Snippet Sunday – January 8, 2017: Onward and Outward

It’s now officially one week into the new year. Am I already exhausted? Indeed. Can I believe that it’s January and the days are already getting longer and people are counting down to spring? Very much so.

Today’s snippet is from the same story as last week, A Hollow Lady, and picks up just a little further from where we left off. And after you read my snippet, head over to Weekend Writing Warriors and check out all the others!

She paused at the gate, two stone columns that rose out of the ground like the trunks of ancient trees. Ahead of her, the ground changed from a road pockmarked with dirt and sharp stones to neat path strewn with a pale shade of gravel. She followed the path for several yards before turning stepping off it once she realized it would lead her away from the beckoning light. A few more steps and she found herself in front of a shabby wooden door. She searched for a knocker or bell of some sort, but found nothing. With no other recourse before her, she raised her bare fist and gave the door three hard raps.

A shuffling came from the other side, before the door was opened wide to her. A grey-haired, wiry woman filled only a small portion of the doorway, but the intensity of the woman’s gaze caused Charlotte to take a wary step backwards into the night.

“What d’you want?”

***

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Lydia Hunt is familiar with the concept of sin. Reared beneath the strictures of religious zealotry and abuse, she has heard again and again that her nature is wicked and her soul bound for eternal damnation. But when she is sent to work at Mowbray Hall, ancestral home of the enigmatic Lord Cailvairt, Lydia begins to fear just how wicked she might be.

For although Cailvairt makes no effort to hide his pursuit of her, his insistence on challenging the ideals imposed upon her as a child―even while speaking to her as an equal―leaves it difficult for Lydia to resist his attentions. As her inhibitions crumble away and the foundation of her beliefs  threatens to falter, she must determine if giving into temptation will destroy her… or be the act that saves her.