Cliffs
of Moher Image
credit: burben
/ 123RF Stock Photo
Take a little jaunt to Old Ireland with me, a land of myth, mystery, legend and magic!
As a writer, I enjoy researching the past. Often it's so intriguing that I find it hard to write a straight up historical romance without adding a little magic and mystery to the mix. With three historical romances out, two that take place in Ireland, and all three featuring Irish characters, I wanted to celebrate the season, the season of the Irish, by featuring some excerpts this month from my Irish romances.
Bright Scoundrel and Some Enchanted Waltz take place in Ireland, while Dark Hero takes place in the West Indies, but features a hero and heroine who are of Irish descent. Also, as many of you already know, most of my heroines have red hair. Perhaps you weren't aware that one of my heroes does, too! To find out which one, keep visiting. We'll be having some fun this month celebrating being Irish.
I'll be spending the month of March sharing excerpts from these stories with you on this blog and offering some good prizes for those brave enough to leave a comment.
Bright Scoundrel is on sale for .99 cents March 1 & 2 on Smashwords.com
Prologue
Roisin
Dubh Castle, County Galway, Ireland, January 1801
Fierce wailing permeated the cold
winter night.
Marcus Redding sat up and tossed
the covers from his legs. He listened, hoping the blood-freezing noise would
not return for a second hellish chorus.
Luck was not with them on this night,
nor had it been on any night since they’d arrived in Ireland. The banshee’s cry
echoed in the tower above their heads. It was a female spirit who cried mournfully,
warning of impending death or so the locals claimed.
The night was pitch black, moonless
and the bedchamber blacker still in the deep gloom.
“I can’t take anymore.” Mary rose
up beside him and clutched at him from behind. Seconds passed as she clung to
him, hanging over Marcus, clutching him about the neck as if the spirit would
seize her unawares and drag her to hell.
“It will pass, it always does.” He
tried to comfort his sobbing bride.
“Ahhh!” The piercing wail above their heads continued. “Ahhhhh, Ooooooh!”
The door to their chamber was flung
open as if by a great force of wind. Marcus waited breathlessly for her to
appear as he stared at the dark hole in the middle of the wall.
Mary crouched behind him,
whimpering softly, reciting a childish prayer.
A ghostly figure moved through the
dark door, floating across the flagstones without sound as it drifted toward
the bed. As it drew near he could see that it was indeed the shape of a woman,
an old woman with white hair floating about her thin shoulders. She raised a
finger and pointed directly at him. “Leave now, whilst ye still can.”
The sound of heavy marching came,
as if a regiment of soldiers were walking up the drive, the stones crunching
beneath their feet. The sound continued as Marcus and Mary clutched each other
in the darkness and the apparition stood before their canopy bed.
The lower hall echoed with the
sounds of boots, as if a regiment had invaded the fortress and were coming to
seize them in their beds. Mary whimpered. Her fingernails dug into Marcus’
skin, causing pain, assuring him he was indeed awake. Thus far, the spirit had
only appeared and wailed incessantly.
‘T’was the first night they had more
ghostly intruders than the old woman.
Marching, marching. The staccato
sounds of marching soldiers grew louder as they came down the long corridor to
the tower room. Mary stood and screamed, making his heart seize. She ran into
the small dressing room to the left and he heard the bolt click behind her.
Marcus couldn’t move. He watched
the doorway, transfixed by the sound of an invading army that couldn’t be real
and yet, it could not be denied. A cloud of white mist filled the chamber as
figures swirled about in the gloom, never pausing long enough for him to make
out any more than the fact that they were human figures or had once been the
souls of humans, before pain and wretchedness scored their being.
The sound of scuffling feet, angry
shouts and the sensation of chaos going on about him came from the spirit
realm. He saw figures wrestling, ghostly men struggling to contain their victim
and then the window beside his bed was thrust open suddenly by spectral hands.
He watched as the shifting mists became a throng of men before his eyes,
transparent, ghostly men wrestling with a captive as the women’s guttural
keening reached a horrifying crescendo.
The ghostly soldiers pushed their
reluctant captive to the window, a mere two feet from where Marcus remained
frozen in horror on the bed, an unwilling witness to their lynching. They
slipped a noose over the tall man’s head, cinching it about his neck with cruel
pleasure.
The crowd of men converged upon the
doomed man, lifting him as he kicked and writhed, lifting him and shoving him
feet first through the window casement.
Marcus shrank back, into the bed,
away from the ghostly soldiers, lest they seize him in their zeal and toss him
out the window with their other victim.
“Shawn
O’Flaherty for housing rebels and engaging in seditious activities, you are
hereby stripped of your title, your lands and your wealth.” An officious
voice proclaimed from amid the crowd of spectral soldiers. “You are hereby condemned to hang by the neck
until you are dead. Let your flesh be left hanging from your own casement
windows, you and your brothers, as a warning to all that England will show no
mercy to those of traitorous designs.”
The lone man struggled against
their intent, to no avail. He was tossed from the casement window as several
hands held the rope from within.
Marcus uttered an oath and placed
his hands over his ears as the gasping, choking sounds of the dying man invaded
his mind. The banshee tossed her gray head back and released a shriek of agony
that was certain to break the very glass in the window panes. Marcus couldn’t
stand it. He rolled away from the window, leapt from the bed on the opposite
side and ran to the closet door, pounding and shouting for his wife to unlock
it. His frantic pounding went unanswered. He shouted, pleaded and pounded on
the door until his hands were throbbing, surely broken.
