Firstly, thank you very much to Melanie for inviting me to visit today. It’s lovely to be here! This interview comes to you directly from the library at Methven Castle in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland where we are taking afternoon tea with Lucy, Marchioness of Methven. You may recall that the marriage of the Marquis and Marchioness has been the talk of Edinburgh society this season past. We’re here to discover how a marriage of convenience became the love match of the year!
[click on cover for an EXCERPT]
NC: Lady Methven, thank you very much for inviting us to tea. Isn’t this a gorgeous library!
Lucy: Thank you! I love this room. As a member of the Highland Ladies Bluestocking Society I was always more likely to be found reading in the library than ogling the gentlemen at balls and parties.
NC: I heard that you discovered some very interesting and inspiring books in your father’s library when you were younger…
Lucy (blushes): It’s true that my father had a very extensive collection of erotic literature…
NC: Including books with diagrams!
Lucy: You mean illustrated manuscripts. I think you have lowered the tone of the conversation already, Mrs Cornick. My father is an academic. His collection is entirely for intellectual research.
NC: I beg your pardon, my lady. Of course it is. But didn’t his… um, academic collection get you into rather a lot of trouble? I mean it almost ruined your reputation.
Lucy: Well, I blame you for that, Mrs Cornick. After all, you were the one who encouraged me to write those erotic letters to provide funds for my charities. It was your idea that got me into so much trouble.
The door opens and Robert, Marquis of Methven, walks in. Lucy looks radiant.
Lucy: Robert, darling! I didn’t realize that you would be able to join us. How lovely!
NC: Good afternoon, my lord. We were just discussing how Lady Lucy wrote those wonderful letters on behalf of her brother to tempt your fiancé to elope with him. You can’t have been pleased when Lady Dulcibella jilted you at the altar…
Robert bends to kiss Lucy before taking a seat beside her on the red velvet sofa.
Robert speaking mildly: I admit I was a little annoyed at the time.
Lucy: Robert, you were furious!
Robert, smiling: Only because I needed a wife, not because I wanted to marry Dulcibella. I had a lucky escape there. She wasn’t the right woman for me.
Lucy: But that was the right answer!
They kiss again. Nicola fans herself.
NC: Of course the two of you were childhood sweethearts…
Robert: Well, we did meet one moonlit night when Lucy was only sixteen and I was nineteen.
Lucy: He kissed me.
Robert: Did I?
Lucy: Don’t tease me! You know you did. It was my first kiss.
NC: Yet when you met again it took a while for Lord Methven to persuade you into marriage, didn’t it, ma’am?
Lucy: Persuade me? He deliberately set out to compromise me into marriage, the scoundrel!
Robert, shrugging: When I see something I want I go after it by any means necessary.
Lucy: That’s the Viking blood in you.
Robert: Besides, you refused to be compromised. I hadn’t realised that you were so determined.
Lucy: You had a lot to learn about me. I’m descended from Malcolm MacMorlan, the Red Fox of Forres. We MacMorlan girls don’t give in without a fight.
NC: How did Lord Methven win you over, ma’am?
Lucy: I think it was when I saw his magnificent…
NC raises her brows.
Lucy: Island!
NC bemused: Island?
Robert: Lady Methven is referring to my estate of Golden Isle. He turns to Lucy. You hated it when first you went there.
Lucy smiles: But then I saw how much you cared about your people there and how you would do anything to help them and I loved you for it.
Robert takes her hand and gazes into her eyes.
NC clears her throat: Clearly I am de trop here. Before I leave, is there anything else you would like to tell us all?
Lucy: Oh yes! I’d like to mention my sister Mairi, whose story will be told soon in One Night with the Laird. She looks dubious. It‘s really is quite a shocking book, though. I’m not sure I should recommend it to the gentle reader.
Robert laughing: It’s outrageous. How could it be otherwise when my wicked cousin Jack is involved?
NC: Thank you for the rake warning! Lord Methven, Lady Methven, thank you so much for your hospitality today. Would it be acceptable to you if we explore the rest of the castle whilst we are here? I can’t wait to take a stroll on the battlements. She starts to sidle towards to door.
Lucy: Yes, of course… Oh, she’s gone already!
[this is UK cover]
***
The Lady & the Laird is available online at:
I hope you enjoyed my interview with Robert and Lucy. And now I have a question for all of Melanie’s bookworms…
Robert and Lucy first meet on a moonlit terrace and share a stolen kiss. Is there a first meeting from a book or movie that you particularly like?
AUTHOR BIO: Nicola Cornick is a British writer of romance novels since 1998.
