awkward, but necessary proximity.

            "When I were a boy," said he.

            Then nothing.

            "When you were a boy, sir?"

            But he was lost in thought, staring out from his collar, his countenance troubled, bewildered. She wondered if cool rainwater had seeped down the back of his neck; that might cause a similar discomfort, surely.

            "When I were a boy," he finally began again, "they made me stand out in rain like this for a good hour or more. Punishment for talking back."

            "Who did?"

            "The governor at the orphanage."

            "I see." Although she felt uncomfortable with the intimacy of this confession from a stranger, he seemed at ease telling it.

            "Good thing I were a strong lad and survived the fever what followed. But sometimes I still feel it in me lungs. A bit o' rattle, like a penny stuck in an ol' iron pipe. Always thought it would be that what did me in." He looked at her. "They tried their best to be rid o' me— whipped me, choked me, starved me and beat me— but I couldn't be brought down. Nothin' ever got the better o' me." Then, even odder, he reached for her hand, clasped it tightly and said, "Not until this. When I saw you."

            Amalie would have retrieved her hand, but he strengthened his grip and, much to her shock, lifted it to his lips.

            "Stay beside me," he said.

            She was certain she felt his hard, forceful pulse through the tips of his fingers as they pressed into her palm.

            "You'll be safe with me always," he murmured, his voice hoarse, his lips skimming her knuckles.

            Rain rattled across the slate shelter overhead, but she barely heard it, her own frantic heartbeat smothering any other sound. She couldn't move or breathe. Time meant nothing            suddenly, as if they were frozen in a picture.

            And then she came to her senses again. If anybody saw this strange man kissing her hand, she would never live down the rumors and tormenting.

            "Kindly release my hand, sir." It occurred to her then that he might be suffering from concussion. That scrape on his cheek looked recent, like some of the scars on his hands. Further proving her theory, he studied her gloved fingers as if he did not know how they came to be in his possession, and then he let them drop.

            "I forgot me manners, didn't I?" he said, apologetically.

            She quickly tucked one hand inside the other. "It is only rain," she said, "not a plague of locusts, for pity's sake. I am quite safe and so are you." She shook her head. "Men sometimes make a drama of the oddest things. We shan't melt or be swept away."

            "I think I am already swept away," he murmured, smiling uncertainly down at her.

           

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(Imagine used here: John Constable's The Hay Wain 1823)