The soldiers remained on the other
side of the bed at the window. They were hanging another man, lifting his
kicking, writhing body and shoving him through the casement. More sounds of
choking, gagging, gurgling and the sound of heels kicking against the walls,
seeking purchase.
The Banshee’s cries intensified,
making his heart feel as if it were about to explode. Marcus began to pray,
desperate for the horror of this night to end as he huddled at the arched
closet door in his night robe. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the words
of a long forgotten prayer.
The second victim’s struggles
ceased. Silence pervaded, and only the creaking of the rope could be heard from
the window as two bodies swung from the casement. And then, the third man’s
struggles could be heard as he, too, was hefted out the window and the rope
quickly snapped, breaking his neck.
Creak,
creak, scrape.
Three bodies hanging from the
window of the high tower room. Three bodies could be heard swinging from the
window, along with the soft, mewlish weeping of a young woman.
“Leave this place!”
Marcus opened his eyes. The Banshee
was standing before him. She crouched down, close, her ancient, lined face mere
inches from his. Her hair was still floating queerly about her in ghostly
tendrils. Her eyes had become an eerie, glowing red.
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Ghost Image
credit: igorigorevich
/ 123RF Stock Photo
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She stuck a bony finger beneath his
nose. “Leave I say. T’will be no quarter
given if you stay. As long as I remain I vow no Englishman will prosper in this
place. Leave, or you’ll rue the day you crossed the threshold of Roisin Dubh
Castle. Leave or I vow, the sons your
bride conceives beneath this roof will never live to see the light of day.”
He nodded, agreeing with the woman.
Yes, he’d be gone come daylight. He’d take Mary and flee this cursed pile of
rocks. Hell’s gates opened here. He’d sell the place, cheaply, if need be and
put Black Rose Castle and Ireland firmly behind him.
Marcus Redding was not a coward. He
fought Napoleon and received a medal of valor from his king. He was a British
peer of the realm, a soldier and a gentleman. He was not a fool. He would not
risk losing his heir. The curse of the O’Flahertys he’d been warned about when
he brought his bride here for a honeymoon was not an old folk tale as he’d
believed, nor a hoax to scare away the new owners.
The curse was real. The O’Flaherty brothers
were hung from this very casement, on this night over twenty years past. And
the old witch who had been their mother placed a curse on the place, damning it
against future habitation by anyone not of O’Flaherty blood. It was true, every
word the shrinking housekeeper had uttered to his wife in warning. Every
whisper between the maids who refused to stay here at night was true. His
laughter and his scorn could not dispel the truth, as each night for past two months
the banshee’s cries had disturbed their sleep.
This place was cursed, and no
Englishman could live here and prosper.
Nay, no Englishman could live here
and remain sane!
The old woman continued to glower
at him with those frightening, glowing red eyes. “I’ll warn ye no more, Englishman. None but those of O’Flaherty blood
will be welcome within these walls. Leave us, or suffer my vengeance over those
bloody redcoats who stole my sons from me and destroyed an entire generation of
O’Flaherty Kings.”
Abruptly, the old hag disappeared,
and the throng of soldiers with her. The keening and weeping stopped. Marcus
could hear his own staggered breathing and the pounding of his heart in his
ears made it difficult to discern any other noise nearby. A faint weeping
caught his attention and the shaking voice of his wife on the other side of the
door. She was calling to him now, calling his name. God, did they hurt her? He
rose and jangled the latch, hoping against hope that Mary was unharmed, only
frightened behind that door.
“Unlock it, love. Undo the latch.
They’ve gone. It’s safe, I vow.” He pleaded.
The clicking sound told him she’d
done as instructed. He opened the door and crouched beside his wife. She gasped,
holding her hand up in front of her face as the pale, gray light of dawn
filtered in from the small window of the storage room. There was blood on her
hand.
“Mary, dearest. What have you done?
What have you done to yourself?” He asked, panicked beyond reason as he
searched her torso for a sign of a wound. “Where are you bleeding?”
His eyes fell to the jointure of
her legs where a deep red stain was blooming in the fabric of her white gown.
“The baby.” Mary whimpered, looking
at her soiled bed gown. “I’m losing the baby.”
No
Englishman will be allowed to prosper in this place.
excerpt, Bright Scoundrel by Lily Silver, copyright 2013
Thanks for visiting, and check back next time for another excerpt from Bright Scoundrel:
excerpt, Bright Scoundrel by Lily Silver, copyright 2013
Thanks for visiting, and check back next time for another excerpt from Bright Scoundrel:
Bright Scoundrel is .99cents March 1st & 2nd Only on
Amazon.com
Smashwords.com
This book was so much fun to write, as I got to explore Irish myths and legends, adding some mythic beings to the storyline, along with ghosts for a very different type of historical romance, one with a very strong paranormal tone and featuring a hero who is an accomplished sorcerer aka druid priest!
Bright Scoundrel is available on all digital sales platforms and in print form. If you would like to receive a coupon to purchase the ebook at half price, leave a comment here for me and include your email address.
Next time, Chapter One will be featured, introducing you to a unique hero, Kieran O'Flaherty. Don't you just love the Irish and St. Paddy's Day?
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