She is a Membership Secretary for the Romantic Novelists’ Association and critique manuscripts for aspiring authors via the RNA’s New Writers’ Scheme, and also for the Romance Writers of America Beau Monde mentor scheme.
Nicola Cornick obtained a honours degree in Medieval History from London University. She worked for many years in university administration, and later being as an Assistant Academic Registrar and Operations Manager. She returned to college in Oxford, to study for a Masters degree at Ruskin College.
She published her first novels in 1998 for Mills & Boon (reedited as Harlequin Enterprises in USA). She is specialized in romances setting in the British Regency. She lives in Oxfordshire, England.
To learn more about Ms. Cornick, click here.
bookworm2bookworm's Blog 
Oh I so loved the interview Nicola!!! Lord Methven sounds like my kind of Hero~ One first meeting I remember was in Madeline Hunter’s Ravishing in Red. The heroine first meets the Hero at a pub in a darken room upstairs. Unbeknownst to the Hero, she has brought a pistol and then accidentally fires her loaded pistol at him! Talk about blowing one’s mind at first sight! LOL Should I say it was also within the first couples of pages into the book. 🙂
I loved the interview Melanie and love the cover of this book even more. The excerpt is very interesting. This book that release this year by Anne Barton When She was Wicked. The heroine tries to blackmail the hero for money to take care of her family. She threatens to make an affaire about the hero’s sister know public. He agrees to her demands and meets her under a bridge never thinking it is a woman who was blackmailing him. 😀
Thank you so much, ki pha! I’m so pleased you liked the interview. That certainly is a great way to make an impression on a man!
Hi Kristine! Thank you, I’m glad you like the covers. I’ve been very lucky, I think. What an intriguing first meeting. I must look out for the Anne BArton book.
Hmmm… I like it when we first meet the hero and heroine in Mystery Man by Kristen Ashley!
I loved when Han Solo met Princess Leia in Star Wars. Rogue meets the kick ass heroine!
I like the sound of that encounter Arely!
Linda, that’s one of my favourite moments too. She is so cool with him and he is such a bad boy!
I enjoy those anticipated first romantic meetings/ moments in romance novels. It’s exactly why I enjoy them so much.
I suppose if I had to choose a scene that kept me flipping pages wondering when it was going to happen, if ever, would have been between Mac and Barrons in Karen Marie Moning’s Fever Series.
Thanks 🙂
I enjoy your books. I own several of them in my personal library and look forward to reading this one as well.
Hi Lori! Thank you – I am so pleased you enjoy my books. I love your choice of first encounter!
I think my all time favorite movie kiss is the one Hawkeye and Cora shared in Last of the Mohicans. Whew! Just hearing that music ***fans self***
And I am looking forward to reading The Lady and the Laird. I love the cove.
Oh yes – I love that too, suejk16! Feeling a little heated just thinking about it!
What a great interview! Thanks so much from her fans!
Aww, thank YOU, Cate! And huge thanks to Mel for inviting me today.
I liked the meet scene between Jeaniene Frost’s Kat and Bones.
Thanks, Janie! I must check that one out!
Hey Nic!
Thanks so much for coming over to play! LOVED this little ‘inside’ of our hero/heroine 😉
I have one for you…Jack & Rose from TITANIC! Meeting your soul mate as they’re about to jump off into the cold ocean is just too cool!
HUGS!
Mel
Hi Mel! Oooh, there was a lot of chemistry going on between Jack and Rose, wasn’t there. Very hot! It’s so hard to choose a favourite but one of mine is the kiss at the end of North and South when Margaret and John meet at the station… I remember an interview with Daniela Denby Ashe when she said they had to re-take the scene lots of times… It must have been dreadful having to kiss Richard Armitage so much! 🙂
Enjoyed the interview format. I have enjoyed your books and always look forward to new ones coming out. THE LADY AND THE LAIRD sounds like another one I will be adding to my library.
Thank you very much, Pat. it was fun interviewing Lucy and Robert! I hope you enjoy the book.
I cannot wait to read this book! Love the cover too. 🙂
Tristan and Isolde’s first meeting. Sigh! Love the movie.
Oh, I love that movie too, Leah! So romantic. I’ve been really lucky with my gorgeous covers, I think. They look so Scottish and so pretty!
What a fun post! I’m excited about this new series set in Scotland. I’m happy to see it’s still historical. Love your writing and your stories, Nicola! No need to enter me in the contest as I already own the book.
Thanks so much, Maria!
I always enjoy these character interviews – I love Scottish stories!
Thanks so much, Diane! I’m so pleased you enjoyed the interview.