Happy 2020 to everyone! I hope all of you had good, memorable holidays, and I wish you a healthy and wonderful new year!
My first guest of 2020 is one I have enjoyed having visit in the past, the lovely Jayne Bamber. Jayne is back sharing an excerpt and giveaway from her new release, Strong Objections to the Lady. You are going to love this excerpt! I certainly did. It has mystery and romance! Delightful!
Welcome, Jayne!
Hello! It’s great to be back at More
Agreeably Engaged! My newest book, Strong Objections to the Lady is out
now, and I’m here today to share another excerpt with you. This variation brings
us to a unique new setting, when Anne de Bourgh inherits a castle (and Rosings
too!) Humphrey Hall is part medieval castle, part modern structure, where Anne
and her friends get up to nocturnal hijinks….
Elizabeth trembled with excitement as she
pulled back the black curtain in the dark, quiet corridor. Anne slipped through
first, then Jane, and lastly Elizabeth, who glanced back to make sure the
curtain had fallen back in place, concealing the flickering light that now lit
this side of the hall.
Holding her candle aloft,
Elizabeth spun about and took in the sight of the corridor beyond them, and
tentatively stepped forward. The long hall extended further than the light,
fading to black at the end, and for a moment it was eerily silent. “What grim
horrors and ghastly delights await us,” Anne said with a morbid laugh, and
Elizabeth shivered with anticipation as she moved out in front. Anne and Jane
followed her slow lead, moving through the section of the corridor still
connected to the Tudor part of the structure. To their left were wide windows
facing to the south, though many had been boarded up. The first door on the
right was slowly opened, revealing nothing more frightening than a
long-neglected library. Much of the furniture was covered with linens, the
flickering of their candles casting wide shadows on the walls as they moved
into the room. There were deep wooden shelves on three sides of the room, full
of books that looked so old they might crumble to dust if they were touched,
and on the other side were several elaborately painted panels depicting curious
events that none of the ladies could identify in history.
“How very uncanny,” Jane breathed, moving her
candle closer to examine the panel depicting a frigate being devoured by a
large sea-monster.
Elizabeth grinned over at Anne. “Excellent.”
The three ladies went back into the corridor,
exchanging a silent glance of agreement as they pressed on. The next room was
entirely empty, though an alarming skittering sound prompted their swift
retreat, and Anne pulled the heavy wooden door closed with a grimace. Jane
moved deeper into the corridor. “Where shall we look next?” There was a narrow
passage to their right, while ahead the corridor seemed to expand outward, the
wooden paneling giving way to older stone walls and floors.
“This corridor must be the one that leads to
the north side, where Mrs. Templeton warned us not to go,” Anne said. “I wonder
what lurid secrets lay hidden,” she said with a waggle of her eyebrows.
Elizabeth gestured the other direction. “This
way must be the old castle – she told us not to go there, either.”
“Oh Lizzy, I am frightened,” Jane whispered.
“Do you wish to turn back?”
Jane giggled, hugging her shawl around her
shoulders. “No indeed!”
They chose to explore in the direction of the
old castle, and as they moved across the stone floor, the hallway grew wider
and the ceiling lower. Elizabeth raised her candle and glanced upward, but as
far as she could see, the roof at least remained intact. The stone walls glowed
gold in the light of their candles, and in many places the old brick had been
patched over, though even the new brickwork looked aged. To their left, the
windows grew smaller and farther between. They were cut into the stone, no more
than a foot wide, with thin panes of glass that had been added over the rough
metal grating, though in some places the glass was broken, and the whooshing of
the wind coming through intensified Elizabeth’s sensations as she proceeded
anxiously forward.
On the other side of the corridor hung large
tapestries, some too ruined to make out, while others remained miraculously
intact. It was clear they were all many centuries old, and Elizabeth drew
closer to examine one of them. It was a large piece, hand embroidered,
depicting a monarch on horseback, surrounded by knights and archers, a great
many of them run through with swords. Elizabeth stood in awe of it. There was
much detail to take in, for the tapestry seemed to tell a story, and a very
horrific one. “But this is magnificent, Anne. Truly, this belongs in a museum!”
Anne glanced back at the tapestry, her eyes
wide with fearful mirth, before moving further into the corridor; Jane followed
her, their candles illuminating an alcove to one side. Elizabeth trailed behind
and joined them in peering at the gleaming suit of armor that had been mounted
upright in the alcove, with a sword and a battle axe mounted above it in an
ominous ‘X’.
Jane stepped forward to examine it, running
her fingers over the white rose emblazoned on the breastplate. “Colonel
Fitzwilliam said that the castle was commissioned by the Lancasters, centuries
ago. I wonder that they should display York armor.”
Anne grinned. “Perhaps the souvenir of a
defeated enemy?”
“The Earl of Warwick would have passed this
way on his way to take London,” Elizabeth said, staring at the relic with wonder.
“My, Lizzy, you are quite the bluestocking,”
Anne chided her.
“These artifacts are magnificent,” Jane
observed. “I wonder that you do not sell them to a private collector.”
Anne made a thoughtful sound. “What a fine
idea, though I am still hoping we might find something truly horrid.”
They pressed on together, past a rounded
turret with wider windows, and though Elizabeth peered out of them, she could
spy nothing in the pitch-black darkness that enveloped the fortress. The
windows had the same thick metal grating here, which Elizabeth understood was
meant to allow arrows to be fired from within, while preventing enemies from
climbing through. It was a structure designed for siege, and the thought made
her shudder.
Beyond that was the great hall, and the three
ladies let out a collective sigh of awe as they moved into the expansive room.
