Wowzer! A rake in my office.

​Last week (see previous post) you met Brittany Carter, wild-child of 2017. She shared her impression of Mitchell Killgower, the rake of 1765. A match made in heaven or a collision of epic proportions? Well, Mitchell addresses that question now. Read between the lines of his admirably restrained responses and you find his character burns hot. Brittany is a loose live wire, snaking and leaping, daring predictable to define her. Yet Mitchell holds fast. He enjoys a challenge. He’s a man who once fascinated, never lets go. He manages. He handles. He defies—when a lesser man would surrender.
 
A knock, the door opens, I try not to stare. Mitchell Killgower, his very presence magnetic, takes ownership of the armchair opposite, his smile—devastating. I croak a welcome, and my first question, my throat having constricted:
 
Mr Killgower, were there any instances when you could have strangled Brittany?
Mitchell: Frankly? Every minute of every day she came my way. Where would you like me to start? When she landed in my son’s bed, when she thought we were all dead, when she wouldn’t tell me where she was from, when she ate all the food at the table, when she poured water on my etchings and drank her way through my brandy, when she wouldn’t get up and instruct the servants. When she wouldn’t get up and instruct the servants. Yes I know I just said that, but it happened more than once. Every time she lit up one of these damned cigar things and fugged the place out. Will I go on? Please don’t think these are all the instances. You did say any and these are but a few. As a rule my middle names are patience and waiting.  But these things are impossible to hold onto within a ten-mile radius of Brittany.  If all the women are like her in the future…well….  God help us men is all I can say.
 
Well, someone sure had his buttons pushed, I’m surprised Brittany still lives. And no, women are not like her, past, present or future. See, they broke the mould when Brittany was birthed.
 
Name three things that alarmed you about Brittany?
Mitchell: Only three? A lot alarmed me about Brittany. How long do you have, Mz Black? Her turning up from nowhere for instance, when she’d been gone for weeks, more soused than a barrel load of herrings, singing songs—at least, I think that was what she was doing—being sick in a chamber pot, that much I KNOW she was doing, and with some kind of stool stuck on her heel. Now, I have done such things in my time. Perhaps not the giving new meaning to the term foot stool but I have to say I was alarmed to say the least, by the utterly inebriated state she was in and her assertion the next day it was nothing out of the ordinary where she came from. Indeed that the world and its granny had seen her in worse. Then there was her ability to be more forthright than a cow’s backside. That didn’t alarm me so much as finding her more interesting that way than any woman I’d met when I couldn’t afford to. Forget everything that said she dropped from another galaxy; far more alarming was I’m not into emotional connections as a rule. I knew I’d be making the mistake of my life not to keep her at arm’s length but I couldn’t.
 
I salute your tolerance, Mitchell, and your way with words. More forthright than a cow’s backside, indeed!
 
Were there any instances when Brittany embarrassed you?
Mitchell: I told her she did lots. And I will confess, Incy—I may call you that, BTO I’m not into stuffy formality—at that first supper, I had to stop her drinking and eating everything in sight, because we were being spied on. I once had to stop her wanting to dance with my son. But also—BTO—deep down, oh very well, the hell with it, in the very pit of my soul, beyond where I told myself she was going to cost me my inheritance, it wasn’t really because she embarrassed me that I got into rows with her about these things. I’ve lain in too many gutters and made far too many cock ups to ever be truly embarrassed, you understand?
 
Ah, despite the centuries separating them, these two got on. Wild child (Writer) and the Rake—a match made in heaven.
 
What did you find most bewildering about Brittany? 
Mitchell: Okay, well, her absolute refusal to answer a question about herself, even when I was only trying to help her. The fact she seemed to have some connection to this man called Morte. The fact I saw myself in her and I didn’t really like it, but I wasn’t really able to walk away either.
 
Told you the man refused defeat.
 
