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Newsletter 205
Sep. 2nd, 2018 03:48 pmYesterday was that special time of the year when suddenly the air smells like autumn. I have no idea what the aroma is that I’m detecting, but it’s there. Still, the summer weather continues unabated – except for last weekend but as that was a bank holiday then it was bound to be cold and wet. Big jumpers out but now back in the cupboard again!
News
Endeavour usually has one of the Cambridge Fellows books on offer and at present that’s the print version of Lessons in Power.
I have some news about my “most well bred werewolves in the universe” story, Wolves of the West, which will be available again soon. More details once all the i’s are dotted. In other writing news, the fourth Lindenshaw book has almost reached the bit (just a couple of pages to go) where I can write The End and get it sent off. A moment that never loses its sparkle.
I was chatting to someone about audio versions of my books, and wanted to remind you that I have three audio books at present: Lessons in Love, Home Fires Burning and Promises Made Under Fire. Quite a history fest!
This week’s extract is from the last of those, Promises Made Under Fire, which is also available in e-book. Set in WWI, it tells a tale of things not being what they seem on the surface...
When the post did come, it brought a letter for me from Winchester, in mother’s elegant hand, no doubt cheery and full of news, although not overtly affectionate. We’d never been that sort of a family. I always replied in a similarly cheery vein, using our little code—we couldn’t have been the only family to devise one—to tell them exactly where I was. Only Foden ever saw how I really felt.
Foden had three letters, one from his aunt which, for all he’d said earlier, his eyes lit up on seeing, another from who knew where. And, of course, there was one from Veronica, his wife. Dr. Veronica Foden, to use her proper title, of a cottage hospital—Leavale—somewhere along the border of Surrey and Sussex.
How a chauffeur—which Foden was, in service to a family who had a house in Bayswater and one in the country not far from Leavale—had ended up hitching his wagon to a doctor was a mystery. The difference in social standing, and maybe intellect, couldn’t have been easy to bridge. I suppose love sees no boundaries.
“Mother’s written again. I wonder what I’m in the doghouse about now?” He viewed the letter like it contained orders to advance.
“How can you be in trouble at so many miles remove?”
“Mothers know about every misdemeanour, however small, didn’t you know? Whenever or wherever committed, they know when their child has sinned.” He grinned then sat on his bed, evidently deciding which letter to open first. “Never rush to open them,” he’d tell the men. “Savour the moment.”
I eyed my letter warily. There’d been times I’d got up to things in London my mother couldn’t have known about, yet when I returned home she’d have a look in her eye, as though she could bore into my soul to see every spot and stain. Please God she hadn’t realised I had an eye for the men rather than the ladies. My burgeoning awareness and having to hide my interest—vivid memories of trying hard not to stare as my fellow pupils changed for rugger—had helped to carve my character.
“How’s Veronica?” Better ask Foden the question and put off opening my own letter.
“No idea. You know I keep hers for last. Deferred pleasures are the most gratifying.”
Sometimes Foden sounded as though he’d eaten his way through a whole shelf full of dictionaries. Maybe that deep-rooted intelligence had been what Veronica appreciated. And maybe the war was proving a boon for men like him, who suddenly saw a means of manoeuvring themselves up the ladder of opportunity in a way that might have proved impossible in peacetime.
I opened mother’s letter, scanning it briefly before hiding my sigh of relief. Business as normal. I hadn’t hidden the sigh well enough.
“Everything all right?” Foden looked up from his reading, clearly concerned.
“Yes. Mother hasn’t run my sins to ground yet.” I laughed and went back to reading properly. Or at least pretending to. Jonny was one of my sins. Jonny, the chap I’d fallen in love with when we’d been students together in London, both reading law, him with an eye on his King’s Counsel wig and the bar, me with a view to joining my father’s firm of solicitors in Winchester.
We’d been inseparable, up until the call to arms separated us—just about the only thing to have been able to do so, short of death. And that followed not long after, taking Jonny just after the Christmas it was all supposed to be over by. He’d been lain under the grass of France before I’d even crossed the Channel, and before I summoned up the bravery to tell him what he meant to me and find out if he felt the same.
“You’re a lucky man,” I said, without meaning to. “To have a wife as well as a mother to send you their love.”
“Tell Veronica’s family that. I’m still not sure they approve. What would your mother or father say if they found you going walking out with a nursery maid?”
“I’m not sure it would bear repeating in decent company,” I said lightly, suspecting she’d have been secretly grateful to see me with any woman on my arm. I took a quick look at Foden, but he’d gone back to reading, which meant I could study him for a moment or two.
