THE MEANEST ROMANCE AUTHOR EVER!
Tell me, dear reader, do you think you could fall in love
with someone without being able to see them? What if it was someone you’d met
before, and didn’t like in the least—could you change your mind by sound, or
touch, or scent?
Allow me to introduce Stephen Ives, the hero in WHAT A LADY
MOST DESIRES. He’s honest, gentle, kind, and charming. As a diplomat and
soldier, he has learned to use first impressions to make decisions about people
and situations. He’s been trained to observe, and he’s used to being in charge.
Without the honor and his ability to see, he has nothing left. Nothing. Nada.
He’s completely broken.
Do I hate him? Not at all—I adore Stephen, and I think he
deserves the best.
I’m not really
mean—I rescue injured birds in my garden, even take spiders and icky bugs
safely outside and release them when I find them in my house. I truly have a
very soft heart, so please bear with me.
I’ve found that in the case of people who are set in their
ways, who are very sure of themselves and are smugly content with their life
just as it is, sometimes it takes a huge catastrophe to shake them out of their
complacency and bring out the gentler, kinder qualities they already possess.
So I took a perfectly charming gentleman, sent him into one
of the most brutal battles in history, wounded him horrendously, and tossed him
back on the heroine’s doorstep. He already had a broken heart before the battle
even started, poor thing, but I added blindness and even took away his honor
when I had him accused of terrible crimes, including theft and cowardice. Worse,
everyone he knows deserts him. I left him in languishing in the care of the one
woman on earth he truly doesn’t like. Surely it can’t get any worse than that!
Of course it can! What if the loathed Lady Delphine St.
James touched you gently in your blindness, mopped your brow, soothed your
pain, quieted your nightmares, and did everything necessary to nurse you, all
without a word of distaste? What if she was the only person willing to be
honest with you, to describe the world to you, to be your eyes and your guide
through the darkness, and to treat you as a man instead of an invalid? And how
would you feel about her when she bullied and tricked you into action, appeared
cruel in her methods until you finally understand that she’s using every ounce
of her strength to help you? Could you fall in love with her then?
Now some of this meanness of mine comes from the fact that I
am truly as blind as a bat, dear reader. Take away my powerful contact lenses, and
the glasses that go on top of those for reading and driving, and I am mere
points from legal blindness. As my prescriptions increased year after year when
I was a teenager, I was afraid I’d eventually lose my sight entirely. I thought
a lot in those days about how it would feel to lose the ability to see nature,
or color, of the faces of the people I love. Thankfully, my vision has continued
to be correctable, and I am very, very grateful for that. I will see my
daughter as a bride someday, and look into the faces of my grandchildren, and
see my husband’s smile long into my old age.
But back to Stephen, who unlike me must learn to depend on
his other senses. Imagine how frightened he’d be! Gradually, though he’s surly
and depressed and in pain, he comes to know Delphine by the sound of her
footsteps, to be able to read her emotions in the tone of her voice. He begins
to live for the scent of her perfume and the touch of her hand. He discovers
she’s witty and intelligent when they talk or read together, and he feels her
strength as she guides him along the paths in the garden he can no longer see.
Her kisses are sensual explorations of taste and touch.
Ah, but you had to know any author as mean as me has yet
more torment in store for Delphine and Stephen, don’t you? A lady like Delphine
is bound to have other suitors, and family pressure to marry someone better
than a blind and accused coward. I wondered what Stephen would do to avoid
losing her. Would he betray his own sense of honor to keep her by his side, or do
the right thing and let her go? And if she fled from him, betrayed, and chose
the arms of another man, what would Stephen do to win her back, to prove to her
that he truly is WHAT A LADY MOST DESIRES? And don’t think an author like
me—and any heroine worth the name would make it easy for him!
Well, perhaps in the end I’m not so mean after all. Until
the next book, that is.
I hope you enjoy WHAT A LADY MOST DESIRES! I love hearing
from readers.
