I’ve finally managed to publish a book through the Amazon
Kindle programme. FAIR BORDER BRIDE was published briefly in 2009 as Till the
Day Go Down, but the publisher went into liquidation very soon afterwards, and
returned my rights to me. It seemed a good idea to give Harry and Alina some
sort of life rather than abandon them to oblivion, so here is their story – 5,000
words lighter, re-edited and with everything I’ve learned about writing fiction
in the intervening three years adding into the final polish.
The setting is Northumberland in 1543. Alina and Harry meet in Corbridge market place and
because he is working for his father, the Deputy Lord Warden of the West March,
he tells her his name is Harry Scott. Alina’s father is at feud with the entire
family Scott, flings Harry into the dungeon at Aydon Castle and threatens him
with the Leap next day. Alina creeps out of her bed to visit Harry at midnight
when the castle is quiet.
“Tell
me,” he said, before he forgot all practical things in the delight of her
presence. “Your father threatens me with something called the Leap. What is
it?”
“She
dipped her head, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. “It’s the ravine,
Harry.” She pointed towards the dark bulk of the hall. “On the other side is a
ravine. It is deep, with the Ay burn at the bottom. Father…he makes prisoners
jump from the precipice outside the hall.”
“Ah.” He raised her knuckles to his mouth, and kissed them to
dispel the shadowy presence of Death looming in the darkness behind him. He
remembered looking into the ravine the night he rode up here. His tongue probed
the cleft between her fingers. She gasped. Harry’s blood sang through his body,
and he kissed her knuckles again. “How deep, do you think?”
“Twenty times the height of a man, they say.” She shivered and
frowned as she watched him nuzzle her fingers. “There are rocks and trees…”
“And no one survives?”
Her face crumpled. “Oh, Harry, sometimes they do, but they are
broken, twisted creatures—”
A deep voice sounded from above, and Alina flung up her head.
“Matho, please!”
Matho must have agreed, for she turned back to Harry. Her hand had
warmed in his and when he kissed it once more, her other hand snaked through
the bars and stroked his face, crept to the back of his neck.
“Ah, Alina,” he murmured. “Would that we had no iron bars between
us.”
His flesh hardened. If this was his last night on earth, he wanted
some pleasure to beguile his thoughts. He reached both hands through the grill
and drew her close against the iron bars and in truth she was not reluctant,
even when his hand roamed beneath her cloak, caught a ribbon and her nightgown
gaped from neck to waist. His palm found the firm weight and curve of her
breast and nestled around it.”
You can find FAIR BORDER BRIDE on either of the links: http://tiny.cc/g7ddy and http://tiny.cc/930k5
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