One thing to remember before you begin reading: these are NOT polished works. These excerpts are "first draft". So please focus on the story and the characters ONLY (spelling, phrasing and other technical aspects may be rough, but will get "fixed" and "polished" when I do the edits -- which comes after the 1st draft is complete).

When you have finished reading the excerpt, please leave your comments in my blog.

“Let me go!” Victoria shrieked, her arms and legs flailing as someone lifted her from behind by the back of her dress from her hiding place in the brush. “Let me go, I tell you!”

“Not until you tell me who you are and why you are sneaking around in the weeds.”

Victoria had never heard him speak before, but she was certain the lovely voice belonged to the lovely dark-haired boy she'd been watching in secret for the last two weeks. Her heart thumped madly and her mind was all a-muddle. This was hardly the scene she'd envisioned of their first meeting!

“I will not speak a solitary word until you let me go and behave like a gentleman!”

A sudden nudge sent her off balance and she fell to the ground with a thud. Scampering out of his reach and to her feet, Victoria glared angrily as she turned to face the boy. Her bum was surely bruised, and there he stood, grinning.

“Watch your tongue,” he scolded, shaking a finger under her nose, as though she were a mere child. “Now, what is a little girl like you doing on her own, sneaking around my estate?”

Oh! How could she have possibly thought the pretty boy would have a personality to match his fair face? She should never have been so silly and wasted so many afternoons these last weeks gazing at him from afar!

“I'll have you know I am not a little girl! I am nine years old,” she insisted, stomping her foot rather like a child, before she could stop herself. Instantly, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

The boy's blue eyes twinkled in the summer sun. “All of nine, are you?” Then his voice grew serious. “My, my, you aren't a little girl, are you?”

“I see.” He held his chin with one hand, in a fashion that made him seem quite grown up. “But that still does not explain why you have been hiding and watching me all this time.”

His laughter rang out around them. “Of course I knew. You’re my new governess’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“I've come out on the lawn every day, thinking you'd come and talk to me eventually. So why didn’t you?”

She shrugged and moved her eyes from his, to the ground, where the toe of her shoe made circles in the dust of the path.

She giggled. “She forbid me to go near you—said you could not play because you had a weak…”

He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders. “Of course not. Do you have a name?”

She raised her head to gaze into his warm blue eyes again. “Victoria, Lord Clarendon.”

From the talk of the other servants that she’d overheard, Victoria knew his father had died in a carriage accident. His mother, the marchioness, had long been delicate, but since her husband’s death, her health had failed considerably, and now she was confined to her bed, and it was rumored it would not be long before she joined her husband.

Her mother had already been warned that she was to keep Victoria away from her new charge so he would not catch a virus that would do him in, so if they were caught together, Mrs. Wrigfield would surely take a strap to her already bruised bottom, and her mother would likely lose her position.

“Have you ever walked this path, Tristan? It leads to a wonderful tall tree, perfect for climbing, where you can sit on its long branches and see all the way to London!”

For a time he seemed to be quite uncertain of her proposal, but then Tristan lifted his chin and grinned. “Very well!” Then his expression grew staid again.

“I've never climbed a tree before. Mother forbids it. She says it is dangerous, not to mention the fact that it will dirty my breeches. But I've always wished to try.”

Victoria might have laughed at any other boy of twelve years who had never climbed a tree, but Tristan was gravely serious, and she did not wish to embarrass him.

“I will teach you, Tristan. In no time you will be climbing as though you've lived in trees your entire life.”

He glanced over to Victoria as she took hold of his hand and began to lead him down the path. This girl with the grass stained dress and feet as bare and dirty as a heathen’s, the tangled mass of strawberry-mixed-with-gold curls, and eyes as green as the foliage around them, fascinated him. Noting her fair skin lacked even a single freckle, he imagined with a hot bath and a good grooming, she would be quite, well, pretty.

It had been a long time since anyone held his hand, and the little girl’s easy affection made him feel exceedingly… warm inside. He wondered if this was what it was like to have a sister. Then he decided it was not, for all the younger sisters he’d seen in the world were quite troublesome and an annoyance. Victoria was neither.

Then he wondered if this was what it might be like to have a friend. Yes, a friend, he thought with a smile.

In all his life, Tristan had never had a friend. His mother, for all her good intentions, had a way of isolating him, including bringing a private tutor in to educate him. And because he'd been sickly as an infant, she had the notion he was still fragile, although Tristan was certain he was as strong and healthy as any other boy his age. When out of Mama's sight, Papa had tried to sneak a little adventure into his life, but all that ended two years ago when Papa died.

The last two years had been quite boring and uneventful, and the last few months, with Mama confined to her sick bed, had been dreadfully lonely.

Perhaps Victoria would be his salvation—someone to talk to, play games with, even climb trees with. Anything was better than sitting in a chair on the lawn, alone the entire afternoon after his lessons. And any punishment Mrs. Wrigfield might inflict upon him should his breeches become tattered or stained, would surely be worth the fun.

“Here it is!” she exclaimed, leading him right up in front of a massive old oak.

