Sebastian Nothwell's Blog - Posts Tagged "mm-romance"
Update on Works-in-Progress
Thank-you to all my readers, and especially those who’ve given feedback! I’m particularly excited by reviewers who express desire for sequels or eager anticipation for new works. Reading these makes me even more excited to write than before.
With that in mind, here’s a preview of what I’m working on now, and what you can expect from me in the future. I divulge this because I don’t want to spring a nasty surprise on readers who may be more sensitive to certain themes, subjects, and material.
There are two short stories coming up, both involving characters established in Mr Warren's Profession. Minor spoilers for that novel below!
One, as of yet untitled, involves Rowena Althorp in a shocking tryst on a train with an entirely new character. It’s roughly half-plot, half-smut. (Speaking of which—if anyone has insight into the London underground circa 1892 and is willing to pre-read for maximum train accuracy, please drop me a line!)
The other is about John Halloway and Lord Cyril Graves. Its working title is A Willing Canvas, and it’s one-hundred-percent BDSM smut. For those of you who’d rather not read BDSM smut, this might not be the story for you.
Short stories aside, I’m also working on three novels.
The whaling romance (working title: Take Me Like a Sailor) is the story of a whaling harpooner who inherits a baronetcy and falls in love with his estate agent. In bringing this story to fruition, what started as a lighthearted concept turned out a little more serious than I’d originally intended. Themes include survival of childhood sexual abuse, sexual harassment and assault in the workplace, and learning that trusted loved ones may be unworthy of the faith placed in them. Reading it back, it sounds an awful lot like the themes present in Mr Warren’s Profession. The overall tone of Take Me Like a Sailor feels much bleaker, and these topics are delved into more deeply. However, as with all romances, I can promise that it ends Happily Ever After for the two heroes. It’ll just be a longer and more difficult journey than Aubrey and Lindsey had.
The Gothic lesbian romance (no working title) is, as the description implies, a Gothic romance. An American heiress is captivated by the eerily beautiful sister of a visiting English baronet, and makes an ill-advised marriage in an effort to bring herself closer to the woman who’s stolen her heart. Inspired by stories such as Rebecca and Crimson Peak, expect an ancient house set on lonely windswept moors, desperate pining, and grim portents. Maybe even a ghost or two. Again, I promise a Happily Ever After for the heroines, who will richly deserve it after all the story puts them through. You can also expect some mutilation not unlike what’s depicted in Mr Warren’s Profession—and perhaps a little more intense than that.
The murder-mystery romance (working title: The Dose Makes the Poison) is the tale of a surgeon and a journalist, each hiding behind a false identity in an effort to escape their sordid pasts, who meet through tragic circumstances and fall in love despite them. As you may have guessed, it contains murders and surgery. It also depicts still more mutilation (those with sensitivity to things happening to eyes may want to skip a chapter or two), mentions of child abuse and how it shapes its survivors, and mentions of a loved one’s suicide and how that affects those left behind. There is a Happily Ever After awaiting our heroes, but they’ll go through a lot to get it.
I hope some of you are as excited to read these stories as I am to write them. For those of you who feel some trepidation at the details laid out above, please feel free to message me here on Goodreads (or email me directly at nothwellsebastian@gmail.com) if you’d like more information on what exactly will happen in these stories, and whether or not it’s something you’d prefer to avoid entirely. Like I said above, I don’t want to spring any nasty surprises on anyone. It sucks to be in the middle of a great story, only to get pulled out of it by an unexpected upset.
If you’d like to see more updates on these stories, I encourage you to check out my blog. I’m posting snippets of the whaling romance (almost done with the second draft!), inspirational material and research for the Gothic lesbian romance and the murder-mystery romance, and giveaways. You can also connect with me on Facebook, and of course, here on Goodreads. Thanks for reading!
Camp NaNoWriMo
Good news for those anticipating the release of my Gothic lesbians novel! Thanks to Camp NanoWriMo, the first draft's wordcount went from 30k to 50k! I estimate it's about 50% - 75% done. Putting it back on the shelf for now while I get down to work on draft 3 of Take Me Like a Sailor (aka the whaling romance). I want to have it ready for copyediting by the end of May, and hope to release in June/July. Thanks to all my cabinmates at camp for encouraging me in my efforts to meet my writing goals!
Take Me Like a Sailor is available for pre-order!
At last! Take Me Like a Sailor is now available for pre-order!
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Morgan Turner, agent to the Winthrop estate, owes everything to his benefactor. When the late baronet’s will tasks him with finding the lost heir and making a gentleman of him, he is determined to succeed.
Thirteen years ago, Evelyn Winthrop ran away to sea. Now that his hated patriarch is dead, the ancestral home he returns to is more shadowed than what he left behind. Ungrateful relations and old friends alike tie a knot of scandal and depravity only a sailor could hope to unravel. And all the while, the siren song of the sea calls him to return at the first opportunity.
Neither anticipated forming more tender attachments.
To Evelyn, his unexpectedly handsome agent is the only thing anchoring him to shore. He sees a captain’s soul within Morgan, and his heart is caught upon the hook of command—if only Morgan would return his affections.
