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.
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