Six Sentence Sunday - back to Jane's Second Soldier

Taking a couple weeks away from Wolf & Huntress to finish my first draft of Jane's Second Soldier, which I'd been neglecting, since it's so much more fun to play with a brand new manuscript you won't have to edit for MONTHS than to write the last chapter or two of one you know is going to need serious editing before you can send it out.

Anyway, here's a scene from early in Jane's Second Soldier. Her new husband, Ben, doesn't have a lot of experience with women, but he has fine instincts:

And then she began to sob. After a moment’s hesitation Ben set his bowl down, removed hers from her unresisting hands, and pulled her into his arms—though not without a covert glance to see if they were making a spectacle for the whole camp. The twilight seemed to be hiding them, or at least everyone was polite enough to pretend, so he turned his attention to his wife. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He had never held a crying woman before. But he rocked her, and patted her shoulders, and smoothed her hair, and murmured things about how sorry he was, and that she should cry all she wanted, and he was there and he’d take care of her.

Six Sentence Sunday is a weekly blog event where authors post brief excerpts from their work. Comments and feedback are always welcome, and do visit the home blog to see what others are posting.

Six Sentence Sunday - more from Jane's Second Soldier

This week we're back in my historical romance novella WIP (1812 Spain, with the British army fighting Napoleon's forces), working title Jane's Second Soldier. Jane is with her new husband, Ben, who rescued her from the bully who was assaulting her when the story opened. He had to marry her right away to protect her, and they've had the problems you might expect from a couple who marry as near-strangers while one of them is still mourning her first love. But here they're having a moment of pure fun together for a change:

“That girl there–she’s offering kisses to every soldier who marches by!”

Ben turned and saw a pretty, dark-haired girl in a doorway, giggling and indeed bestowing mostly chaste kisses upon a line of happy redcoats.

“She’s well enough,” he said, “but you’re prettier.” And he set his hands on either side of Jane’s face and kissed her, there in the crowded, sunlit street. She stood stock-still for a moment, then melted against him, her hands coming up to span his shoulders.

For several precious seconds she leaned into him, and Ben forgot the noisy crowd around them, forgot the war, forgot his duties, forgot everything but the woman in his arms, her lips warm and soft under his, her hair sweet-smelling in the hot August sun.

Just to offer a little eye candy, I picture Ben as looking a bit like Sean Maher:



Comments and feedback always welcome--though please keep in mind that this is still in rough draft stage. Also, drop by the Six Sentence Sunday mothership to view other authors' work.

Six Sentence Sunday - Jane's Second Soldier opener

This week I'm posting yet another opening six sentences. As I mentioned last week, I noticed I've developed something of a pattern, in otherwise widely divergent manuscripts, of opening with the heroine poised to marry the wrong man. In A Marriage of Inconvenience and Wolf & Huntress, Lucy and Cass have both mistaken Mr. Wrongs for Mr. Rights. In this week's entry, the heroine knows dang well she doesn't want the first suitor who comes her way.

This is from a novella, working title Jane's Second Soldier. Jane is a common soldier's widow with the British army fighting the French in Spain in 1812. Her husband only just died, and she wishes she could properly mourn him. But that's not how the rules work in her world:

“You will marry me.”

Jane winced and wrenched her face away as Sergeant Hindle shoved her against a baggage wagon. “No.”

He seized her jaw in a painful grip and forced her to look him in his bloodshot eyes. “You have no choice,” he said. “You must marry again or go home—and you haven’t the money for that.”

I'm starting to run out of openers, so next week I'll have to delve deeper into one of my manuscripts.