To Morgan, his new employer’s charms threaten to tear down the thorns that have grown around his heart—thorns he cultivated to restrain his unnatural instincts.
When the estate and all who live there are threatened by a maelstrom of bitter secrets and sinister plots, it is down to Morgan to take command, down to Evelyn to hold fast, and down to them both to navigate their own treacherous sea.
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Add Take Me Like a Sailor to your To-Read List and pre-order it here!
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Morgan Turner, agent to the Winthrop estate, owes everything to his benefactor. When the late baronet’s will tasks him with finding the lost heir and making a gentleman of him, he is determined to succeed.
Thirteen years ago, Evelyn Winthrop ran away to sea. Now that his hated patriarch is dead, the ancestral home he returns to is more shadowed than what he left behind. Ungrateful relations and old friends alike tie a knot of scandal and depravity only a sailor could hope to unravel. And all the while, the siren song of the sea calls him to return at the first opportunity.
Neither anticipated forming more tender attachments.
To Evelyn, his unexpectedly handsome agent is the only thing anchoring him to shore. He sees a captain’s soul within Morgan, and his heart is caught upon the hook of command—if only Morgan would return his affections.
To Morgan, his new employer’s charms threaten to tear down the thorns that have grown around his heart—thorns he cultivated to restrain his unnatural instincts.
When the estate and all who live there are threatened by a maelstrom of bitter secrets and sinister plots, it is down to Morgan to take command, down to Evelyn to hold fast, and down to them both to navigate their own treacherous sea.
-
Add Take Me Like a Sailor to your To-Read List and pre-order it here!
Take Me Like a Sailor - Chapter One
Take Me Like a Sailor comes out July 31st and is available for pre-order now! Below you'll find the entire first chapter as a special sneak preview. Enjoy!
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Cumberland, England
22nd of February, 1891
With his right hand, Morgan Turner clasped the palm of the dying baronet.
With his left hand, he altered the will.
The impending end aside, it was business as usual. Thinking of it as such proved a handy remedy for Morgan’s eyes, which burned with tears he couldn’t allow to gather. Blurred vision would make his task quite impossible. He listened to the rattling gasps from Sir Francis’s throat and added codicils accordingly.
Sir Francis’s chest heaved. The doctor, sitting on the opposite side of the bed with two fingers on the baronet’s thick wrist, appeared unperturbed.
“To my second son, Basil,” Sir Francis croaked. “I leave sufficient funds to finish his education, and not a penny more.”
Morgan’s pen paused its scratchings. “Sir?”
“Ungrateful whelp,” Sir Francis spat. “Can’t bother to come to his own dying father’s bedside. Cut him out. Serves him right.”
Morgan hesitated, then added the appropriate lines to make it so. “Who would you have inherit in his stead?”
As he ran down the list of the baronet’s surviving family in his mind, Morgan couldn’t think of a likely prospect. Sir Francis’s only sister was an elderly spinster. He had no brothers, nor cousins. His wife had died bringing his second son into the world. Of his two sons, the younger, Basil, had gone to university and ceased all communication with his father beyond forwarding considerable bills. And the other…
“To my eldest son, Evelyn, I leave all.”
Morgan laid down his pen. “Sir, no one has seen him in—”
“Thirteen years!” Sir Francis finished for him. “He’s missing, not dead. I'll trust you to find him.”
Sir Francis squeezed Morgan’s hand. Morgan attempted a comforting smile in return. It went unregarded; the baronet’s eyes had fallen shut. He still breathed, but the effort exhausted him. Morgan returned to his work.
Evelyn Winthrop’s existence hadn’t been acknowledged in any previous draft. Morgan didn’t know what had happened thirteen years ago to make him disappear. He’d assumed the worst, and had known better than to ask. If the man was, in fact, alive—well. Morgan would find him. Somehow.
Morgan punctuated the final line. “Was there anything else, sir?”
The baronet’s dying laugh was a hideous thing to hear. “You’re wondering where you fit into all this, aren’t you?”
“Sir, I’d never—”
“Of course you would! You’d be a fool not to! And you’re no fool, or I’d have turned you out years ago. No, you, dear boy—” Here Sir Francis named a respectable pension, and Morgan dutifully wrote it in. “—to be paid out when you’ve completed your service to my progeny. Can’t very well leave my heir without an agent, now can I?”
“And if he should find my service unacceptable?”
“Then he’s an ass, and he doesn’t deserve you or your service. Let him rot, and the house and lands and title too, if my own flesh and blood is so stupid as that.”
“Very well, sir.”
With his will decided, Sir Francis Winthrop lay quiet for the remainder of the afternoon, and in the evening, passed from this world to the next, at the age of sixty-two.
—
Basil Winthrop arrived before noon the next day. The letter announcing his father’s illness hadn’t spurred him to action. The telegram reporting his father’s death summoned him as swiftly as the trains between Oxford and Cumberland allowed. Morgan tried not to dwell upon it.
