Chapter 6 is now combined with Chapter 5 in this one post.

(Trying to economize and minimize.)

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Lady Graves, my NaNoWriMo novel in progress

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Monday, I went back into Chapter One and added some 300 words, including these:

The girl would live, but not without his vigilance.

He detangled her hair, rinsed it with vinegar followed by water infused with lavender. When it dried, Stangler admired the rare shade of dark blond with hints of red. How fitting that the leonine distortions of her face should be framed by a lion’s mane. He took up his sketchbook and tried to capture the image of a lioness-woman, unconscious in his bed. Then he started to tear out the page, lest anyone else come upon the image and think ill of him--but no, it was part of his medical work, and he would duly record what he observed.

Stangler checked the laceration on her head. The stitches looked clean. Gently, he brought her long, thick mass of hair to one side and separated it into thirds. So much more hair than Maria had, God rest her soul. Plaiting the tresses of his English patient brought back memories and the sting of tears in his eyes, but he kept moving, kept looking forward. He fed Emil, fed himself, fed the fire, then sank into the wooden rocking chair facing the bed with a book in hand.

True loneliness

was hardly possible when he had so many companions on a shelf, always there at the touch of his fingers, opening up to him, allowing him into the minds of others, and never casting judgment on him. No disapproving stares, no head shaking, no mobs rioting for his head, and yet there were men who espoused the same ideas he held.

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Chapter 5

underwent some revision, Monday (eep!), so here is a wee bit of rewrite followed by the day's new additions:

“My name is not Victoria!”

“I suppose,” Stangler said, “you prefer the sound of Lady Evelyn?”

“I don’t know! I am Lady Evelyn. Vee is for Victoria, and I am not Vee. Herr Lanza tells us Lady Evelyn appeared at an inn, ausgeraubt--robbed--in dire need of a driver and a new maid--and yet, here I am--”

Her chest was so tight, she could scarcely get air into her lungs.

Stangler rose so quickly, his chair toppled as he raced around the table. “Lady Evelyn. Sit still, and put your head between your knees.” He took the chair beside hers and guided her head down. “Relax your muscles. Take deep breaths, hold them, and let them out slowly as if blowing out a candle.”

The most terrifying feeling was to be unable to breathe. She bolted upright, once again butting heads with the doctor, but he barely reacted. She could neither laugh nor apologize nor catch a breath.

“Come, now.” Stangler clapped a hand on her back, eliciting a sharp intake of air.

A soft, low cry formed somewhere near her heart and squeezed through her throat, turning into a crescendo of a wail, prolonged and terrible.

Instead of forcing her head between her knees, Stangler pulled her into his arms and rocked her like a baby against his shoulder. “There, now,” he soothed her. “Dir geht es gut. You are well. You shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

She did not feel well. Nothing about her was well, but she had to pull herself together and do something. Anything. Lady Graves, now Lady Evelyn--her true name, she was certain--dried her eyes and said, “Show me to this shallow grave where you say Emil found me.”

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END OF DAY FIVE (word count: 918)

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6-Nov-2018 (word count 897)

Dressed as a man,

yet feeling quite at home in the doctor’s spare pants and shirt, Lady Evelyn walked between the doctor and the tall, strong farm hand. Warm sunlight coaxed violets up from the understory of walnut, oak, chestnut, and fir trees that bordered the meadow. The air, scented with sweet, damp earth and flowers, held just enough of a chill to be invigorating. How could her life be so ruined on a day so beautiful and inviting? How was she alive at all? She had been beaten and left for dead.

Emil dashed ahead, stopped to bark ultimatums at the squirrel in the oak tree, then caught up with his people, then raced ahead again, and yet again,, stopping, sniffing, yipping, yet leading the way. The handsome Lanza provided a welcome distraction as she got him to speak of his many brothers and sisters. Twelve children in all. Dr. Stangler, roughly old enough at thirty-four to be Lanza’s father, had taught him to read and write. “Too smart to be no more than a farmer,” he said.

“And here we are.” Stangler stopped in a spot that looked no different from any other, until he pointed out the branches, tattered leaves and turf Emil had flung aside a fortnight ago.

Lady Evelyn tried to picture herself lying there but could not--tried to remember how she came to be there--but it just made her head pound.

“The road is out of sight here but there’s a deer trail,” he pointed to a narrow path, “that leads to it.”

They hiked the path and up and down the muddy road. “Lindenstein is to the right,” Lanza said. “The father, Prince Heinrich, has nine children. Your bridegroom must be one of them. The estate is a good week off, I’d say, so if they met with no more trouble, the other Lady Evelyn should have settled in by now. ”

The other Evelyn! What rot!

“I shall have to go there,” she said. “If a prince in Lindenstein awaits his bride, I must--”

“You will do no such thing.” Stangler grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to face his flashing eyes. “Someone tried to kill you. Left you for dead! Buried you! And you would most certainly be lying dead in that shallow grave, right there, right now, if not for Emil.”

He was right, and yet he was impertinent with her, and she instinctively bristled at that. “My life has been stolen from me, Herr Doktor in Hiding from the Law. You have surely suffered the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune, but you I have no wish to join you in a life of exile. I have suffered a most grievous misfortune. My life was ruined! How frivolous of me to think you’d understand.”

“You’re the one who cannot understand, Graves. Your ‘ruined’ life has been restored. You have the most blessed fortune indeed to have been buried here within hearing and smelling distance of a dog--and a doctor, no less!--the odds are astronomical! A doctor who expended no trivial effort reviving you. Who else could have found you and brought you back from apparent death? Not even our good Herr Lanza could have managed it, bright as he is.”

Again he was right, and she knew her debt to him, yet he seemed to be holding her back from her quest to find her identity. He would likely keep her with him in that lonely stone prison forever!

