New Heyer story: "Natural"

[resonant]

Continuing my trend of only writing in fandoms with twelve or fewer members, I've posted a new story to my website, based on Georgette Heyer's novel The Foundling.

Natural
Gilly/Gideon -- NC-17 -- 3,300 words
Once again, Gilly fixes everything.
Warnings, if any (highlight to read): No particular warning.

Thanks to astolat and Tradescant for beta.

Comments

[minnaway]

Oh YAY! I started grinning with >"'Tis his Grace -- and a meadow!" < and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.

[resonant]

Oh, good! Glad you liked it. (I grinned all the way through the original book like that!)

[teand]

That was WONDERFUL! Perfect Heyer voice -- you know, should Heyer ever have... which I'm quite sure she never would have. Heavens, no...

[resonant]

Oh, no, no such thought could possibly have crossed her mind as she wrote about men who called each other "Little one."

[esther_asphodel]

That is delightful.

[resonant]

Thank you!

[darklock]

I could stand to read a little more in this fandom. ;-) This is fantastic. The language, the tone, the pace, the plausibility... lovely. Glad I am to be part of fandom twelve. :-P

[resonant]

I could stand to read more, too, but there isn't more!! Woes.

[valentin]

http://strangeplaces.net/torch/familiarity.html

[resonant]

Oh, yes, I liked that one! There's not much meat in the fandom, but what there is is cherce.

[marycrawford]

Oh, that was lovely! Terrific Heyer language without overdoing it (not that she herself didn't overdo it on occasion, but you know what I mean), and so very in character. I'm so glad Gilly found a good solution for his and Gideon's pressing problem, and one that leaves Harriet happy too.

Also, backgammon made me crack up -- that is fab, did you come up with this or was that actually used somewhere?

This was also particularly adorable: "Gideon, how could I? For the instant I lifted my shirt, Romsey would have been there to predict its resulting in a fatal ague! No, no." HEE. Oh, Gilly. <3~!

[resonant]

Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! And especially glad the characterization worked for you. The Romsey thing came into my head as I was remembering the exchange in the book where Gideon says, "Don't cut your throat," and Gilly says, "You don't suppose I shave myself, do you?"

"Backgammon" is for reals! I got it from Lexicon Balatronicum: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence of 1811, which is a great way to lose just hours and hours of your time.

[constance]

Well, you know I loved it, but I have to say that your question about plausibility was...well, I think you're asking the wrong question, is all! If you're basing your fic on a novel which features burning dens of iniquity and disappearing dukes and runaway teens and featherheaded beauties who may be bought for the price of a purple dress, you know, anything goes. :)

[resonant]

She's set a high standard for hijinks, hasn't she? [hugs you]

[valentin]

Oh, my god, this was AWESOME.

There, look what you've reduced me to. Virtual speechlessness. I can't remember the last time I read a story that made me grin foolishly from the first word to the last. I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.

You know what I've wanted to read for an age? Gil/Ferdy from "Friday's Child".

[resonant]

Oh, I'm so very glad! I was head over heels in love with Gilly and Gideon, and just happy to spend more time with them.

I've put Friday's Child on hold at the library. We shall see! (After all, it would be a shame to do all that research on drop-front trousers and only get one story out of it.)

[twistedchick]

Oh, this is charming and in character all the way through! Bravo!

[resonant]

Oh, good! Only with Gilly could a person write (reasonably) plausible Regency foursome!

[giglet]

I may not have understood all of it, but I did very much enjoy it!

Thanks, Res!

[resonant]

Thank you! Glad you liked it. If you enjoy Regency adventures at all, you'd probably like the book, though there's not much romance in it.

[elynross]

I've been away from LJ/DW, and would have missed this entirely had not

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I've been away from LJ/DW, and would have missed this entirely had not <user=marycrawford> pointed it out. It is utterly charming, and educating, as I have picked up new bits of slang with which I was entirely unfamiliar! And what a lovely way to give them all such a happy ending.

[resonant]

I'm so glad you liked it!

Unaccountably, Heyer doesn't use much slang that would be useful in writing explicit sex. Luckily we have the internet.

[kadar]

Loves, loves, Heyer slash... particularly as perfect as this. You have a great voice for Heyer!

[resonant]

Oh, I'm so glad you liked it! Thanks.

[rusty76]

The story I've wanted since I first read the book! And an utterly lovely creation it is, too.

[resonant]

Oh, good! There are some lovely stories in the fandom, and a few of them have sex, and a few of them have happy Harriet, but none of them, as far as I can remember, have both.

[toft]

No idea who these people are, but I enjoyed this thoroughly. Aw!

[resonant]

I'm glad you liked it!

And, oh, if you like Regency stories at all, I definitely recommend The Foundling. Gilly is 24, and is an orphan, and was sickly as a child, and as a result he's lovingly bullied by everyone from his uncle/guardian (Gideon's father) to his valet, until another cousin gets in trouble and Gilly sneaks away to fix everything ... It's adorable.

[toft]

Aww, it sounds great!