Morgan himself had sat up all night with the body. He was supposed to have alternated shifts with Pierce, the late baronet’s valet, but sleep hadn't come even in the moments not spent staring down at his benefactor’s corpse, alert for any sign of life. He was still waiting when Basil burst into the room.
“Oh!” Basil cried upon sighting the body, his blue eyes round with surprise.
Morgan rose from his chair by the bedside. “Mr Winthrop.”
Basil jumped, looking at Morgan as if he hadn’t seen him before. Morgan would’ve liked to attribute his reaction to the shock of grief, but truth told, Basil rarely noticed Morgan’s presence.
“My condolences for your loss,” Morgan continued.
“Yes, yes, thank you.” Basil flapped his hand dismissively. “When will you be reading the will?”
“As soon as your aunt arrives, Mr Winthrop.”
Basil’s eyes narrowed. “Oughtn’t that be ‘Sir Basil’ to you?”
“No, sir.”
“My father is dead.” Basil paused before continuing in a matter-of-fact tone. “Regrettably. Therefore his title has passed on to his heir, along with his material possessions. And therefore, as his heir, I ought to be called ‘Sir Basil’.”
“If you were his heir.”
“The devil d’you mean, ‘if’? There can’t be any question, there’s no one else—” Basil cut himself off and glared at Morgan with renewed suspicion. “Surely not yourself?”
“No, sir. But there is your brother.”
Basil rolled his eyes. “My dearly departed brother, yes. As dead as—” He gestured towards his father’s body.
Morgan ignored the impulse to slap him. “Your father believed otherwise.”
“D’you mean to tell me,” Basil demanded, his voice rising with indignation, “I’ve been usurped by a corpse?”
“I can only tell you what’s in your father’s will, and remind you it is a legally binding document you’d be ill-advised to fight.”
Basil opened his mouth for a blistering retort. The door also opened, interrupting him with Pierce’s entrance.
“Welcome home, sir,” said Pierce.
Basil whirled to face him, then stormed out without a word or a backwards glance.
“Poor lad,” Pierce told Morgan. “Overcome by all this.”
Morgan bit his tongue and nodded.
—
“I do hope you’re not vexed with my brother for failing to leave you any immediate inheritance,” said Miss Cecily Winthrop.
“Not in the least,” Morgan replied.
It was hardly an appropriate conversation for a funeral, but then Miss Winthrop had never been an appropriate lady. Morgan had learned long ago not to balk at any word that might fall from her lips. On this chill February morning, each word came with a cloud of vapour, but neither the cold nor her brother’s burial prevented her wry smile as she added, “No one would blame you. I certainly wouldn’t.”
It hardly mattered to Morgan whether she blamed him or not. Sir Francis had saved him from utter ruin. Being executor of his will and a pallbearer at his funeral were small prices to pay for all the baronet had done for him. Not that Miss Winthrop knew the sordid details. Morgan didn’t think now was the moment to enlighten her, even if the coffin was already stowed away in the family crypt.
The funeral procession began to disperse. Morgan realized he’d failed to reply to Miss Winthrop’s comment. He hoped she’d forgive his distracted state. She hadn’t traded her wry smile for the thin-lipped line she wore when correcting ignorant staff, so he supposed himself safe for the moment.
“How will you inform my nephew of his good fortune?” Miss Winthrop asked as Morgan escorted her to the family carriage waiting in the churchyard. Basil had been the first to leave the graveside and doubtless already awaited them within.
“I’ll write to London,” Morgan answered, ready to expound upon his plan of putting advertisements in every newspaper from the Pall Mall Gazette to the London Star.
Miss Winthrop cut him off with an impatient cluck of her tongue. “I’d start in New Bedford. That’s where my first letter from him was postmarked.”
Morgan stumbled. “The first letter?”
“I’ve had dozens since. The last one came from Peru about four months back. Very interesting stamp.”
Morgan’s mind reeled. “You’ve been in contact with him this whole time?”
“Off and on. Francis had no idea, of course.”
It wasn’t Morgan’s place to ask why. Instead, he replied, “He’s in Peru, then?”
“He was, briefly. Doubtless the Mary-Ann has since moved on to more fruitful waters. His ship,” she added in response to Morgan’s evident confusion.
So the Winthrop heir had gone to sea. “He’s a sailor?”
“A harpooner,” Miss Winthrop corrected. “Prestigious work, or so I’m told. Quite dangerous. Takes a strong arm and a stronger stomach.”
They’d reached the carriage, which gave Morgan an excuse for stumbling to a halt. “He’s a whaleman?”
“What marvellous ears you have. Yes, our Evelyn is a South Pacific whaler sailing out of New Bedford. I suggest you begin your search there.”
The groom, Nicholas, held the carriage door open for her. Morgan, dumbstruck, handed her up into it.
