A Kiss in the Dark: Tanqueray, #1

By Lark Westerly

Ancella and Emelie are best friends. Together, they played games in the ash-key wing of Tanqueray Manor. This was where ancient Aunt Zerenity told them about the dance called Kiss-in-the-Dark. It sounded romantic and not at all proper, but Ancella and Emelie never expected to dance it themselves.

 

Years later, Ancella is being courted by Pomeroy Harcourt. After his amazing New Year gift to her, she has almost decided to accept his proposal if he ever gets around to making it. Why not? Her family likes him. So does her dog, Glory. Emelie seems less than impressed, but at the New Year ball Emelie arrives with a handsome beau of her own. The scene is set for a night of romance, music, annoying brothers, misunderstandings and the late Aunt Zerenity's desire that the young folk should dance Kiss-in-the-Dark.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eXtasy Books Inc
• Release date: Jan 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781487440169

Book preview

Author’s Note

This story is the first in the Tanqueray series. It can be read as a stand-alone and also as a light-hearted prequel to Being Tamzin 2, in which Ancel de Libre showed his friend Thomasine the locket his namesake great-grandmother, Ancella, had from her sweetheart when they were young.

The events in A Kiss in the Dark take place at the time the gift was given. The setting is Summer Island or, as these earlier characters prefer to style it, Île d’eté. Summer is an island in the Star Pin archipelago. The characters are mostly courtfolk, although Seamus Lark, the lead musician, is a leprechaun and the piper from Heather is a braeman. As with one of the earlier books set in this world, The Courting of Eileen, no human characters appear in this story, so the fay markers, or talents the fay have that humans lack, are heavily underplayed and taken for granted.

Ancella’s descendants appear in Being Tamzin 2, Under the Christmas Tree and Love Began at Christmas.

The six books of the Tanqueray series include A Kiss in the Dark, Perfect Day, Isle of the Piper, Under the Stairs, The Holly on the Hill and Blue Skies.

Dedication

For everyone who loves dancing, history and peculiar dogs

Chapter One: New Year Tree

Ancella

Ancella Tanqueray gazed at the gift hanging from the highest horizontal bough of the family December Tree.

Her mother, Célène, who was always correct, called it the Arbre de Décembre, but Ancella preferred the name old Aunt Zerenity used.

The gift had Ancella’s name on the dangling tag. She’d been trying not to look at it for what seemed a bit like forever.

At least it’s small.

She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Her brothers were waiting patiently, lined up like four overgrown calves staring at a rosebush and wishing the prickles away. They had opened their gifts, and they had less interest in their sister’s gift than calves had in roses for anything other than sustenance.

That was an unkind thought, but the mental image wouldn’t go. Nor would her brothers.

The boys were all fair-haired in some degree, and they all had blue eyes. Ancella thought they would be good-looking men once they got over the stage of eating anything that wasn’t tied down and, in the case of the younger two at least, bringing unsuitable things into the manor in their pockets or stuffed inside their shirts. Some aunt or other had bullied, persuaded, or bribed them into tidy breeches or short pants and maize-coloured linen shirts for the upcoming ball. Ancella wished whoever had done it had thought to pick different colours. That way no one would think she—or he—was seeing in quadruplicate.

Horry, for example, would do better in dark red. That would absorb the cherry-stains he would no doubt acquire during his engagement with the supper table. Guy might look good in plaid. She frowned, wondering why she thought so, then shrugged it off.

Just one of those peculiar notions.

The other two... Ancella mentally threw up her hands. Her brothers’ sartorial choices had nothing to do with her.

Next year would bring differences in any case. Rupert and Robert, the unfortunately named twins—what had Maman and Papa been thinking?—would be stepping out in men’s attire, having tipped over the edge into adulthood. For now, they were dressed just like their younger-by-three-years brother, Guy.

Horry, the youngest, not yet into his teen years, had short pants that cleared his unusually clean knees. He shuffled his boots.

Ancella noted they were his everyday ones. Even authoritative aunts had their limitations. Pity help the poor young maiden who agreed to dance with Horry in those clodhoppers. He would dance. It was a family ball, and it would look odd if he didn’t. Besides, he enjoyed it.

Guy, the next brother up, caught like his twin brothers between boyhood and almost-a-man, tried an elbow to Horry’s ribs. Shush.

Rupert and Robert, at the top of the pack, looked bored. No doubt they wanted to be somewhere else, in someone else’s company.

Well, Ancella did, too.

Just open the thing, Cella! Guy muttered.

Don’t call me Cella!

The diminutive was all right on its own, but her brothers were too likely to add a salt in front or a door behind.

Ancella still stared, mesmerised, at the dangling gift. It was wrapped in—what? She couldn’t tell, but it must be a substance the donor had made, or found, or invented, or converted.

Ancella, please do open your gift, her mother said with the slightest edge to her voice. The rest have been tidied away and the guests will be here soon.

I don’t think I can reach it, Ancella said, crossing her ankles and folding her hands in her lap.

Her mother gave her a look. It spoke volumes. Don’t you try that on, my girl... Of age you might be—three years past—but while you’re under our roof... besides, you’ve been able to conjure these ten years...

Horry bounced forward like an over-excited puppy and sprang at the tree. He caught the package in one hand, snapping the ribbon that suspended it and making the horizontal bough swing wildly. Three delicate blown glass nouvelle année ornaments lost their grip and pinged off into space.

Célène Tanqueray rescued them before any damage was done.

Bringing up five children born over the span of a decade had made her reactions faster than seemed possible.

Thank you, Horatio, she said pleasantly to her youngest. Hand the gift to your sister.

Horry turned to Ancella with his most disarming grin. Here, Salt Cellar.

Must you?

Salt Pig then. Papa says that’s a viable alternative.

You little horror.

Ancella rose from the settle. She grinned back at him with as much menace as she could muster. She took the gift with a curtsy and thanked him mendaciously.

It’s not from me, Cella, he said. He rolled his forget-me-not blue eyes. "It’s from Pomeroy." He drawled the name. He was being annoying for