[jest]

I adore it! This is the first year I haven't requested this fandom for Yuletide, so I'm extra happy to stumble over this now.

[resonant]

Yeah, I noticed that what there was of a fandom was 90% Yuletide stories -- I guess this is what Yuletide is for.

I'm so glad you liked it!

[myalexandria]

I am not familiar with the source material, but this is so fabulous that I intend to be REALLY SOON.

I loved "a meadow" and "backgammon" particularly ;)

[resonant]

Successful Heyer pimpage complete!

I loved this!

[jat-sapphire.livejournal.com]

Loved. It. So much!

Thank you kindly for writing it; as you said, there's only a few people in this slash fandom to begin with, and hardly any stories. I must recreate my recs page for Heyerfic, now that Geocities is No More.

Re: I loved this!

[resonant]

Wow, I'm so glad you liked it! Thanks. I wish more people were writing it.

Geocities is a sad loss, isn't it?

[copracat]

I adore Heyer's daffy heroes and heroines. They're just the right sort and this is perfectly pitched and gorgeously sexy.

A yard you say. How... magnificent.

[resonant]

They're all kinds of fun, aren't they? I totally fell in love with Gilly; he's the best Heyer character I've met yet, even better (to my taste) than Sophy and Hugo, fantastic as they are.

The Lexicon Balatronicum (my extracanonical source for period slang) doesn't define 'yard,' only uses it in the definitions of other words, which suggests to me that it would have been seen as a fairly neutral term. But then at the beginning of Friday's Child someone refers to a sword as "his yard of tin," and I just burst out laughing!

[darkrhiannon]

Dang it...Res. Bad enough that you've got me re-reading Silver-verse fics over and over just because they're still *that* good. Now, I'm going to have to dig through my stacks and find my Heyer to reread it because this was just...marvelous. You have the tone, the vocab, the perfect turn of phrase, and as always, the characters down cold. Or should I say WARM! Yummy and delicious and oh, please won't you write some more. I so want Gideon and Louisa's meeting and...more pretty please. And Louisa and Harriet? Just delightful! Thank you for brightening my day!!!!

[resonant]

Hee! "Tissue of Silver" isn't me, if that's what you mean by Silververse, but I'm thrilled that you enjoyed this one!

I'm not sure whether I'll write more of this universe or not, but the four of them are being very lively in my head. I've imagined Louisa and Gideon's wedding night in rather shameful detail, right up to the point where a very satisfied Louisa says, "Do you suppose Harriet knows it can be like that? ... Do you wish to show her, Gideon, or shall I?"

[myalexandria]

how lovely--after reading this I went out and checked The Foundling out of the library--and it's just *adorable*. From the first line. I'm having a lovely time. Thanks!

[resonant]

[hugs you]

[mific]

Mmmm - this was great. Love how you've managed to write very erotically but still with the language and tone of the times. And amazing how much one can pick up about a source from well-written fanfic. I had the same with your Advantage which was the taste that got me hooked on SGA - sadly there's not so much Heyer about to feed the need, but am off to read your Hornblower story now. Any interest in Holmes/Watson? If so, I'd love to read it.

[resonant]

Wow, I missed a lot of comments here. Sorry for the belated reply.

The comment about the language made me insanely happy, because a big part of the pleasure for me was trying not to depart from period language.

I'm reading some Holmes/Watson and occasionally think about writing it. Oddly, I was more interested in writing it based on the books; I came out of the movie thinking, "Well, yes, that pretty much gave me everything I needed." But I do love the characters.

[commodorified]

I cannot IMAGINE how I failed to find this sooner; it is exceeding charming, and so extremely in voice that I fear me you have temporarily disabled all my contemporaty vocabulary entirely.

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford (and their great and good friend Mr Landseer) would have approved, and so do I. :-)

[resonant]

Oh, dear, I read this comment but didn't reply to it. So sorry!

The Bedford and Landseer thing sounds like an interesting story is hinted at; I googled, but only got the Duchess's affair. Any links?

Glad you liked the story, and doubly glad I didn't screw up the voice!

[commodorified]

No links offhand, but there's an excellent biography: Mistress of the Arts: The Passionate Life of Georgina, Duchess of Bedford, Trethewey, Rachel.

The three of them seem to have ended up as great friends: Landseer may have fathered one of her children, which seems to have fazed the Duke not at all, and he seems to have more or less run tame in their house and at their hunting lodge for decades.

There are some charming sketches by him of the Duke alone and with Georgina in the book. You can see the real affection between the men in every line. It's a ripping good story, and it expanded my view of the sorts of things Regency society was prepared to accept so long as no undue fuss occurred.

[fictional]

Just wanted to say that I loved this story, and have added it to my Heyer rec list: http://kalichan.livejournal.com/136241.html

You might find some items of interest there; a lot of it is, of course, Yuletide, but there are a few other discoveries.

[resonant]

Thanks! That's excellent company to be in. I've hungrily devoured everything on that rec page where I had even a passing familiarity with the canon (except the Rule bdsm story), and am very grateful to you for collecting them all!