—
Miss Winthrop left the family seat the day after her brother’s funeral. That very same morning, Morgan followed her suggestion and drafted an open letter regarding Sir Francis’s passing and Sir Evelyn’s inheritance. He made no mention of what funds and property Sir Evelyn had come into—merely the title, and the fervent wish of his surviving family that he return home. This notice went out to every newspaper in New Bedford, including the Whalemen’s Shipping List. He also sent it to papers in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Still more handwritten copies went out with as many ships as Morgan could find departing British ports for the Pacific. The project thus far had cost a considerable sum, which would’ve given Morgan pause under any other circumstances. However, Sir Francis’s will authorized the use of whatever means Morgan thought necessary to find the lost heir. Morgan only hoped he needn’t stoop to hiring Pinkertons.
Six months passed before Morgan received a letter stamped San Francisco and smelling faintly of seawater. Its arrival surprised him; he’d expected to spend the rest of his life and the Winthrop fortune in a hopeless search.
Doubtless, many sailors would’ve seen the notice as an opportunity to trade in their sorry lot for a life of luxury. Yet the letter, as Morgan scrutinized it, showed no obvious sign of fraud. Its author—supposedly Sir Evelyn himself—referred to his younger brother as “Basil” and Miss Winthrop as “dear Aunt Cecily.” As neither of these persons were named in Morgan’s notice, he felt confident the letter was genuine.
The arrival of a second letter, this time from New York, announced Sir Evelyn’s imminent voyage on the steamship Gayheader (which the letter assured Morgan was of no relation to the Gay Head of the New Bedford fleet lost in the Arctic). It also informed him of the ship’s expected arrival on the fifth of September, and proposed meeting on the Liverpool docks.
Morgan wrote to Miss Winthrop and Basil to notify them of his quest’s end. Basil didn’t bother to respond. Miss Winthrop returned to the Winthrop estate two days prior to Sir Evelyn’s scheduled arrival with her paid companion, Miss Vaughan, and informed Morgan he was free to go retrieve her nephew.
So Morgan went.
Upon arriving in Liverpool, he sought accommodations convenient to the waterfront and found the Black Whale. It was hardly the sort of establishment Sir Francis would’ve chosen, but Morgan thought it’d do to ease an ex-harpooner into life on land. His daylight hours he spent walking the wharves. At sunset, he retired to the Black Whale for chowder and re-read British Ferns and Their Allies until his nervous energy abated and sleep found him.
The fifth of September dawned. Morgan stood on the dock before the sun struck the harbour, and waited.
The most difficult part was finding a place out of the way. Fishermen spilling catches from their nets, passengers disembarking, customs officers inspecting ships, crewmen stumbling ashore for their holiday, stevedores hauling cargo, carts tangling, horses rearing, pulleys straining—all seemed determined to run Morgan down. Still, he dodged them all and found a convenient lamppost to stand beside and watch the ships come in.
Shortly after four o’clock, he beheld a massive steamship, the Gayheader herself, towed in by tugboats.
It occurred to Morgan that he had no idea what Sir Evelyn looked like. Nor did Sir Evelyn know the face of the man who’d come to meet him. Nonetheless, Sir Evelyn had promised to meet him on the dock. By keeping to his post, Morgan could hardly miss him, no matter his appearance.
The customs official boarded the ship. A half-hour later, unloading began in earnest. First-class passengers disembarked. Morgan stepped up to the gangplank to meet them. Two women in furs, a mother and daughter by their looks, and American by their accents; a black gentleman and his wife; and a family with three children and a harried nurse; these and more passed Morgan by. He hung back until he espied one particular man with shoulders broad enough—so he supposed—to throw a harpoon. But upon overhearing his flirtation with the young lady in furs, Morgan discerned he, too, was American.
The second-class passengers came next. None fit Morgan’s expectations of Sir Evelyn. Nor did anyone in steerage, though they came in such a wave that he could’ve very well missed him. Then the crew began to disembark, signalling the end of passenger arrivals.
Morgan turned from the ship, confused, but no less determined. He would return to the Black Whale and send notice to the local papers that he awaited Sir Evelyn there. But as he strode down the dock to put his plan into action, he met a striking sight.
A sailor stood across the way by the very lamppost Morgan had abandoned to approach the ship. Many of his shipmates milled about nearby, but this particular sailor attracted Morgan’s attention by standing quite literally head and shoulders above the rest. He had a broad, bearded face to match his broad, brawny shoulders. Years of open-sea sun had tanned his skin and bleached his hair to the same shade. The hair—tied back, with the ends flitting about in the sea breeze, strands stiff with salt—drew more of Morgan’s interest than he would have liked to admit.
The sailor caught Morgan’s eye over the crowd, and winked.
Morgan quickly glanced away, intending to keep walking, but stopped as a thought occurred to him. The sailor had lately crewed aboard the Gayheader. Perhaps he knew where Morgan might find his quarry. Resigned, he crossed the wharf and approached him. “Your pardon, sir.”
“Granted.” A cocky grin flashed through the sailor’s grizzled beard, turning his aspect from ferocious to friendly in an instant. He rested a hand against the lamppost. Ragged blue lines across his knuckles spelled out H-O-L-D. A glance at his other hand, planted on his sinewy hip, showed the letters F-A-S-T.
Morgan forced his gaze back up to the sailor’s face. “I’m looking for Sir Evelyn Winthrop.”