Here the roof was much higher, with wooden buttresses angling upward into the
darkness. At the far side of the hall, there was a dais with a long wooden
table and ornately carved chairs along one side, facing into the room. Two rows
of tables filled the other side, with a wide space in between that fed into a
large open area near the dais; guests of old might have danced and made merry
here, or minstrels and jesters performed for high lords and ladies.
There was a row of long, narrow windows on
the back wall, arranged in such a way as might have filled the room with shafts
of sunlight during the day, though the cuts in the stone were high above their
heads. Below the windows were more tapestries, some drooping and others falling
out of place entirely.
Elizabeth set her candle down on one of the
tables and looked about; she smoothed her skirts and gave way to her
imagination, wondering what it must have been like to be one of the courtiers
who would have visited the castle when it was new, reveling and feasting in the
great hall of an imposing medieval fortress.
A sudden noise cut through the silence –
footsteps, and then a great thundering voice, “Boo!”
Anne let out a shriek and Jane jumped with
fright; both ladies dropped their candles in surprise, and they were
extinguished on the cold stone floor.
As Elizabeth’s eyes adjusted to the dimmer
light, she saw another flickering flame, and heard a familiar guffaw. Colonel
Fitzwilliam lifted his candle as he stepped closer. “Did we frighten you?”
“Damn and blast, Richard,” Anne cried. “I
hoped you might be a real ghost!”
Richard laughed at her, but approached Jane.
“And you, Miss Bennet?”
“I am very relieved that you are not a
ghost,” Jane said with a nervous laugh.
“I am sorry about your candle. You may have
mine, if you like. Darcy dropped his, too.”
Mr. Darcy stepped into the light, looking
very much like a figure from a gothic novel as he came out of the shadows. “I
did not mean to frighten you – I cannot speak for my cousin.”
Anne laughed at them. “Yes, I daresay you
have come to keep us from mischief, though Richard may rather be seeking it.”
The colonel shrugged. “I suppose I should
like to see a ghost as much as anybody, but we really did wish to make sure you
were safe.”
“This part of the house is dangerous,” Mr.
Darcy said. As if to punctuate his point, there was a tremendous peal of
thunder, and a moment later a flash of lightning lit the sky, white light
flickering through the windows above before everything fell dark again.
Anne laughed again. “Perfect.”
A moment later came the sweeping sound of
heavy rain beginning to fall, and Elizabeth darted to the side as a cold stream
of water poured down her sleeve from an unseen leak above. Mr. Darcy was
quickly at her side, lifting her candle and pulling her out of the way – she
found herself clinging to his arm for longer than necessary in the
near-darkness, as the sudden storm closed in around the castle.
Anne picked her candle up from the floor and
relit the flame from Elizabeth’s, while the colonel did likewise for Jane’s
candle. “I am not so easily frightened,” Anne said. “I think you would not have
come all this way if you did not secretly wish to have a look about
yourselves.”
Elizabeth peered up at him
with a teasing smile. “And ghosts,” she whispered.
Jane and Colonel Fitzwilliam had moved away
to examine one of the torn tapestries, which depicted a scene of medieval lords
and ladies dancing, and they whispered together for a minute. “Look here,” the
colonel said a little louder. “It seems this is just the place to come in
search of thrills and amusement.” He caught Jane by the hand and twirled her
under his arm, and then did the same with Anne, who spun merrily, her skirts
whooshing about her. She laughed and spun again, spinning Jane with her, and
the two of them reached out for Elizabeth, who gave in and danced about with
them, laughing at the sheer madness of it all.
Anne twirled Elizabeth under her arm with a
playful giggle, and then Jane again, as the colonel leaned back against the
wall and regarded them with amusement. Anne gave Elizabeth another dizzying
spin, and this one sent her reeling, arms outstretched, directly into Mr.
Darcy. Elizabeth began to instinctively recoil but he caught her hand in his
and drew her nearer, before making a little bow. A smile played across his lips
in the candlelight, and his dark eyes drank her in. He slowly lifted her hand,
their arms forming a graceful arc as he spun her, first slowly, and then faster
a second time, the two of them moving in a smooth circle together. He stepped
closer, and the candle flickered – Elizabeth thought he might have blown it out
himself, and then he slowly lifted her hand to his lips and placed a gentle
kiss there. Elizabeth froze in place as she looked up at him, dizziness overtaking
her again. To her mortification, the sensation was far from unpleasant, and she
studied the curve of his lips in the darkness as he stared back down at
her.
Behind them, Jane and Anne were still
laughing and dancing together as the colonel looked on and teased them, but for
an instant Elizabeth could think of nothing but the nearness of Mr. Darcy. Some
strange longing had pushed her onto the tips of her toes, and she had just
raised her fingers to brush the lapels of his coat, her lips pursing, when
another great burst of thunder rolled across the sky. The very room around them
seemed to rattle and shake, and bits of stone clattered down from above this
time.
Mr. Darcy drew a protective arm around
Elizabeth, who was too caught up in the air of mystery about them to protest.
She leaned into the warmth of him, faintly humming. He let out a ragged breath.
“We had better get you ladies back to your rooms before any ill befalls us
here,” he said.
Elizabeth trembled and nodded her agreement,
almost disappointed when he released her. Perhaps he was right, for she began
to feel she might be in some danger after all.
I hope you enjoyed this excerpt! I will be sharing more excerpts
throughout my blog tour, and there is an e-book giveaway. You can enter by clicking
here. You can also follow me on Facebook and my new blog [Link to
blog] for more updates!
*****
Now for the giveaway, it is for an eBook of Strong Objections to the Lady. There is a Rafflecopter as Jayne already mentioned. Be sure to click on the link above or you may click here. Good luck to all and thanks for stopping by! Thank you, Jayne for visiting my blog and for including my readers in your giveaway!
If you missed any stops on the blog tour, you still can stop by.
