Blurb:
1888, London- Charity
Llewellyn, 19, looks forward to marrying one day, but upon learning that her
intended groom is Mathias Baptiste, the immoral son of a wealthy banker, she
runs away from home to avoid the betrothal. Angry at her attempt, her father
appoints a handsome and mysterious man, Alexander Sutton, as her constant
chaperone. Furious, Charity plots an escape with help from her friend Lillian,
although that leads to involvement in an unsolved 20-year old murder and a
shallow burial of human bones. As she tries to unravel the secrets of the old
murder, she meets a frightening man who could be Jack the Ripper. But that’s
not her only obstacle. As she and Alexander grow closer and fall in love, she
learns a dark secret he’s been keeping and when Mathias finds them together, he
is overcome with rage and will stop at nothing to get her back, not even
murder.
Author:
Born in Sydney,
Australia, Ms. Gabel now lives in the United States with her family. She has
dabbled in several careers, including archaeology and wildlife biology, but
writing is her true passion. She is a multi-genre writer and has obtained two
Bachelor degrees and will get a Masters in archaeology soon. Like writing,
learning is a part of her life. Her favorite quote paraphrased from Sir Francis
Bacon: Knowledge is Power.
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Excerpt:
Chapter One
London, 1888
Charity’s bedroom
windowpane was chilled and wet from the cold evening air, yet she could still
see her faint, almost ghost-like reflection in the glass. With a twist of her
long, tawny hair, she made an elegant chignon and secured it with an ivory
hairpin. She sighed and wiped the water from the window with her bare hand.
She’d rather be outside where the fresh air would fill her lungs and she could
run free through the damp grass, but instead, she was locked inside the house
like a prisoner.
Her position was to
marry well and provide an heir to the Llewellyns. It was her only task: to have
children. She was nineteen now and knew her father would soon insist she marry.
He’d been hinting, so the day was nearing when he’d bring up the subject. But she’d
never been allowed out on her own to meet potential suitors, which meant her
father would find her a husband to his liking, not hers. And his idea of a
husband certainly wouldn’t be the same as hers. She wanted a man who was
strong, intelligent, kind, generous, and most of all, not bogged down with
following social convention. The exact opposite of who would be chosen for her.
Her whole life she’d
been sheltered and kept safe like a bird in a cage. She’d never experienced
life, never had the opportunity to travel or even learn an occupation. Marrying
a man she didn’t love would be like having her heart locked away where it could
never be free.
She turned from the
window and slipped on her soft-soled house shoes, the worn ones her mother had
thrown out several times and Charity had retrieved from the rubbish bin every
time. Just because they were worn didn’t mean they were unusable. She found
them to be comfortable and would undoubtedly last for some time longer. So many
people in London didn’t have shoes at all, or so she’d heard. Of course she’d
never gone into London without an escort, and then it was only to the
dressmaker’s or to some other well-to-do section of the city.
She looked back at her
reflection again. It was a façade. It didn’t show what was in her heart. It was
a cold portrayal of what everyone wanted to see. She plucked out the hairpin,
gave her head a shake, and let her hair tumble loosely over her shoulders.
That’s how she preferred to wear her hair, free and untamed. Now the young woman
reflected in the window pane was smiling.
When the dinner bell
rang, Charity dashed from her bedroom on the third floor and hurried down the
stairs, purposely holding her skirt above her ankles so her shoes were visible,
and walked along the hand-woven Persian carpet leading to the dining room. As
expected, her mother was waiting at the doorway of the dining room.
“Oh, heavens, Charity.
Not those ugly old shoes again. How many times have I had Flora put them out
with the rubbish?” Her mother folded her arms across her chest. “You do these
things to annoy me.”
Charity dropped her
skirt. “I like these shoes. If you throw them out again, I shall go around in
stocking feet. These shoes are perfectly good.” Charity passed into the dining
room without giving her mother the required kiss on the cheek, the kiss that
said she was a dutiful daughter who would obey her mother no matter what.
“Incorrigible,” her
mother muttered, stepping into the dining room herself.
Charity took her seat
next to her father, who was already sitting stiffly at the head of the table,
open newspaper in hand. He didn’t look up. His throne-like Indian rosewood
chair had a procession of small elephants carved along the top of the backrest.
When she was young, she used to dream of where the elephants were going, each
one holding the other’s tail in its trunk, forming a chain of beasts heading
off the edge of the backrest. She’d wonder if they were going into the hot and
sticky jungles of the Indian continent or perhaps to a river where they’d drink
the sweet, cool water. Imagining their adventures captivated her at the time.
But now she saw those elephants for what they were: wooden, immovable prisoners
trapped on the back of a chair, unable to escape to freedom. She was just like
them, stuck in one place with no chance of getting away.
