Emily Larkin's Blog - Posts Tagged "spinster-s-secret"

Today I'd like you to meet Edward Kane, the hero of The Spinster's Secret. Edward fought at Waterloo and carries the scars of that battle with him.

Here he is seen through the eyes of Matilda Chapple, the heroine. Two points worth noting: (1) Mattie is six foot tall, and (2) her cousin Toby died at Waterloo.

Mattie studied Mr. Kane surreptitiously while she ate. Goliath, Toby had called him, and she understood how he’d come by that name. He was an uncommonly large gentleman, taller than she was by a good half foot, and solidly built. He looked as if he could carry the weight of a coach-and-four on those broad shoulders.

Mr. Kane had dark hair and a tanned face crossed with pink scars. She knew his age: thirty. The same age Toby would be if he were alive.

Mattie traced the scars scoring across his brow, bisecting an eyebrow, curving down his cheek. She examined his left ear. Most of it was missing. Her gaze dropped to his hands. They bore scars similar to those across his face. Three fingers were missing on his right hand, and one on his left.

Had his sword been cut from his hand? Did that account for the missing fingers?

She imagined him weaponless, trying to ward off an attack...

Her ribcage tightened. Mattie looked away from Mr. Kane’s battered hands and forced herself to think of something else. Outside, rain came down in torrents. A cold wind leaked through the cracks in the window casement. The clink of cutlery was loud in the silence: the scrape of a knife across a plate, the tiny clatter of fork tines as her uncle speared a piece of boiled mutton.

What did Mr. Kane think of so silent a meal? Perhaps he was grateful. He didn’t look like a man skilled at small talk, a man who could turn a pretty phrase as easily as he could tie his own shoelaces. He looked like a fighter.

A fighter who’d lost a battle and had almost died.

So, there you have it: one rather battered hero. And while Mattie can clearly see Edward's physical scars, she's about to learn that he's carrying some emotional ones, too.

As its title suggests, The Spinster's Secret is a novel about a spinster with a secret.

The spinster is Matilda Chapple, and her secret involves paper, ink, and imagination. Can you guess what it is?

Here's a scene from the hero's point of view. The mailbag from Soddy Morton village has fallen in the creek and Edward finds Matilda's elderly uncle, Sir Arthur Strickland, going through the waterlogged letters...

“Look at this!” Strickland thrust a wet letter at him. His thin face was flushed with outrage. “This . . . this is filth!”

Edward took the letter. It was several pages long. The ink was smeared, but still readable.

Dear reader, in answer to your request, here is a further confession from my pen.

Edward raised his eyebrows. What the hell?

Previously, I told of my first encounter with Lord S. Now, if you are willing to be the recipient of another confession, I should like to share some details of my time as Lord S.’s mistress.

“Filth!” Strickland said again, struggling to his feet. “Disgusting filth!”

Edward ignored him. His gaze skipped down the page: For some time we wandered, exchanging fond touches and kisses, until presently we came upon a little folly built in the form of a Roman temple, perfectly round, with a pantiled roof and a colonnade. A pretty wilderness of trees surrounded it, and at its marble feet ran a sparkling brook. Lord S. led me inside the folly, wherein a fine, large divan tossed with pillows stood squarely in a shaft of sunlight.

The page ended. Edward tried to peel the corner up to read the next page. He couldn’t. The sheets of paper were stuck together. He tried the next page.

. . . until finally his passion was spent. We lay entwined, sunlight warm on our skin. From outside came the sound of birdsong and the ripple of running water. After several minutes Lord S. roused himself and suggested that we refresh ourselves with a swim.

Taking me by the hand he led me outside and coaxed me into the brook. We sported in the water for some time, until Lord S.’s passion was manifestly aroused again.

Edward read swiftly to the bottom of the page. “Filth!” he heard Strickland mutter while he paced the study, his cane thudding angrily with each step. “Filth!”

Alas, the next two pages were stuck together. Edward tried to peel them apart, but the limp paper disintegrated into shreds. Only the final sentence was legible: And on that note, dear readers, I shall end this latest confession from my pen.

Chérie.

He set the pages together again, disappointed.

“Here!” A thump of the cane. “In Soddy Morton!” Another thump. “To find such filth!”

Edward nodded his agreement. Soddy Morton was the last place he’d have expected the notorious Chérie to reside. “She’s thought to live in London.”

Strickland swung around and pinned him with a fierce glare. “You’re familiar with the writer?”

“Uh . . . I have heard of her, sir.” And he’d read the last three installments of her confessions. “She claims to be a courtesan by the name of Chérie. Her confessions are quite popular in London.” That was an understatement; Chérie’s Confessions had taken London by storm. Well, half of London, Edward amended. The male half.

“She must be stopped!” Strickland shook his cane at him. His face was mottled with rage. “I won’t have such depravity in Soddy Morton!”

And thus begins a series of events that turn both Mattie's and Edward's lives upside down.

In my last post, I showed you Edward, the hero of The Spinster's Secret, through the heroine's eyes. This time I'd like to show you the heroine, Matilda Chapple, through the hero's.

Firstly, though, the preamble to this scene. It's after dinner, and Edward has just had a glass of port with his host, Sir Arthur Strickland.

Strickland struggled to his feet, leaning on the cane. “Please join us in the drawing room.”

Edward stood. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”

Strickland made his way slowly to the door. Edward followed. They traversed the corridor at a snail’s pace. “My niece reads to us in the evenings,” Strickland said, stopping outside a paneled door.

“How delightful,” Edward said, remembering her contralto voice. “Poetry?”

“Sermons,” the old man said, opening the door.

Sermons? Edward almost balked. If you can face Napoleon’s army on a battlefield, you can face an evening of sermons, he told himself, and he squared his shoulders and followed his host into the drawing room.

And now the scene itself:

Miss Chapple opened the leather-bound book. She looked at Edward. “I shall be reading from Sermons to Young Women,” she told him. “By the Reverend James Fordyce. Are you familiar with the work, Mr. Kane?”

“Er . . . no.” He sat back in the armchair and composed his face into an expression of interest.

“Sermon Two,” Miss Chapple read aloud. “On Modesty of Apparel.”

Edward stopped paying attention. He gazed at the fire and allowed Miss Chapple’s voice to flow over him.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them again, the clock hands had advanced fifteen minutes.

Edward sat up straight, blinking. He uncrossed his legs and crossed them the other way.

“The less vanity you betray,” Miss Chapple read, “the more merit we shall always be disposed to allow you.”

He focused his attention on her, trying to guess her age. She was well past girlhood. Somewhere in her twenties, but precisely where was hard to determine; her skin was as smooth as that of a girl in her teens.

Edward studied her, trying to see a resemblance to Toby and finding none. Miss Chapple’s hair was an indifferent mid-brown, her nose unremarkable and quite unlike Toby’s jutting beak. An ordinary face, although he thought she might have dimples when she smiled. The only feature of note was her mouth, which was too large for beauty. But a lush mouth could never be a fault in a woman.

Miss Chapple’s figure was as generous as her mouth; she had none of Toby’s leanness. The gray gown was overlarge, as if attempting to hide her abundant curves.

Edward’s gaze lingered on her breasts for a fleeting moment before he wrenched them away. She’s reading a sermon, he admonished himself.

How much longer could the wretched thing be? Miss Chapple’s voice was as soporific as a lullaby . . .

The jerk of his head dropping forward woke him. The clock told him he’d lost another five minutes. Edward glanced around. No one had noticed. He swallowed a yawn and managed not to rub his eyes.

So, there you have it: Edward nodding off during an evening of sermons. Poor Edward!