Yup - first paragraph not needed. Otherwise? Looks good.

OK, and now a long question about the fun writing:

So I'm working on a scene early in Anna with the following goals:

1. Jack and Anna must feel attraction to each other, and it must be more obvious both to them and the reader than the sublimated good chemistry they've had in earlier chapters. Jack is self-aware enough to recognize and acknowledge his feelings. Anna, NSM, but that's OK, because she's been in a miserable marriage that ended less than a week ago when her husband was killed. So she's pretty numb, and guilty over feeling glad to be free of him beneath the numbness.

2. A certain Lt. Tracy, who will eventually be the blackmailing villain of the piece, needs to notice that there's a vibe between Anna and Jack inappropriate for an officer's very recent widow and an enlisted man.

The scene is this: Everyone is part of a wagon convoy (probably the wrong word, but I've got ships on the brain) bound for Lisbon. Anna is there because with her husband dead she has no reason to stay with the army, and she plans to take the first ship back to England. Jack and Lt. Tracy are there, along with 40 or so other riflemen, because they've been charged with protecting the wounded soldiers and civilians of the wagon train. It's night, they've made camp, and Anna has been dining with others of the officer class, including Lt. Tracy. In her numb state, she politely leaves early so she can go back to her tent and rest.

Except along the way she happens to walk by the campfire where Jack and his friends are telling stories and singing. She recognizes the song they're singing, and in the way of musical people, can't resist joining in, and the next thing she knows, she's warming her hands by the campfire and showing off her fine alto harmonizing skills.

The next song the group starts singing is The Trooper and the Maid (warning, link has sound), which is both frankly bawdy and insanely catchy. What I want to do is have Anna and Jack get so caught up in the music and the firelight and their chemistry that they end up dancing around the fire together. This allows me to escalate the sexual tension nicely by getting some physical contact going, and to give Lt. Tracy a good and proper shock when he witnesses this little scene. But I'm wondering if it's just too implausible given all the complications and class differences.

Thoughts?

She's just been widowed for a week? But she does know Jack and is comfortable with him. I think she'd hesitate. I'm assuming Jack's a gentleman, even if not of that explicit class, so he'd probably back away from contact politely. Depending on Anna's level of disorientation from her normal way of life, the courtesy might be sufficent to reassure her that it's not completely inappropriate.

does that make sense?

Well, I may be working too hard to justify this scene just because it's so pretty and vivid in my head, but I'm picturing Anna just a tiny bit tipsy from drinking more wine than normal with dinner, being knocked out of her gloom and numbness by the music and camaraderie around the campfire, in the way you often have surprising bursts of joy at a funeral or wake, IME. Next thing she knows there's a really catchy tune, and she's kinda toe-tapping and dancing, and Jack kinda playfully bows to her and asks her to dance. Both of them are thinking that of course it's just a joke because of course The Sergeant and The Cavalry Captain's Widow are worlds apart, but then, bam!, chemistry and attraction.

Did I mention how pretty this all is in my head? And how it's the only place in the book it could work, because they're going to be captured by the French and then be secret lovers and then she's going to go back to England and he's going to lose an arm at Badajoz so I can get him out of the army and find a way to happily ever after?

I think maybe touch is stronger than movement in terms of setting up attraction. Maybe they sing a more haunting ballad, and the other voices drop away as people listen to their harmony (or it can be a somewhat obscure song that only they know, which further sets up a bond between them) and they sing to each other in the golden firelight, and realize at the end of the song they are holding hands?

Susan, I'm curious about how Anna knows the song in the first place. Granted that gently-bred girls picked up some unlikely stuff in those days, as soon as you listed the song title (I'm familiar with it), I found myself wondering where on earth she'd been hanging about to pick that one up.

Also, army widow or no, surely she's in mourning of some sort? Granted, moving army with all the exigencies entailed by that, but dancing? I think she'd need to be more than a little tipsy to forego convention to that degree.

One other question: she's the widow of an officer, yes? Would Tracy or anyone else allow her to walk back to her tent unescorted, through possibly the dregs of the Peninsular army? They weren't a genteel group, by and large.

Sorry to be blighting - it really is a pretty scene you're envisioning - but, well, questions.

walk back to her tent unescorted

Oh, good point. Heck, just being out after dark on her own in peacetime would be enough for whispers to start. Would the social mores be more stringently followed in such situations?

I don't know that the dance, at least in public, is possible in that era, unless you want to deal with the scandalous repercussions in the rest of the book. I like the idea of the two of them realizing that they're harmonizing (on a less risque song). If you want to stick with The Trooper and the Maid, maybe she could be trying to sing along with an unfamiliar tune and catch his eye just as she realizes the implications of the words. If you really want the dance scene, I think it has to be out of the public eye. Perhaps in her numb state she leaves the dinner unnoticed, just thinking about getting back to her tent and being alone. Her attention is caught by the music and she sings along. Jack realizes that she's alone and gets up to escort her back to her tent. When they're alone but can still hear the music, she's caught up with a wild desire to dance to the catchy music.

deb, it's actually not that song that she knows, but another less racy one they're singing before it.

One other question: she's the widow of an officer, yes? Would Tracy or anyone else allow her to walk back to her tent unescorted, through possibly the dregs of the Peninsular army? They weren't a genteel group, by and large.

Good point. How about this version? Some suitably respectable person escorts Anna back to her tent, which is fairly near the campfire, and leaves here there. Since it's a beautiful night and there's music and dancing going on, rather than going inside and trying to sleep, she sits just outside to listen to the singing and watch the dancing from the shadows. Jack isn't part of the group by the fire at this point because he's out checking that the sentries are posted properly or somesuch. With duty done, he's on his way to join the singalong, sees Anna, and stops to talk to her. This conversation either leads to them ending up together in the group by the fire, or they stay on the sidelines but end up singing and/or dancing together.

Better?

(xposted with Ginger)

Ah, that answers the question about her knowing the song, but would they even break into "Trooper" with her there?

The Jack-finds-Anna works much better to my mind, and is far more true to the conventions of the period. You really don't want seven thousand indignant experts writing you rude letters....