Ever wonder, “What would that book be like if someone else was the hero?” Well, that’s what I’m doing in this post.  🙂

I’m taking one scene from His Reluctant Lady, His Abducted Bride, and Eye of the Beholder and I’m going to swap heroes.  I’ll be using their personalities to see how things would be different.  I’ll be doing this for a couple weeks.  During or after that time, I’ll give Dave Larson, Christopher Robinson, and Gavin Blackheart a chance to give their thoughts on this swap.  While the men wanted to keep their heroines, I decided to make it much more interesting.  The men will have to interact with the other guy’s heroine.

This week, we’re going to look at a scene from His Abducted Bride.  I’ll use Christopher Robinson in today’s post.  The scene I’m doing today is based off this one I posted on Sunday.

This will be a piece of cake.

His Abducted Bride: Starring Christopher Robinson and Sandy Davis

Christopher strode into the castle, giving a smile as the servants bowed as he passed by. What a cool gig Gavin had.  Sure, he had servants bow to him since he was the cousin of an earl, but in this scene, he was the king–the head man.  It was pretty awesome.  As much as he wanted go to the throne room and wear the crown, he needed to go to the planning room so he could wait for Sandy since that was the scene Ruth had selected for this week’s hero swap.  He went straight to the planning room and bolted the door shut.  He stopped by the round table in the middle of the room and peeled the seal off and rolled the parchment open.

King Blackheart,

            I couldn’t help but notice everything I’ve worked hard to build over the past year has been wiped away in a single instant.  I don’t know why or how you changed the course of the author’s story, but I demand you put things back to the way they were at once.  Send the author back to where she belongs.  If you don’t, I will.  And you won’t like what I’ll do to you if I have to take matters into my own hands.

King Petros of Reinhold

Christopher laughed.  What an ego Petros had!  Everything he’d worked for?  From what he saw, this story had no real relevance to Petros.  Just like Lord Roderick, Petros thought better of himself than he had a right to.

A sudden banging on the door grabbed his attention.  Before he could ask who it was, Sandy yelled, “Open this door!”

“All right.” He opened the door and smiled.  “You wish to speak with me?”

Clearing her throat, she made eye contact with him.  “You know very well why I’m here.”

“You wanted to see if I’m as good looking as Agatha claims?”

She rolled her eyes.  “No.  I saw the messenger come here.  Who sent you word and where is the missive?”

Raising his eyebrow, he turned to her and leaned against the table.  “You mean to tell me you’re upset about this little piece of paper?” He waved it in the air.

“Don’t be cute.  I’m not in the mood to play games.  What did the message say and who sent it?”

“Someone named Petros thinks he can come in and defeat Gavin.  If you ask me, I think Petros is just upset that he didn’t bring you into this story first.”

“He can’t be upset because of that.  He had no role in the book.  Let me see the missive.”

“All right.” He held it out to her.  When she refused to take it, he asked, “Do you want to read it or not?”

“Well, that’s not how the scene is supposed to go.  You’re supposed to say no and find a way to distract me so I never read it.”

He shrugged.  “Those rules might work for Gavin and Dave, but I don’t care about them.  So what if you read the missive?  It won’t change the course of your book because I’m only here for this scene.  After this, we’ll all go back to the original version and you won’t know what’s in it.”

“Hmm…” She crossed her arms and sighed.  “Then I guess it’s pointless to read it.”

“You can satisfy your curiosity for the next few paragraphs before you forget in time for your story to be published.”

“If I’m going to forget, what’s the point?”

“I guess there is none.” He set it on the table.  “You know, if you’re really that unhappy being stuck in this awesome castle with servants at your beck and call, why don’t you do something about it?”

“I’ve tried, but Blackheart has someone following me at all times.”

He glanced over his shoulder.  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s following you now.”

“Well, no.  But that’s because I’m with him in this scene.”

“But you didn’t come to this room with him.  You came alone.”

“Yes,” she slowly admitted.  “But no one else is supposed to know that.”

“It sounds like Ruth Ann Nordin is getting sloppy if she’s not being consistent.  Either you’re followed all the time or you’re not.”

“You have to pretend a guard is further down the hall waiting for me.”

He chuckled.  “All right.  We’ll pretend that’s what happened.  So anyway, why don’t you just walk on out of here if you don’t like it in this place?”

“You see the guards lining the walls surrounding this castle?”

To humor her, he went to the window and glanced around where he saw guards at various posts along the wall.  “Yes.”

“That’s why I can’t just walk out of here.”

“Dress up as a man.  Better yet, dress up as a stable boy or some other servant.  No one ever pays attention to those men.”

“If I choose a disguise, I’ll do better than that.  I hear that ploy didn’t work in The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife when you got Lady Roderick to dress up like a stable boy.”

“You make one mistake and everyone hears about it,” he muttered.  Turning to her, he asked, “Why don’t you just admit the real reason why you aren’t trying to escape?  You secretly love the king and want to be with him.”

“For your information, I will try to escape.  I won’t say how because that will ruin the story for anyone who’ll read it.”

“If you say so…” He straightened up and pulled the sword from his sheath.  “I need to swing this thing in the courtyard.”

“You mean you’re going to polish your fighting skills with the sword.”

“Not really.  I just have to say something to get out of this scene.  As soon as I’m out of here, Gavin will take my place and be the one in the courtyard.  I know you can’t wait to watch him showing off his muscles as he wields this sword.” He winked at her.  “Go give that king of yours a long, passionate kiss.  There’s no sense in making him suffer longer than he has to.” With a grin, he headed out of the room.