The sailor’s eyes widened, but his grin never faded. “You’re in luck, mate. You’ve found the very man.”
-
Take Me Like a Sailor comes out July 31st and is available for pre-order now!
-
Cumberland, England
22nd of February, 1891
With his right hand, Morgan Turner clasped the palm of the dying baronet.
With his left hand, he altered the will.
The impending end aside, it was business as usual. Thinking of it as such proved a handy remedy for Morgan’s eyes, which burned with tears he couldn’t allow to gather. Blurred vision would make his task quite impossible. He listened to the rattling gasps from Sir Francis’s throat and added codicils accordingly.
Sir Francis’s chest heaved. The doctor, sitting on the opposite side of the bed with two fingers on the baronet’s thick wrist, appeared unperturbed.
“To my second son, Basil,” Sir Francis croaked. “I leave sufficient funds to finish his education, and not a penny more.”
Morgan’s pen paused its scratchings. “Sir?”
“Ungrateful whelp,” Sir Francis spat. “Can’t bother to come to his own dying father’s bedside. Cut him out. Serves him right.”
Morgan hesitated, then added the appropriate lines to make it so. “Who would you have inherit in his stead?”
As he ran down the list of the baronet’s surviving family in his mind, Morgan couldn’t think of a likely prospect. Sir Francis’s only sister was an elderly spinster. He had no brothers, nor cousins. His wife had died bringing his second son into the world. Of his two sons, the younger, Basil, had gone to university and ceased all communication with his father beyond forwarding considerable bills. And the other…
“To my eldest son, Evelyn, I leave all.”
Morgan laid down his pen. “Sir, no one has seen him in—”
“Thirteen years!” Sir Francis finished for him. “He’s missing, not dead. I'll trust you to find him.”
Sir Francis squeezed Morgan’s hand. Morgan attempted a comforting smile in return. It went unregarded; the baronet’s eyes had fallen shut. He still breathed, but the effort exhausted him. Morgan returned to his work.
Evelyn Winthrop’s existence hadn’t been acknowledged in any previous draft. Morgan didn’t know what had happened thirteen years ago to make him disappear. He’d assumed the worst, and had known better than to ask. If the man was, in fact, alive—well. Morgan would find him. Somehow.
Morgan punctuated the final line. “Was there anything else, sir?”
The baronet’s dying laugh was a hideous thing to hear. “You’re wondering where you fit into all this, aren’t you?”
“Sir, I’d never—”
“Of course you would! You’d be a fool not to! And you’re no fool, or I’d have turned you out years ago. No, you, dear boy—” Here Sir Francis named a respectable pension, and Morgan dutifully wrote it in. “—to be paid out when you’ve completed your service to my progeny. Can’t very well leave my heir without an agent, now can I?”
“And if he should find my service unacceptable?”
“Then he’s an ass, and he doesn’t deserve you or your service. Let him rot, and the house and lands and title too, if my own flesh and blood is so stupid as that.”
“Very well, sir.”
With his will decided, Sir Francis Winthrop lay quiet for the remainder of the afternoon, and in the evening, passed from this world to the next, at the age of sixty-two.
—
Basil Winthrop arrived before noon the next day. The letter announcing his father’s illness hadn’t spurred him to action. The telegram reporting his father’s death summoned him as swiftly as the trains between Oxford and Cumberland allowed. Morgan tried not to dwell upon it.
Morgan himself had sat up all night with the body. He was supposed to have alternated shifts with Pierce, the late baronet’s valet, but sleep hadn't come even in the moments not spent staring down at his benefactor’s corpse, alert for any sign of life. He was still waiting when Basil burst into the room.
“Oh!” Basil cried upon sighting the body, his blue eyes round with surprise.
Morgan rose from his chair by the bedside. “Mr Winthrop.”
Basil jumped, looking at Morgan as if he hadn’t seen him before. Morgan would’ve liked to attribute his reaction to the shock of grief, but truth told, Basil rarely noticed Morgan’s presence.
“My condolences for your loss,” Morgan continued.
“Yes, yes, thank you.” Basil flapped his hand dismissively. “When will you be reading the will?”
“As soon as your aunt arrives, Mr Winthrop.”
Basil’s eyes narrowed. “Oughtn’t that be ‘Sir Basil’ to you?”
“No, sir.”
“My father is dead.” Basil paused before continuing in a matter-of-fact tone. “Regrettably. Therefore his title has passed on to his heir, along with his material possessions. And therefore, as his heir, I ought to be called ‘Sir Basil’.”
“If you were his heir.”
“The devil d’you mean, ‘if’? There can’t be any question, there’s no one else—” Basil cut himself off and glared at Morgan with renewed suspicion. “Surely not yourself?”
“No, sir. But there is your brother.”
Basil rolled his eyes. “My dearly departed brother, yes. As dead as—” He gestured towards his father’s body.
Morgan ignored the impulse to slap him. “Your father believed otherwise.”
“D’you mean to tell me,” Basil demanded, his voice rising with indignation, “I’ve been usurped by a corpse?”