He was handsome, with a fine figure, capable and charming. But I’d hardened myself against the possibility of attraction to anyone who wore the khaki like me. I’d an iron will.
And finally - appropriate to the story I've just posted an excerpt from...
News
Endeavour usually has one of the Cambridge Fellows books on offer and at present that’s the print version of Lessons in Power.
I have some news about my “most well bred werewolves in the universe” story, Wolves of the West, which will be available again soon. More details once all the i’s are dotted. In other writing news, the fourth Lindenshaw book has almost reached the bit (just a couple of pages to go) where I can write The End and get it sent off. A moment that never loses its sparkle.
I was chatting to someone about audio versions of my books, and wanted to remind you that I have three audio books at present: Lessons in Love, Home Fires Burning and Promises Made Under Fire. Quite a history fest!
This week’s extract is from the last of those, Promises Made Under Fire, which is also available in e-book. Set in WWI, it tells a tale of things not being what they seem on the surface...
When the post did come, it brought a letter for me from Winchester, in mother’s elegant hand, no doubt cheery and full of news, although not overtly affectionate. We’d never been that sort of a family. I always replied in a similarly cheery vein, using our little code—we couldn’t have been the only family to devise one—to tell them exactly where I was. Only Foden ever saw how I really felt.
Foden had three letters, one from his aunt which, for all he’d said earlier, his eyes lit up on seeing, another from who knew where. And, of course, there was one from Veronica, his wife. Dr. Veronica Foden, to use her proper title, of a cottage hospital—Leavale—somewhere along the border of Surrey and Sussex.
How a chauffeur—which Foden was, in service to a family who had a house in Bayswater and one in the country not far from Leavale—had ended up hitching his wagon to a doctor was a mystery. The difference in social standing, and maybe intellect, couldn’t have been easy to bridge. I suppose love sees no boundaries.
“Mother’s written again. I wonder what I’m in the doghouse about now?” He viewed the letter like it contained orders to advance.
“How can you be in trouble at so many miles remove?”
“Mothers know about every misdemeanour, however small, didn’t you know? Whenever or wherever committed, they know when their child has sinned.” He grinned then sat on his bed, evidently deciding which letter to open first. “Never rush to open them,” he’d tell the men. “Savour the moment.”
I eyed my letter warily. There’d been times I’d got up to things in London my mother couldn’t have known about, yet when I returned home she’d have a look in her eye, as though she could bore into my soul to see every spot and stain. Please God she hadn’t realised I had an eye for the men rather than the ladies. My burgeoning awareness and having to hide my interest—vivid memories of trying hard not to stare as my fellow pupils changed for rugger—had helped to carve my character.
“How’s Veronica?” Better ask Foden the question and put off opening my own letter.
“No idea. You know I keep hers for last. Deferred pleasures are the most gratifying.”
Sometimes Foden sounded as though he’d eaten his way through a whole shelf full of dictionaries. Maybe that deep-rooted intelligence had been what Veronica appreciated. And maybe the war was proving a boon for men like him, who suddenly saw a means of manoeuvring themselves up the ladder of opportunity in a way that might have proved impossible in peacetime.
I opened mother’s letter, scanning it briefly before hiding my sigh of relief. Business as normal. I hadn’t hidden the sigh well enough.
“Everything all right?” Foden looked up from his reading, clearly concerned.
“Yes. Mother hasn’t run my sins to ground yet.” I laughed and went back to reading properly. Or at least pretending to. Jonny was one of my sins. Jonny, the chap I’d fallen in love with when we’d been students together in London, both reading law, him with an eye on his King’s Counsel wig and the bar, me with a view to joining my father’s firm of solicitors in Winchester.
We’d been inseparable, up until the call to arms separated us—just about the only thing to have been able to do so, short of death. And that followed not long after, taking Jonny just after the Christmas it was all supposed to be over by. He’d been lain under the grass of France before I’d even crossed the Channel, and before I summoned up the bravery to tell him what he meant to me and find out if he felt the same.
“You’re a lucky man,” I said, without meaning to. “To have a wife as well as a mother to send you their love.”
“Tell Veronica’s family that. I’m still not sure they approve. What would your mother or father say if they found you going walking out with a nursery maid?”
“I’m not sure it would bear repeating in decent company,” I said lightly, suspecting she’d have been secretly grateful to see me with any woman on my arm. I took a quick look at Foden, but he’d gone back to reading, which meant I could study him for a moment or two.
He was handsome, with a fine figure, capable and charming. But I’d hardened myself against the possibility of attraction to anyone who wore the khaki like me. I’d an iron will.
And finally - appropriate to the story I've just posted an excerpt from...
