First Toe Curl DEFINITION:
These are those memorable moments when a hero or the heroine gets that first inkling they are in the presence of someone unlike any other they’ve ever met. Do you remember when Rhett Butler overhears Scarlet O’Hara declare her passionate love for Ashley? Or in the movie Ever After: a Cinderella Story, when Danielle argues passionately with Prince Henry for the release of a beloved servant, quoting Utopia. It’s that moment in a story, when they shows themselves as being out of the ordinary. When he or she captures the other’s undivided attention, and possibly their heart.
A fairytale-inspired Regency romance (ghost story)
In November 1812, after a disastrous Season when Lady Annabelle (Belle) Marchant’s unusual talent for sensing what’s unseen lets her down and results in a man’s death, a chance to atone for her past mistake sends her dashing to a haunted manor in the wilds of Cheshire, England, in the middle of a snowstorm. There, she meets the beastly Lord of the Manor and becomes embroiled in a mystery to unmask a killer. Lady Belle struggles to use her uncanny, yet oft-times unreliable perceptions to uncover the truth about a man that everyone believes is guilty of high crimes, but whom her heart insists is innocent.
Excerpt-
He indicated the stairs. “Shall we?”
Still, she hesitated. “You said yesterday that . . .”
“That was yesterday.” With a hand on her elbow, he urged her toward the stairs. “Today, you have stormed my castle and tamed my mother so that there will be no more talk of ghosts. You are a worthy opponent. One I plan to keep a close eye on in order to win this war.”
Her startled gaze swept up and clashed with his frown. Even in anger, he made her heart skip. She did not want to spend her entire visit quarreling.
They began the trek up to the first floor, and she said, “I am not playing a game, my lord, nor are we engaged in battle. You have nothing to fear from me. I am not your enemy.”
At the landing halfway up to the above floor, Lord Terrance swung her around to face him. “You are the slyest of opponents,” he said, eyes like flint. “One who battles from within rather than attacks from without. Never fear, I will ensure you are disarmed and rousted from my home before the week is out.”
“You are completely mistaken in my character.” She wanted to tell him that all she wanted to do was help his mother, but she knew he would not listen. “What possible harm could I mean to you or your family?”
“What harm do women always mean?”
She stared at him, confused. Before she could fathom his words, he pulled her closer with a firm hand on her back.
Mirroring her conflicted emotions, Earnest whined, then growled, and then whined again.
The shock of contact left Belle breathless. She stood with her palms pressed against his chest, a traitorous enjoyment creeping from her toes to her hairline. His hold forced her limbs against his hard legs. The heat of his breath brushed intimately against her mouth.
She knew she should give him a severe set-down, but all she wanted was to see his angry gaze melt with desire. Why would he not end her torment and kiss her? Mortified by that improper thought, Belle leaned away, but the dog was plastered against the backs of her knees. Some watchdog. She shoved him back, but Lord Terrance held her in place, as if to assert his mastery. To prove she was being released, not pulling away.
“How . . . how dare you, sir.” The protest came far too late and sounded abysmally weak. In her mind, she heard Mrs. Jones say, A proper young lady would be overcome by the experience. “I am a lady.” She cursed her breathy voice, no longer certain the statement was even true. Did ladies dream of being ravished? “I am not a . . .”
“A Cyprian?” The word was a caress.
She should not know what that meant, but she had heard the word whispered as another form of harlot, a mistress, an illicit lover. “I have no idea what that means.”
The tips of her ears singed with guilty heat even as he laughed with patent disbelief.
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What’s your favorite toe curl moment from a movie?
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