Next Excerpt: Rebecca Has An Embarrassing Request

My American historical romance What Mends the Heart comes out in less than a month, so here's another excerpt! This encounter, seen first from Rebecca's point of view and then from Stephen's, grows out of Rebecca's surprising friendship with Madam Mamie, the proprietor of the town's parlor house (an upscale brothel). Mamie has asked Rebecca, as a favor, to pass on a request for her.

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Approaching Mr. Millory about dresses for Mamie’s girls would be tricky, as she’d known from the start. Even visiting the tailor shop again might cause comment, but she could take him some of the molasses cookies she’d made as an excuse. If questioned, she could say that she wouldn’t put it past him to get so caught up in his work that he would miss supper.

She’d put the cookies in an embossed tin, and held it out as she entered. The excuse seemed feeble to her now, and Mr. Millory’s raised eyebrow made her feel utterly transparent. Instead of saying what she’d rehearsed, she set the tin on the table and said, “I come with a request you may find . . . surprising.” She gulped. “Even inappropriate.” Could she possibly feel any more like a child confessing naughtiness?

He had been bending over to examine the tin, but her words brought him bolt upright. “Has some problem arisen at the boarding house? Something with which I could assist?”

His generous response only made her feel worse. But it also gave her an opening. “No, nothing like that. But there is someone else with a dilemma. I came to speak for her, as you and she . . . have not been introduced, and any such introduction might . . . might not be something you would choose.”

Mr. Millory stood patiently, if in obvious puzzlement, waiting for her to start making sense. She had better simply get to the point. “I don’t know whether it has come to your attention that we have a parlor house in town. Its proprietor is a Madam Mamie. It may surprise you to learn that Mamie and I are acquainted. Are, in fact, on friendly terms.” And he could guess what he liked about how such a friendship had come to pass.

* * * * *

Stephen stood in a tailor shop far better equipped than his own, in a town that was not his own, trying not to stare at the kindly, respectable woman who had just declared herself friends with a brothel keeper, and considered the possibility that he was lying in bed delirious with fever. That was far more likely than any other explanation.

But if he were suffering from so severe an illness, where was Mary? She could not be the woman whose bizarre statement he had just hallucinated. Even in a fever dream, he could not be transforming Mary’s ethereal grace, the deceptively slight build that contained such force of will, into this lushly curved figure with hair the color of honey.

And Mary was dead.

Even in delirium, he could not forget for long. Mary was gone, eternally beyond his reach, his touch. And his hunger for her, never to be satisfied again, must have led him to conjure not just this vision of fleshly allure, this embodiment of carnal desire, but her talk of the most extreme indulgence. He could only wonder why he had not imagined her to be the madam herself.

“Mr. Millory? Are you well?”

The pleasing feminine voice sounded uncertain. If a nurse was speaking, surely she would know he was ill.

A hand, a woman’s hand, touched his shoulder. “You’re swaying. Let me help you sit down.”

He had been standing, still was standing. So he was not lying feverish in bed. And everything around him was real. Including the woman about whom he had been thinking such lecherous thoughts, and who was now touching him, pulling him to lean against her, guiding him to the padded bench.

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Something's brewing!

You can preorder the book on Amazon, Bookshop (which can benefit your favorite indie bookstore), and other bookseller sites. I'd be delighted if you do! But I'll be publishing more excerpts to try to pique your interest.

Introduction to Rebecca, Heroine of My Upcoming Historical Romance

With the release of What Mends the Heart coming in six weeks, and now that we've met male protagonist Stephen Millory, it's time to meet its female protagonist. Here are the opening paragraphs of the book, which introduce the reader to Rebecca Wheeler, proprietor of Cowbird Creek's boarding house.

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Rebecca Wheeler looked out the window at a chilly day and gave thanks for her warm kitchen. On fresh spring days when the breeze blew the scent of flowers and new grass her way, or when summer sun invited her to raise her face to it and bask in the warmth, the many tasks to be done indoors could make her restless. On days like today, the kitchen and the whole boarding house felt like a warm refuge, a hug in the form of a building.

And her boarders seemed to feel the same way.

The load of wood in the big cast-iron stove’s firebox was still putting out plenty of heat, and would for hours yet. She opened the oven and took a sniff of the meat loaf they would have for dinner. Mmm, just right, rich and meaty with a hint of browning. She hadn’t had to use too much filler — almost all her rooms were full, and the boarders had been diligent about paying on time. The butcher had smiled at her this week when she’d given him her order for pork and beef. She closed the oven and checked on the carrots simmering on the cook top, poking them with the tip of the knife she’d used to chop them into slices. They needed a little more time, what with several of her boarders having bad teeth or few of them or both. They’d be nice and sweet, with almost all of them newly harvested from the winter crop. She unwrapped the dish cloth around the biscuits just enough to check whether they were still warm. They could have been warmer — it was tricky to get everything ready to serve at the same time — but they’d do, and the fresh butter would help.