The tree was taller than any he’d ever seen. “So how is it we are to climb this tree when there is not a solitary branch as far as we can reach?”

Victoria led him around to the other side of the tree, where a long, fat tree limb was propped up against the sycamore.

“Absolutely! See those?” She indicated what had at one time been the branches of the limb, but were now broken and merely stubs. “We'll use them just like the steps of a ladder. See? It will take us all the way up to that first long limb of the sycamore, and then it's just a matter of climbing higher from there.”

It is insanity, he reasoned to himself, looking over his shoulder as she climbed. Pure foolishness. She'd end up hurting herself for sure. But then he looked to Victoria, a mere wisp of a child, and a good head, shoulders and chest smaller than he, and she was climbing her way higher. In short order, she reached the first branch and perched upon it like a bird.

“Hold on,” he called out, swallowing his fear. He was not about to allow a nine-year-old girl to outdo him. “I’m coming!”

It was not so difficult, this tree climbing, he thought, carefully making his way up the limb that led to the branch where Victora sat watching him. At last he was high enough to reach for a long branch over his head and pull himself up beside her.

All at once Victoria swiftly swung from her branch to one higher. Turning, she looked down on him, issuing a silent dare for him to follow. Her fiery hair caught the golden hue of the sun that washed through the leaves of the trees, and for the first time, he noticed a darling dimple pinched into her right cheek.

Sucking in a deep breath, Tristan inched along his branch, reached high and caught hold of another.

“I can make it if you can!” he declared boldly, swinging his long legs up to the branch next to the one she rested on.

Her tree climbing expertise was all too apparent as her bare feet skitted across the rough bark and she swung herself from one branch to the next. He was having a devil of a time keeping up with the little monkey, but after many long minutes and a few near slips, Tristan eased himself down to the old gnarly branch, next to Victoria, his heart racing madly and his breath short. He looked down, for the first time realizing just how high he’d climbed, and his stomach rose to his throat.

“No! Don’t look down, Tristan!” she squealed, yanking his attention from the spinning ground below him back to her. “You’ll fall if you look down.”

He wrapped his arms around a nearby branch and clung to it for dear life. Victoria seemed to have not the slightest notion of fear and sat perfectly balanced. She was a strange creature, and he liked her exceedingly.

Tristan followed her gaze and saw that the knee of his breeches was completely missing, and his stockings, shredded. He worried his lip for a moment, contemplating the old housekeeper’s anger for a time, but then grinned crookedly. “I suppose if she’s so inclined, she can use these stockings to do the deed, don’t you think?”

Shielding his eyes from the rays of sunlight, Tristan gazed out across the land, and in the distance, made out the tall buildings of London.

“It smells bad. I prefer the country. As soon as Mama is well, we are to Northumberland for the winter.”

“That sounds dreadfully dull, if you ask me. Besides, why is it a boy your age does not have a man’s mount?”

His shoulders slumped and Victoria wished she could take back the insult as soon as it left her lips. He was probably fortunate his overprotective mother and Mrs. Wrigfield allowed him to ride at all, and now she’d thoroughly humiliated him.

“Yes, you did. And you are right. Northumberland is dreadfully dull, and I outgrew my pony three years ago. But it is there I was happiest… before Papa died, and Mama began wasting away in depression. But all I have there are memories, and memories are hardly a replacement for living, are they?”

“I do not wish to talk of my life. Tell me about you. Where did you live before you came to Thrushdown Abbey?”

“I've lived in London all my life. My mother was a governess for the Duchess of Darnston.” Victoria’s hand came up quickly and covered her mouth. She should never have mentioned the duchess. She knew better!

“Victoria, why are you crying?” he asked, laying his hand gently to the side of her cheek.

She swiped her sleeve over her eyes and sniffled. “Please, Tristan. Promise you will never tell anyone I told you Mama worked for the duchess.”

He narrowed his eyes and frowned. “Of course I won't. But why must I not tell?”

“You can trust me,” he said softly, lifting her chin so he could see into her eyes.

“The duchess accused Mama of unspeakable behavior regarding the duke,” Victoria confided. “Mama doesn’t know I heard, but I had my ear to the door.”

“Of course not! I was with Mama all the time, as was the duchess’s daughter, Harriet. And on my life, we rarely saw the duke.”

“Hmmm. A jealous duchess. There’s nothing worse than a jealous duchess,” he concluded with a grin, nudging her with his elbow.

“You are correct. There’s nothing worse in life. I do miss Harriet ever so much, though.”

“But soon enough your friendship would have been discouraged. Children of peers do not socialize with children of the help. It’s just one of the rules.”

“Well, I think the rules are silly,” she said crossly, folding her arms over her chest.

Tristan gnawed on his lower lip in earnest for a time, and then his brows came together and he looked her square in the eye. “You are correct. The rules are silly. So let us now vow that no matter what, you and I shall always be friends, Victoria.”

When you have finished reading the excerpt, please leave your comments in my blog entry for this excerpt.

NEXT EXCERPT: Tristan and Victoria are separated (oh, you knew I was setting you up for that!)

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