“I can only tell you what’s in your father’s will, and remind you it is a legally binding document you’d be ill-advised to fight.”
Basil opened his mouth for a blistering retort. The door also opened, interrupting him with Pierce’s entrance.
“Welcome home, sir,” said Pierce.
Basil whirled to face him, then stormed out without a word or a backwards glance.
“Poor lad,” Pierce told Morgan. “Overcome by all this.”
Morgan bit his tongue and nodded.
—
“I do hope you’re not vexed with my brother for failing to leave you any immediate inheritance,” said Miss Cecily Winthrop.
“Not in the least,” Morgan replied.
It was hardly an appropriate conversation for a funeral, but then Miss Winthrop had never been an appropriate lady. Morgan had learned long ago not to balk at any word that might fall from her lips. On this chill February morning, each word came with a cloud of vapour, but neither the cold nor her brother’s burial prevented her wry smile as she added, “No one would blame you. I certainly wouldn’t.”
It hardly mattered to Morgan whether she blamed him or not. Sir Francis had saved him from utter ruin. Being executor of his will and a pallbearer at his funeral were small prices to pay for all the baronet had done for him. Not that Miss Winthrop knew the sordid details. Morgan didn’t think now was the moment to enlighten her, even if the coffin was already stowed away in the family crypt.
The funeral procession began to disperse. Morgan realized he’d failed to reply to Miss Winthrop’s comment. He hoped she’d forgive his distracted state. She hadn’t traded her wry smile for the thin-lipped line she wore when correcting ignorant staff, so he supposed himself safe for the moment.
“How will you inform my nephew of his good fortune?” Miss Winthrop asked as Morgan escorted her to the family carriage waiting in the churchyard. Basil had been the first to leave the graveside and doubtless already awaited them within.
“I’ll write to London,” Morgan answered, ready to expound upon his plan of putting advertisements in every newspaper from the Pall Mall Gazette to the London Star.
Miss Winthrop cut him off with an impatient cluck of her tongue. “I’d start in New Bedford. That’s where my first letter from him was postmarked.”
Morgan stumbled. “The first letter?”
“I’ve had dozens since. The last one came from Peru about four months back. Very interesting stamp.”
Morgan’s mind reeled. “You’ve been in contact with him this whole time?”
“Off and on. Francis had no idea, of course.”
It wasn’t Morgan’s place to ask why. Instead, he replied, “He’s in Peru, then?”
“He was, briefly. Doubtless the Mary-Ann has since moved on to more fruitful waters. His ship,” she added in response to Morgan’s evident confusion.
So the Winthrop heir had gone to sea. “He’s a sailor?”
“A harpooner,” Miss Winthrop corrected. “Prestigious work, or so I’m told. Quite dangerous. Takes a strong arm and a stronger stomach.”
They’d reached the carriage, which gave Morgan an excuse for stumbling to a halt. “He’s a whaleman?”
“What marvellous ears you have. Yes, our Evelyn is a South Pacific whaler sailing out of New Bedford. I suggest you begin your search there.”
The groom, Nicholas, held the carriage door open for her. Morgan, dumbstruck, handed her up into it.
—
Miss Winthrop left the family seat the day after her brother’s funeral. That very same morning, Morgan followed her suggestion and drafted an open letter regarding Sir Francis’s passing and Sir Evelyn’s inheritance. He made no mention of what funds and property Sir Evelyn had come into—merely the title, and the fervent wish of his surviving family that he return home. This notice went out to every newspaper in New Bedford, including the Whalemen’s Shipping List. He also sent it to papers in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Still more handwritten copies went out with as many ships as Morgan could find departing British ports for the Pacific. The project thus far had cost a considerable sum, which would’ve given Morgan pause under any other circumstances. However, Sir Francis’s will authorized the use of whatever means Morgan thought necessary to find the lost heir. Morgan only hoped he needn’t stoop to hiring Pinkertons.
Six months passed before Morgan received a letter stamped San Francisco and smelling faintly of seawater. Its arrival surprised him; he’d expected to spend the rest of his life and the Winthrop fortune in a hopeless search.
Doubtless, many sailors would’ve seen the notice as an opportunity to trade in their sorry lot for a life of luxury. Yet the letter, as Morgan scrutinized it, showed no obvious sign of fraud. Its author—supposedly Sir Evelyn himself—referred to his younger brother as “Basil” and Miss Winthrop as “dear Aunt Cecily.” As neither of these persons were named in Morgan’s notice, he felt confident the letter was genuine.
The arrival of a second letter, this time from New York, announced Sir Evelyn’s imminent voyage on the steamship Gayheader (which the letter assured Morgan was of no relation to the Gay Head of the New Bedford fleet lost in the Arctic). It also informed him of the ship’s expected arrival on the fifth of September, and proposed meeting on the Liverpool docks.
Morgan wrote to Miss Winthrop and Basil to notify them of his quest’s end. Basil didn’t bother to respond. Miss Winthrop returned to the Winthrop estate two days prior to Sir Evelyn’s scheduled arrival with her paid companion, Miss Vaughan, and informed Morgan he was free to go retrieve her nephew.
