Please join me in welcoming Andrea Downing to The Roses of Prose today. And what fun to have her - she has a give away. Read to the bottom of the post and see how you can win!
Tomorrow, sadly,
is March 1st. Why sadly? Because in some years, tomorrow would be
February 29th when a young lady has full license to ask out a man or
even to propose marriage. If you are stuck
with a commitment-phobe boyfriend, have been dying to go out with that
good-looking guy in your office or have just been stuck at home for the last
three Saturdays dying for a date, Leap Year would be the time to take on the
responsibility that usually falls to the man—doing the asking.
The tradition of
a woman proposing on Leap Year seems to have started in the Scandinavian
countries where, if such a proposal was refused, there was a penalty of buying
gloves or dress cloth for the woman.
Hardly good recompense for having a marriage proposal turned down! This tradition was then brought over to
Scotland by a Queen Margaret (there were several Margarets) in 1288 who had
been living with her court in what is now Norway; since Margaret was aged 5 at
the time this was made law, it is hardly likely to have been her idea. Nevertheless, by the 17th Century
the tradition was in place in Great Britain and eventually spread to
Ireland.
But without Leap
Year what can you do?
Well, you can
wait for November 15th, Sadie Hawkins' Day. Sadie Hawkins' Day was started as a plot
device by cartoonist Al Capp in his L'il
Abner cartoon strip. Poor ol' Sadie
was said to be the ugliest woman in Dogpatch.
When she remained unwed at the ripe old age of 35, her father, the prominent,
powerful and wealthy Hekzebiah Hawkins, declared a footrace in which the town's
eligible bachelors were given a head start over Sadie. But whomever Sadie caught had to marry her! Extensive research has not divulged to me the
name of the unfortunate forced into wedlock in this manner, but it has revealed
that way back in 1937 when the cartoon strip appeared, it began a tradition on U.S.
college campuses of Sadie Hawkins dances and races. Think how prescient this was prior to
Women's Lib!
Nowadays, Sadie
Hawkins' Day is often confused with leap year and the name applied to February
29th—but do we really need it?
Most young women I know—and my own sweet daughter is one of them—have no
problem in asking men out on 'a date.'
But propose marriage? Ah—that's a
different proposition!
I'm very happy to
give away an e-copy of my book, Loveland,
to the first person who can prove to me that his or her birthday is February 29th! OK, ok:
I'll give away one free e-copy of Loveland
to the first person who can find out the name of Sadie Hawkins' husband! No?
Can't find it? Well, my
character, Lady Alexandra Calthorpe, was way before her time in pursuing a
career. If you can head on over to my
website at http://andreadowning.com and
tell me what career Alex was pursuing and put it on a comment on the 'About the
Author' page, I'll send a free e-copy of Loveland
to the first person to answer correctly.
That's 3 chances to win. Good luck!
BLURB:
When Lady Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland, Colorado,
ranch owned by her father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience
will alter her future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a
disastrous marriage in England and be free of the strictures of Victorian
society --and become independent of men. That is, until Jesse Makepeace
saunters back into her life...
Hot-tempered and
hot-blooded cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can’t seem to accept that the child he
once knew is now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting
rustlers proves a whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he’s got to keep
more than his temper under control.
Arguments abound as
Alex pursues her career as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of the
English social order. The question is, will Loveland live up to its name?
EXCERPT:
As the round-up wound down, the Reps took
their stock back to their outfits,
and soon the men
were back at headquarters or at the
camps. Alex
knew word had more or less got out
and found the
punchers were gentler now around
her, had a sort of
quiet respect for her, and she hated
it. She tried to
bully them a bit to show them she
was still the same
girl, jolly them into joshing with
her as they had
before. It was slow work. At the
same time, she
yearned to see Jesse, to speak with
him, to try to get
life back to the way it was before
the argument at
the corral, and before he saw the
scars. The
opportunity didn’t present itself.
She would see him
from a distance some days, riding
with the herd,
sitting his horse with that peculiar
grace he had,
throwing his lariat out with an ease
that reminded
her of people on a dock waving their
hankies in
farewell. Hoping to just be near
him, she slid into
one of the corrals one evening to
practice her roping.
The light was failing and the birds were settling
with their evening calls. Somewhere
in the pasture a
horse nickered. She sensed Jesse was
there,
watching, but she never turned as he
stood at the
fence. She heard him climb over and
ease up behind
her. He took the coiled rope from
her in his left hand
and slid his right hand over hers on
the swing end,
almost forcing her backward into his
arms.
She thought of paintings and statues she had
seen, imagining his naked arms now,
how the
muscles would form them into long
oblique curves,
how he probably had soft downy fair
hair on his
forearms, how his muscle would
slightly bulge as he
bent his arm. His voice was soft in
her ear, and she
could feel his breath on her neck like
a whispered
secret.
“Gentle-like, right to left, right to left to widen
the noose, keep your eye on the
post—are you
watchin’ where we’re goin’?”
He made the throw and pulled in the rope to
tighten the noose. Alex stood there,
his hand still
entwined with hers and, for a
moment, she wished
they could stand like that forever.
Then she took her
hand away and faced him. For a
second he rested his
chin on the top of her head, then
straightened again
and went to get the noose off the
post while coiling in
the rope. She looked up at him in
the fading light
and saw nothing but kindness in his
face, simplicity
and gentleness that was most
inviting. A smile
spread across her face as he handed
her the coiled
rope and sauntered away, turning
once to look back
at her before he opened the gate.
Emptiness filled
her like a poisoned vapor seeking
every corner of her
being, and she stood with the rope
in her hand
listening to the ring of his spurs
as his footsteps
retreated.
****
BUY LINKS:
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Contact Andrea at:
Twitter at @andidowning and FB page is http://www.facebook.com/writerAndreaDowning?fref=ts
