A Meeting by the Stile, Heywood Hardy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Isn’t this a beautiful picture. I love this artist’s painting of horses and people. I could sit and look at them, admiring the details and dreaming up stories, for quite some time. 🙂
I thought that the name of this painting made it perfect to pair with the first chapter of Two Days in November since there is a gentleman on horseback and a meeting at a stile.
Two Days in November is a story that takes place over two days in November. They are the days after Jane and Elizabeth have left Netherfield, when Collins comes to Longbourn, and when Darcy and Elizabeth meet on the street in Meryton.
But it is Darcy’s discovering Elizabeth at the stile and hearing her sister’s tragic story of a love that was lost which turns his mind in a better direction than it was set upon going. I hope you enjoy reading about how this meeting at the stile begins. (It doesn’t finish until the end of chapter 2. 🙂 )
Interior of the billiard room at Lupton House, Devonshire, designed by George Wrightwick for Sir J.B.Y. Buller. Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ah, the billiard room. How many scenes I have I written that take place in such a room? I’m sure I don’t know. It is a favourite place to set a part of a story when a couple of characters – usually gentlemen – need to have a discussion.
Chapter 7 from Listen to Your Heart takes place, in part, in a billiard room. But it isn’t just gentlemen who are playing and having a discussion. Nope! The ladies get in on it, too. And it’s a scene were a very important discussion takes place between a gentleman and lady.
This book has a lot of games and schemes in it – some present time, some from the past, some friendly (like this game of billiards), some deadly, and all designed to share secrets and either push forward a happy ending or prevent it from happening.
Enjoy!
FYI, this book is currently available in Kindle Unlimited, and therefore, can only be purchased on Amazon.
Peonies (1915). CC Curran, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
I think I’ve discovered another painter to add to my list of favourites! This gentleman’s work is beautiful! It’s full of life and movement.
This painting made me think of Master of Longbourn because peonies are mentioned in that story. In fact, I find the scene in which they are mentioned to be quite as lovely as the flowers in the painting above – but then, I’m partial. I’ll let you judge for yourself as I am including the full chapter below. (It’s chapter 8 which is about 3/4 of the way through the book.)
Master of Longbourn is a sequel to Mr. Darcy’s Comfort and is the tale of how Mr. Collins becomes the master of Longbourn and finds not just his happily ever after but who he is and where he belongs. I found myself growing to love this version of Mr. Collins as I wrote this story. I hope you will find him to your liking as well.