So Morgan went.
Upon arriving in Liverpool, he sought accommodations convenient to the waterfront and found the Black Whale. It was hardly the sort of establishment Sir Francis would’ve chosen, but Morgan thought it’d do to ease an ex-harpooner into life on land. His daylight hours he spent walking the wharves. At sunset, he retired to the Black Whale for chowder and re-read British Ferns and Their Allies until his nervous energy abated and sleep found him.
The fifth of September dawned. Morgan stood on the dock before the sun struck the harbour, and waited.
The most difficult part was finding a place out of the way. Fishermen spilling catches from their nets, passengers disembarking, customs officers inspecting ships, crewmen stumbling ashore for their holiday, stevedores hauling cargo, carts tangling, horses rearing, pulleys straining—all seemed determined to run Morgan down. Still, he dodged them all and found a convenient lamppost to stand beside and watch the ships come in.
Shortly after four o’clock, he beheld a massive steamship, the Gayheader herself, towed in by tugboats.
It occurred to Morgan that he had no idea what Sir Evelyn looked like. Nor did Sir Evelyn know the face of the man who’d come to meet him. Nonetheless, Sir Evelyn had promised to meet him on the dock. By keeping to his post, Morgan could hardly miss him, no matter his appearance.
The customs official boarded the ship. A half-hour later, unloading began in earnest. First-class passengers disembarked. Morgan stepped up to the gangplank to meet them. Two women in furs, a mother and daughter by their looks, and American by their accents; a black gentleman and his wife; and a family with three children and a harried nurse; these and more passed Morgan by. He hung back until he espied one particular man with shoulders broad enough—so he supposed—to throw a harpoon. But upon overhearing his flirtation with the young lady in furs, Morgan discerned he, too, was American.
The second-class passengers came next. None fit Morgan’s expectations of Sir Evelyn. Nor did anyone in steerage, though they came in such a wave that he could’ve very well missed him. Then the crew began to disembark, signalling the end of passenger arrivals.
Morgan turned from the ship, confused, but no less determined. He would return to the Black Whale and send notice to the local papers that he awaited Sir Evelyn there. But as he strode down the dock to put his plan into action, he met a striking sight.
A sailor stood across the way by the very lamppost Morgan had abandoned to approach the ship. Many of his shipmates milled about nearby, but this particular sailor attracted Morgan’s attention by standing quite literally head and shoulders above the rest. He had a broad, bearded face to match his broad, brawny shoulders. Years of open-sea sun had tanned his skin and bleached his hair to the same shade. The hair—tied back, with the ends flitting about in the sea breeze, strands stiff with salt—drew more of Morgan’s interest than he would have liked to admit.
The sailor caught Morgan’s eye over the crowd, and winked.
Morgan quickly glanced away, intending to keep walking, but stopped as a thought occurred to him. The sailor had lately crewed aboard the Gayheader. Perhaps he knew where Morgan might find his quarry. Resigned, he crossed the wharf and approached him. “Your pardon, sir.”
“Granted.” A cocky grin flashed through the sailor’s grizzled beard, turning his aspect from ferocious to friendly in an instant. He rested a hand against the lamppost. Ragged blue lines across his knuckles spelled out H-O-L-D. A glance at his other hand, planted on his sinewy hip, showed the letters F-A-S-T.
Morgan forced his gaze back up to the sailor’s face. “I’m looking for Sir Evelyn Winthrop.”
The sailor’s eyes widened, but his grin never faded. “You’re in luck, mate. You’ve found the very man.”
-
Take Me Like a Sailor comes out July 31st and is available for pre-order now!
"A Happy Ending was Imperative"; what romance means for the LGBT+
Bloggin’ on my official site about Maurice, Victorian gay rights activists, and today’s gay historical romance.
Hold Fast - Don't Buy My Love
Hi folks! I'm delighted to tell you that Hold Fast has been selected for the Goodreads M/M Romance group's Don't Buy My Love review program.
What does this mean for you? Well, it means that if you've been waiting for the perfect moment to pick up Hold Fast, this is your chance to score a free review copy!
Just join the M/M Romance group and sign up for a review copy at the link below:
Don't Buy My Love ~ Hold Fast by Sebastian Nothwell
Only 25 copies available, and only until July 16th!
Thanks for reading!
What does this mean for you? Well, it means that if you've been waiting for the perfect moment to pick up Hold Fast, this is your chance to score a free review copy!
Just join the M/M Romance group and sign up for a review copy at the link below:
Don't Buy My Love ~ Hold Fast by Sebastian Nothwell
Only 25 copies available, and only until July 16th!
Thanks for reading!
New Cover Reveal! Mr Warren's Profession
Over the weekend you might have noticed something different about Mr Warren's Profession.
For the full story on how and why this happened, check out the official blog HERE!
For the full story on how and why this happened, check out the official blog HERE!
Sunday Snippet, 8.14.22
Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King – available now wherever fine books are found!
