MARGARET TANNER - HISTORICAL ROMANCE AUTHOR
I am not an animal lover, but I can’t stand
to see cruelty inflicted on them. I
believe that people who mistreat animals should be severely dealt with by the
law. There is no excuse, and no mitigating circumstances for such despicable
actions.
The
strange thing is, in nearly every historical romance I have written there is at
least one scene with an animal in it.
The animal, usually a horse or a dog is in distress and is rescued by
either the hero or the heroine.
This is an early scene taken from my award
winning World War 1 novel, A Rose In No-Man’s Land. The heroine is Sister Amy
Smithfield, an army nurse, the hero, Captain Mark Tremayne an English officer
serving in the Australian army.
***
An over laden cart rumbled past and as Amy
glanced at the thin, miserable horse straining between the shafts, her blood
ran cold. The driver flailed the beast with a long cane. Several times in quick succession it fell on
the laboring animal’s back as he struggled to pull the cart through the churned
up mud.
She dashed over. “You stop that this
instant or I’ll have you arrested.”
“Clear off, lady.” The driver raised the
cane again and she grabbed at his arm.
“You callous beast.”
His virulent abuse shocked her almost as
much as the swipe of his beefy paw, which sent her sprawling. She scrambled to her feet and launched
herself at him again.
“What the hell’s going on?” Captain Tremayne’s fingers biting into the
flesh of one arm stopped Amy’s maddened onslaught.
“This crazy woman attacked me.”
“He wouldn’t stop flogging his horse.”
“Put your shoulders to the wheel men,” the
captain ordered several soldiers who ran over.
“Get the cart back on to the gravel.”
“Plucky thing you did, Sister,” one of the
soldiers growled. “I would have
flattened him if I’d got here first.”
“Unload your wagon and get out of here.”
Captain Tremayne reached across, grabbed the cane from the man and snapped it
in half across his knee. “Overload your
wagon like that again and you’re out of business. Permanently.” He flung the
pieces to the ground.
He sounded so savage that Amy quaked.
“I’ll leave you in charge, Corporal.”
Captain Tremayne strode over to where she
waited. “What on earth possessed you?”
“I can’t stand cruelty to animals.” Her
lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears.
With a muffled oath he peered into her
face. “Oh for God’s sake, don’t cry again.”
“I’m not.” She scrubbed at her eyes with trembling
fingertips.
His long lashes fanning out over his eyes
hid his innermost thoughts, but she watched in fascination as a pulse convulsed
at the side of his jaw.
“Here, into my office.” A hand in the middle of her back propelled
her forward.
She looked so little and frail he felt like
drowning in her tear-drenched, gray eyes. A feeble ray of sunlight shafting
through the window turned her hair to silver. Except for the army nurse’s
uniform, she could have been an angel in a religious painting.
“Would you like me to send my orderly out
for some tea?” He cursed the fact he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss
all the hurt away. Dammit, why should he
care about her being upset?
“No, thank you. I’m glad you broke his whip.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t smash him across the
head with it first.”
“You cared too?” Her heart skipped a beat.
“I don’t like seeing animals
mistreated.” He ran a fingertip along
her cheek before stepping away.
The male scent of him, the heat of his
body, his feather-light caress almost had her reaching up to touch his
face. Curling her fingers into her palms
to keep them from straying, she fought to get her emotions under control. She
didn’t want him to know how his touch affected her. How it burned through the
layers of skin and seared her soul.
“If you’ve recovered, Sister Amy, I’ll
escort you back to your quarters.” His tone sounded all army captain now,
unemotional, brusque, as if he couldn’t wait to get rid of her.
A
ROSE IN NO-MAN’S LAND:
Nurse Amy Smithfield finds a once in a lifetime love on the French battlefields, but risks losing it when she has to fight for survival in the slums of
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6 comments:
what a lovely excerpt, Margaret I agree that there is no excuse for cruelty to animals. It says a lot about a person, all bad. Just as protecting animals from harm says a lot about a person's good character.
Hi Margaret, I agree. When someone treats an animal badly it makes you wonder how they treat people. It is a great way to show a character in a book either by now nice or now bad they treat animals. Nice post.
Hi Sarah,
Thank you.
Cheers
Margaret
Hi Paty,
Exactly, if a person is cruel to animals, stands to reason they would be cruel to their fellow humans.
Regards
Margaret
So glad Sister Amy had Captain Tremayne as her champion. I'm not sure she would have won that battle to protect the horse without his help.
I pity whoever is in that drover's life. Pretty miserable existence if he treats his horse, his livelihood, that way!
I reckon anyone who can be cruel to animals is unlikely to be kind to people either.
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