Weekend Writing Warriors -24 April

This is my snippet for Weekend Writing Warriors (www.wewriwa.com) where writers share 8 – 10 lines of their work, for others to see and comment. Please follow and comment about others on the list.

I am continuing with my next book, called The Artist. Although this has been accepted for publication, it hasn’t yet been edited and I don’t yet have a date for publication, or a cover picture. This is an historical erotic romance, based in England in the 1850s. Theodore (Theo for short) is the son of a Viscount, but has rejected the life of an aristocrat to live as a rather bohemian artist. He has an eye for pretty girls, whom he likes to paint in the nude. Lizzie is a poor village girl who made a disastrous marriage, from which she has fled, and is destitute. When Theo asks her to be his artist’s model, she swallows her natural modesty and accepts.  After their first session he decides to visit the Inn to see if the Landlord could supply some gossip about Lizzie’s background, and some food, as his daily woman is away tending a sick relative.  Theo asks the Landlord if he knows Lizzie.

“You painting her?”

“Yes, she started yesterday. Came to me with a sad tale and looking destitute, and you know me, Albert, a sucker for a sob story. Besides that she has a pretty face and a tempting body, and I’m not known for turning away a beautiful woman in distress.”

“Got a reputation as a tart, Theo, from gossip I heard last time I was in the market at Chatterton. Seems her husband caught her in the arms of another man, not three months after he had wed her. Apparently the man ran off before he could lay his hands on him, but he threw his wife out there and then, without a penny to her name. Some say she has to beg for her food now after several respectable households turned down her pleading for a job as a maid or suchlike. My missus reckons she will probably be lifting her skirt and dropping her drawers for anyone who will have her. There don’t appear to be much sympathy for her around here it seems.”

Please do not be too hasty in judgement of Lizzie’s character, however, for all is not as it seems.  All will be revealed in future snippets.

As I have no cover picture yet, I am again using a newspaper cutting of the two main characters in the TV series of Poldark.  Again, I am probably breaking copyright rules, so shhh!  But the actors are rather gorgeous, so I will use them, and hope that when I get a cover picture it is not too great a disappointment.  The cover models will have a lot to live up to!

 

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