“I shall go to Lindenstein,” she said, “with or without you. Please know that I am eternally grateful to you for the gift of my life, but it is still my life, and I am confident German law is no different from English in that respect.”

Emil let out that soft, warning woof, then circled the ground that had been her grave. He woofed again, sniffed some more, then charged off as in pursuit of a bandit.

Lanza raced ahead, following Emil, occasionally pausing to break twigs and branches to clear a path through the thicket. A sudden silence fell. Then his voice thundered, “Stangler!”

Scratched and short of breath, she finally reached the source of the commotion.

Emil was in a crouch, overlooking a ravine. “Don’t let her see,” Lanza said.

“She may have to,” Stangler said. “This may be our missing coachman.”

He held her steady as she crouched down and peered into the ravine. A foul odor hit her before she saw the face with the empty eye sockets, the tattered shirt and pants, the body pecked by buzzards. She recognized the shoulder-length, light brown hair that had once looked silky-shiny in the sun. The finger-like branches of thorn bushes grasped that hair and held what was left of Reginald.

She had never been a screamer, never fainted in all her life, and she didn’t plan to start with that womanly nonsense now, but there was no stopping the sobs of anguish that ripped her body from the inside out.

Reginald's fate would be hers too, if not for a dog named Emil.

And a fugitive German doctor who was obsessed with America.

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CHAPTER SIX

“When crimes are observed,

citizens are expected to raise a hue and cry,” Lanza insisted. “I must go find the constable.”

“You may have to go halfway to Lindenstein to find one. I’ve seen maps of Germany.” Shaken, but making every effort to gain some semblance of composure, Lady Graves knew her social station, even if she didn’t remember much else. “All your barbaric little villages and tyrant kings. I’ve read of your politics and your Polizei, and I’ve been warned I’ll miss London’s civility. I barely set foot in Germany and already the bloodshed and butchery is underway with no justice in sight! Reginal. A good man, not a thief, not a womanizer. Herr Doktor--Stangler--you must come with us to attest to the manner of death.”

“I can, but I shall do no such thing.” He gave her a long, hard look, as if trying to refrain from scolding her. “And you will certainly not go with Lanza to any constable.”

Stangler was ordering her around again. Anger was easier to handle than shock and grief, and she rallied to it, but he didn’t give her a chance to unleash it.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he reminded her, not the least bit gently. “If word gets out that you are running around, issuing orders, demanding justice, and identifying the coachman’s dead body, while claiming you are Lady Evelyn, and the maid is--ach! The maid is--”

She didn’t want to imagine where he was going with this. “I was murdered,” she said, “and yet I live. Would you have me continue to repress all memories of my former life as Lady Evelyn? I’ve had no chance to even think of it; here lies Reginald, a shock you cannot comprehend, insensitive as you seem to be. What of my assassin--what of justice? Reginald is dead, perhaps by the same hand that knocked me into oblivion. A killer is out there, free to kill again. Would you have me do nothing but believe all is well and all shall be well?”

“You’re going to be a target all over again, regardless of your name and social status,” he said. “And so will whoever else is in the company of the woman who is supposed to be dead.”

That made sense, but she wasn’t ready to back down. This doctor must not be allowed to feel at liberty to keep throwing orders at her.

“Imagine Emil losing his other eye--or worse--while trying to protect you from an attacker,” he added.

“Dear Emil!” She held out her arms as the dog reacted to his name by standing on two legs as if ready to give her a hug. “Emil, I must guard you with my life. Without you I’d have none.”

Stangler cocked an eyebrow at her and she wanted to hug him too, but it was complicated.

“I swear I will never let my quest for justice and vengeance put you in danger,” she said. “Or you.” She turned her gaze to Lanza, but he was wielding a branch now, reaching down to retrieve Reginald.

“Listen well, young lady.” Stangler’s gentle green eyes had transformed to the glinting stare of a tyrant. “Lanza will report the body to the constable. You and I will go home, where Emil and I will try to keep you safe, which seems to be an increasingly difficult task. Your rank and social station mean nothing to me, and no constables of London are here to arrest me if I offend your elegant sensibilities.”

Lady Graves, Lady Evelyn, was torn between asserting her independence and letting this man’s wisdom prevail. In truth, she ached for the consolation of his tea and his books by the fire in his cozy stone cottage, safely out of sight from the road, the dangerous road, the road that beckoned.

Stangler held a finger to his lips, a reminder to keep their voices quiet. Email settled into a sit, pressing himself against his master’s leg.

“”I have a suggestion.” Lanza hesitated, his eyes darting. “Then again, maybe I don’t. It sounds too horrible to contemplate.”

“Oh, now you have to tell,” Stangler said.

“To keep the killer complacent, is all. To keep authorities from knocking at our doors in search of a missing maid named Vee.”

“Go on,” Stangler prompted him.

“We need a body in that grave for the constable to identify as the runaway maid. That way no one will come looking for our Lady Graves, whoever she may be. A nasty business! But I know of one we could dig up, God rest her soul, and pass off as the maid’s. Plant the idea that someone heard of the thieving coachman, see, and robbed him of his loot, and the maid, well, God only knows if she was abducted or if she ran off of her own free will, but both of them had to die, you see, for the robber to get away.”

Had the day really been so inviting, so sunny and lovely, when they first set out? Lady Graves pressed her hands to her head, wincing, then felt raindrops falling just in time to mingle with her tears. The moody April weather!
“Let’s get her home,” Stangler said. “Some hot tea and a warm, dry bed for you, my dear Graves, while Lanza and I work out the details of the substitute corpse.”

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END OF DAY SIX (well, it's only 1:30 p.m.; there may be more to come before midnight!)

Thank you for reading!

Your encouragement has kept me from giving up. I see the light at the end of the tunnel now.