It was one of the days when she enjoyed cooking. There were times when all the choosing and chopping and dishing out and cleaning up would weary her, and she’d promise herself to find another cook to take on trial. But the first one she’d tried always undercooked the vegetables, and her fried chicken was greasy. And the second did a better job, but turned out to be a gossip, and a nasty one at that. She’d almost lost two boarders over hurt feelings before she gave up on breaking the woman of that habit.

Besides, she liked keeping people fed. Taking care of people. The minister liked to tease her about being a hen with her chicks. And she did feel sorry when any of them left.

Well, she wasn’t a hen, so enough of this brooding! She moved the carrots off the boiler hole and got busy dishing up the food.

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And here, two chapters later, is the moment Rebecca meets Stephen.

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She offered him her hand to shake, reaching up on account of his height. His clasp was strong and warm, his palm firm. He struck her as looking rather like the late President Lincoln, though not as homely — not homely at all, exactly — and with red-brown hair instead of dark. Any woman who kept a boarding house had to acquire the skill of summing people up quickly. On first impression, he seemed sad and defeated, underfed and underslept, with the haunted look some widowers had. That usually meant either a good marriage, or one that had been less happy and had left the man with regrets.

“Good afternoon, Miss Wheeler,” he replied in a low, pleasant voice, stooping enough to look her in the eye. “Thank you for your kind welcome. I do indeed come in search of room and board." He had large brown eyes, with a hint of gold around the iris. She rather thought it would be hard to look away from those eyes, if one spent too long looking into them.

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And what does Stephen think of Rebecca on first meeting her? She reminds him of a bright-eyed bird, a meadowlark.

You can preorder What Mends the Heart on Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere.

Next time: a sewing lesson!

The Promised Scene from What Mends the Heart, now available for preorder

 Actually, to make up for having waited so long to post again, I'm including two scenes, both from the POV of protagonist Stephen Millory. But first, you may wish to reread Stephen's character sketch.

And now, here's the first excerpt. Stephen arrives at the tailor shop he'll be using until Cowbird Creek's tailor comes back to town.

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In the middle of the room, the light from the window falling golden upon it, was a sewing machine. A sewing machine, shiny black, metal parts glistening, with an open-work metal plate almost spanning its width suspended between the metal legs, and a maroon padded bench behind it. Stephen had never seen one, only the pictures in the catalogue. He and Mary had talked about what it would take to acquire one, but it had always been out of reach. How excited she’d be when he went home and told her! —

The bolt of memory struck and staggered him, as it always did. He could not seem to keep in mind that he now lived in a world without her. No, his mind insisted on inhabiting the world where he belonged, the world when he could go home and see her, hear her, hold her, tell her all the unimportant things no one else would want to hear.

He fought to keep breathing. One of these days, the stroke would be too powerful, and he would stop. But until then, he had to keep living in this poorer, drab world in which he was left behind.

At least, for now, it contained a sewing machine.

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The next excerpt comes a little later, after Stephen has moved into Rebecca Wheeler's boarding house. He's the only male boarder, and most of the other boarders are middle-aged or older. Supper is over, and Stephen has gone to his room to settle in.

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It took him a while to notice that something distracting was happening. Was someone knocking on the door to his room? No, not knocking, but there were sounds coming from the hallway, footsteps that came closer and paused and left again, followed by others doing the same; and voices, almost as quiet as whispers, then louder, then followed by urgent hushing sounds and the almost-whispers again.

He could easily guess what was going on. At supper, the boarders had peppered him with all the questions he had feared, but Miss Wheeler had managed to politely interrupt almost every time, deftly changing the subject to less painful ones, asking him about the tailor shop and what he hoped to do during his visit. A couple of the bolder ladies had offered to show him this or that highlight of Cowbird Creek, offers he had (he hoped) politely deflected. All those unanswered questions and invitations must now have followed him upstairs, the ladies finding or making excuses to traipse up and down the hall, collecting in little clusters to gossip and exclaim and compare notes.

What would they do if he suddenly flung open the door and shouted “Boo!”? Picturing their startled expressions and flustered gestures made him actually laugh. The noises outside the door fell silent, and then started up again, more fast-paced than ever.

Another notion took him, less outrageous than the first, and practical to boot. He stripped down to undershirt and drawers, put on his dressing gown, picked up the towel Miss Wheeler had left in the room, and opened the door. “Oh, excuse me!” he exclaimed, pretending to be surprised at the ladies who gasped and gaped and flattened themselves against the hallway. “I was heading down to the washroom. I hope I haven’t interrupted anything.” They scattered and tittered and clucked as he made his way down the hall. When he reached the washroom, he closed the door and leaned against it, as he had done at the tailor shop, but this time he smiled as he got ready for bed.

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If you want to make sure you don't have to wait longer than necessary for the actual book, you can (as of today) preorder it! Here are the links for Amazon (currently ebook only, but the paperback should pop up soon); for Bookshop.org (paperback only); and for Barnes & Noble (ditto). Any of them should send you the book on October 15, 2026. 

Next time, I'll give you a scene or two from Rebecca's point of view.