What three things would you change about Brittany?
Mitchell: The barricades she lives behind. Believe me, you’d need a cannon blast. This lovers and friends is vastly overrated stuff when she chews her nails to bits, smokes non-stop and it’s obvious she’s been eaten from the inside out. The fact she’s not good at acknowledging she’s ever been hurt and regards vulnerability as a sign of weakness. I think these two tie together. As for apologising? Forget it. But would that hurt occasionally?  
 
I whistle softly and look away. Brittany is not one for saying sorry—but it’s not my place to point that out.
 
Were Brittany a colour, what colour would she be? And Why?
Mitchell: Bright blazing scarlet would seem the obvious choice because of the way she hurtles towards extinction but I also see her in terms of invincible and cool midnight blue. Very edgy. Very breathy. Very delicious.
 
I gape. Here’s a man smitten…and damn, does he have a way with words. No, I'm not seeing green. Me jealous? Phfffft.
 
Were Brittany a piece of furniture, what would she be? And Why?
Mitchell: Brittany would be one of these coat stands but with all the hooks broken. So you can’t pin anything on her, ever. You may think you can, it’s all agreed and then wham, everything hits the floor. She’s not flexible. She goes her own way.
 
Definite way with words!
 
Sum up Brittany—the good, the bad, the downright ugly?

Got a quote where you put Brittany firmly in her place?
Mitchell: Just one? Well, I could quote from the water pump scene, the supper party scene, the one of your other floozies scene, in fact, I could quote from every scene because putting Brittany firmly in her place is as impossible as riding a horse across the moon and she always has a come back. She also thinks she can manage everything to her satisfaction. But I think the Francis Dashwood scene—he ran the Hellfire Club, I was once a member of—was one I don’t recall her having a comeback for.
  
       “I hope you don’t mind me asking Mitchell, but just how far are we going? I mean I don’t know about you, but my feet are killing me.”
       “And that was why you allowed that tedious old bastard to feel them, was it? Did you think it would make them feel better?”

Hark, yet another hammering at my door, this one most definitely less polite. From the roll of his eyes, Mitchell knows full well he's been tracked down for a policing. "I'd best go," he says, pushing to his feet. "There's no saying what that woman might do, if I don't... It's been a pleasure, Incy. Albeit, a short one."
My delight? I receive another killer smile--before I scoot behind the sofa. Felled as I am by Mitchell, I'm in no state to field the ever enticing (and somewhat dangerous) Brittany.

Blurb: The Writer and the Rake
 
1765 had bugger all to recommend it.
He saw her coming. If he’d known her effect he'd have walked away.
 
When it comes to doing it all, hard coated ‘wild child’ writer, Brittany Carter ticks every box. Having it all is a different thing though, what with her need to thwart an ex fiancé, and herself transported from the present to Georgian times. But then, so long as she can find her way back to her world of fame, and promised fortune, what's there to worry about?
 
Georgian bad boy Mitchell Killgower is at the center of an inheritance dispute and he needs Brittany as his obedient, country mouse wife. Or rather he needs her like a hole in the head. In and out of his bed he’s never known a woman like her. A woman who can disappear and reappear like her either. 
 
And when his coolly contained anarchist, who is anything but, learns how to return to her world and stay there, will having it all be enough,  or does she underestimate him...and herself? 

About Shehanne Moore
When not cuddling inn signs in her beloved Scottish mountains alongside Mr Shey, Shehanne Moore writes dark and smexy historical romance, featuring bad boys who need a bad girl to sort them out. She firmly believes everyone deserves a little love, forgiveness and a second chance in life.
Shehanne caused general apoplexy when she penned her first story, The Hore House Mystery—aged seven. What didn’t she work at while pursuing her dream of becoming a published author?
 
Visit her hamster run blog http://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/
 
What hasn’t she worked at while pursuing her dream of becoming a published author? Shehanne still lives in Scotland, with her husband Mr Shey. She has two daughters. When not writing intriguing historical romance, where goals and desires of sassy, unconventional heroines and ruthless men, mean worlds collide, she plays the odd musical instrument and loves what in any other country, would not be defined, as hill-walking.
 
The Writer and The Rake: get it here

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