~
The sheer strength of Shrike’s frame proved itself through his strapping shoulders and sinewy arms. To Wren, he appeared all the more breath-taking when he bent over work so fine and delicate as plying the merest sliver of a blade to the thin sheet of pale white hart’s hide and slicing the leather into lace. Rough yet gentle hands, whose touch could make Wren tremble, now split a slender piece of wire in twain—a boar bristle, Shrike explained when he caught Wren’s curious gaze—and wound with catgut for needle and thread to piece together a patchwork harlequin who would’ve been the envy of all in Venice’s Carnivale. Wren felt his pencil scribblings hardly did justice to the man he knew and loved. Still, as the house passed in comfortable silence, he filled his sketch-book’s pages with his attempts to capture the knife’s-edge balance between brutish brawn and elfin grace.
~
~
The sheer strength of Shrike’s frame proved itself through his strapping shoulders and sinewy arms. To Wren, he appeared all the more breath-taking when he bent over work so fine and delicate as plying the merest sliver of a blade to the thin sheet of pale white hart’s hide and slicing the leather into lace. Rough yet gentle hands, whose touch could make Wren tremble, now split a slender piece of wire in twain—a boar bristle, Shrike explained when he caught Wren’s curious gaze—and wound with catgut for needle and thread to piece together a patchwork harlequin who would’ve been the envy of all in Venice’s Carnivale. Wren felt his pencil scribblings hardly did justice to the man he knew and loved. Still, as the house passed in comfortable silence, he filled his sketch-book’s pages with his attempts to capture the knife’s-edge balance between brutish brawn and elfin grace.
~
Sunday Snippet, 8.21.22
Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian fae romance, Oak King Holly King - available now wherever fine books are found!
~
“Then, if none but friends may enter Blackthorn, why did you draw your sword when you found someone already in the cottage?”
To Wren’s surprise, Shrike appeared chastened by the question. He glanced away and hesitated, the silence broken only by the slight clink of his sword in its scabbard as his fingers played upon the pommel. When he met Wren’s gaze again, the fathomless depths of his dark eyes shone soft with reverence. In a much-abashed tone, he replied, “I have far more to lose now than ever I had before.”
To be wanted was one thing. To be cherished and defended was another. To be loved… Wren dared not think so far as that. But nevertheless his heart sang with the knowledge that Shrike considered him worthy of protection, and that the loss of Wren would pain Shrike as much as the loss of Shrike would pain Wren.
No words seemed sufficient to express even a fraction of what Wren felt. As such, he abandoned language entirely. Instead he reached out his hand to Shrike’s scarred cheek, turning his face so he might capture his mouth in a kiss.
~
~
“Then, if none but friends may enter Blackthorn, why did you draw your sword when you found someone already in the cottage?”
To Wren’s surprise, Shrike appeared chastened by the question. He glanced away and hesitated, the silence broken only by the slight clink of his sword in its scabbard as his fingers played upon the pommel. When he met Wren’s gaze again, the fathomless depths of his dark eyes shone soft with reverence. In a much-abashed tone, he replied, “I have far more to lose now than ever I had before.”
To be wanted was one thing. To be cherished and defended was another. To be loved… Wren dared not think so far as that. But nevertheless his heart sang with the knowledge that Shrike considered him worthy of protection, and that the loss of Wren would pain Shrike as much as the loss of Shrike would pain Wren.
No words seemed sufficient to express even a fraction of what Wren felt. As such, he abandoned language entirely. Instead he reached out his hand to Shrike’s scarred cheek, turning his face so he might capture his mouth in a kiss.
~
Sunday Snippet, 8.28.22
Sunday Snippet from my gay Victorian cross-class romance, Mr Warren's Profession, featuring hurt/comfort and a happily-ever-after - available now wherever fine books are found!
~
Lindsey led the way to a grand hall with a high, vaulted ceiling. Originally built for indoor perambulation, thick curtains now covered its wall of impossibly tall windows. Every remaining inch of wall from floor to ceiling displayed framed portraits of blond, blue-eyed, aquiline-featured people. Several could’ve passed for Lindsey’s doubles, costumes aside. These, then, were Lindsey’s ancestors, stretching back through the centuries to William the Conqueror. Possibly beyond.
The entire Althorp clan stared Aubrey down. Aubrey, alone, with no gallery of compact, bow-lipped, large-eyed individuals behind him. Not a single living soul who bore any resemblance. No memory of a face like his looking into his own.
Despite his best efforts, he felt a bit small.
~
~
Lindsey led the way to a grand hall with a high, vaulted ceiling. Originally built for indoor perambulation, thick curtains now covered its wall of impossibly tall windows. Every remaining inch of wall from floor to ceiling displayed framed portraits of blond, blue-eyed, aquiline-featured people. Several could’ve passed for Lindsey’s doubles, costumes aside. These, then, were Lindsey’s ancestors, stretching back through the centuries to William the Conqueror. Possibly beyond.
The entire Althorp clan stared Aubrey down. Aubrey, alone, with no gallery of compact, bow-lipped, large-eyed individuals behind him. Not a single living soul who bore any resemblance. No memory of a face like his looking into his own.
Despite his best efforts, he felt a bit small.
~
