Helloooooo, Wednesday. Today I'm supposed to be talking about the frothiest thing I've ever written, but honestly? No idea what "frothy" means. Like...fluffy? Funny? Lighthearted? Something in that range? Most of my stuff is a rollercoaster mix of funny-ish smacking right into stone-cold angst and then unraveling itself out again, and I have no idea if any of it qualifies as a summery beach read type thing. So, instead of educating myself on the definition and canon of froth, I'll just leave a scenelet from my work in progress, a Regency-flavored space opera that is mostly banter and desperately needs a better title:
Ash stared hard at the duvet. “Did you not notice how few people are here? No staff whatsoever, and just one governess for five young ladies, at least two of whom are treasures of their incredibly important families and indubitably have staffs numbering in the dozens back home? Yet they are here, even without their personal guards.”
He had a point, but… “Maybe it’s simply a very exclusive mart? Isolating a young lady before her debut is not uncommon.”
He was kind enough not to remind her that such isolation used to be less common, before her own debut.
“But governesses who go missing and are thereafter completely unmentioned sort of are uncommon,” he said.
“What? Who went missing?”
“Your predecessors. You were not the first governess hired here, Hestia. What’s more, Mrs. Basselhurst used to have a Mr. Basselhurst, which is why that provision about spouses was even in Eidolon’s charter.”
“Let me guess: the planet ate him, too?”
Ash raised both eyebrows, as if she had overdramatized the matter. She had not. Evil planets were evil.
“Did she tell you all of this while you two enjoyed your tête-à-tête?”
He did something then that surprised her utterly. He groaned, ran his hands through his hair, and flopped back onto the bed. The gesture was so casual, so familiar, so un-him that it jumbled Hestia’s thoughts momentarily. It wasn’t like she had never imagined this man lying in her bed. She just had never expected it to happen in the context of dynastic matches and murderous planets.
“Leaving me alone with her was cruel, but you knew that. You torment me deliberately.”
She really did.
“However, yes, I was able to get a good deal of alarming information out of the very chatty Mrs. Basselhurst. And none of it makes sense.”
If Hestia stretched her feet out beneath the duvet, she could touch him with her toes. Of course, there were more direct ways to initiate contact, but he had been skittish in the past. Best not to alarm him. Best to sneak up on him, as it were.
He didn’t even flinch. “Did you just kick me?”
