Teaser Tuesday: Name That Flower
I’m not sure this counts as much as a teaser, but… Pink IX is in the process of getting a title! Currently, the flower front-runner seems to be the lily, since Emma wears white a lot, but that’s highly likely to change.
I’ve posted a chunk of the first chapter below. What flower would you choose?
Chapter One
“Alas!” she cried, “I spy a sail
Hard-by on the wine dark sea.
I know not what it is or bides,
But I fear it comes for me!”
—Augustus Whittlesby
The Perils of the Pulchritudinous Princess of the Azure Toes, Canto XII, 14-17.
“For, lo!” proclaimed Augustus Whittlesby, from his perch on top of a bench supported by two scowling sphinxes, “In Cytherea’s perfumed sleep/ Did she dream of the denizens of the dithery deep….
“Dithery? How can the deep be dithery?” A female voice, lightly accented, cut into Augustus’ stirring rendition of Canto XII of The Perils of the Pulchritudinous Princess of the Azure Toes.
Among the smattering of people who had left the dancing in the ballroom to admire, mock, gossip, or, in the case of an elderly dowager snoring in a chair by the far wall, nap, stood two young women.
One was tall and graceful, garbed simply but elegantly in a white dress that fell in the required classical lines from a pair of admirably shaped shoulders. Her pale brown hair was gathered in a simple twist, her only jewelry a golden locket strung on a ribbon of sky blue silk.
Jane Wooliston was, thought Augustus, all that was finest in womanly charm. He had said so quite frequently in verse, but it held true in prose as well. Not even his execrable effusions could mask her inestimable worth.
She wasn’t the one who had spoken.
It had been the other one. Next to her. Half a head down.
What Emma Delagardie lacked in height, she made up for by the exuberantly curled plumes that rose from her silver spangled headdress. The tall plumes jutted a good foot into the air, bouncing up and down—like great, annoying bouncing things. In Augustus’ annoyance, metaphor failed him. Her dress was white, but it wasn’t the white of innocent maidens and virtuous dreams. It was of silk, sinuous and shiny, overlain with some sort of shimmery stuff that sparkled when she moved, creating the sensation of a constant disturbance in the air around her.
Emma Delagardie was slight, fine-boned, and small-featured, the top of her head barely level with Miss Wooliston’s elegantly curved shoulder, but she took up far more room than her small stature would warrant.
“You might have the dire deep,” Mme Delagardie suggested, her American accent very much in evidence, “or the dreadful deep, but not dithery. It’s not even a proper word.”
“Your deep may be dire, but my deep is dithery. There is such a thing as poetic license, Mme Delagardie,” said Augustus grandly.
“License or laziness? Surely another word might serve your purpose better. The deep is a rather stationary thing.”
Who had appointed Emma Delagardie the Grand Inquisitor for Poetical Excellence, Greater Paris Branch? It had been a sad, sad day for France when her uncle had been appointed American Envoy to Paris and an even sadder one when she had decided to outlast his tenure and stay.
Perhaps America would like to take her back?
“The waves, Mme. Delagardie, maintain a constant flow, back and forth, just so.” Augustus used the flowy fabric of his sleeves to illustrate, rocked back and forth on the bench. “And on and on they go.”
With a hey nonny nonny and a ho ho ho.
Christ, he made himself sick sometimes. You’re doing it for England, old chap, he used to tell himself, but the for England bit had been rubbed bare over time, torn to shreds on the detritus of rhyme.
Oh, bugger. He was thinking in rhyme again. Was there no way to turn it off? To end the adjectives that infected his consciousness? That bedeviled his brain? That assaulted his….
Next time, Augustus promised himself. The next time he was recruited for a life of espionage, he was posing as a philosopher or a student of ancient languages, as someone staid and sober, someone who expressed himself in prose rather than verse and fourth rate verse, at that.
They had warned him of this, his mentors at the War Office. Choose your persona wisely, they had said. Over time, you might just become what you pretend to be. Augustus had scoffed at it at the time. Nineteen and fearless he had been then, confident of the power of both his sword and his pen. It had seemed like such a lark, a decade ago, to couch his reports to the War Office in poetry so bad that even the Ministry of Police wouldn’t want to read it. Even fanatical devotion only went so far. For the French surveillance officers, so far generally ended somewhere around the thirty ninth canto.
What a stroke of brilliance, a code no one could break—because there was no code. No count-ten-letters-and-subtract-one, no book of code words and phrases, no messy paper trails to trip one up, just the information itself couched in terms of purest absurdity, truth drowned in a sea of verbiage.
Sometimes, it felt like truth wasn’t the only one drowning. He had been doing this for too long; he felt the weariness of it to his very bones.
Augustus looked at Jane Wooliston, his buoy, his anchor, his island in a turbulent sea. Until she had arrived in Paris, he had been giving serious thought to throwing it all in.
Clasping his hands to his breast, Augustus looked meaningfully at Miss Wooliston. “What can one say about the sea? Oh, the sea! The inconstant sea! As indeterminate as a lady’s affections and as unfathomable as the female heart.”
Miss Wooliston hid her smile behind her fan. “Beautifully said, Monsieur Whittlesby, but I would urge you to credit our sex with somewhat more resolution of character than that.”
She managed to make her voice carry without seeming to try. What a lovely voice it was, too, a fine, clear contralto, neither too high nor too low.
Augustus clapped the back of his hand to his forehead, just managing not to gag on his own sleeve. They had played this game before, he and Miss Wooliston. “Resolute in cruelty! Obdurate in obsfuscation!”
“Ornate in ormolu?” It was the American again. Of course.
“Ormolu,” Augustus repeated. “Ormolu?”
Emma Delagardie gave a little bounce that made her silver spangles scintillate. “Just helping out. You are doing o’s, aren’t you? ”
Augustus would have loved to tell her exactly what she could do with her a’s, e’s and u’s—in prose—but he had spent years perfecting his pose of poetic otherworldliness. He wasn’t about to ruin it for one noisy chit from the Colonies. The former colonies, that was. If Emma Delagardie was a representative example, good riddance to them.
“If I may continue?” he said.
Emma Delagardie fluttered her fan. Augustus sneezed. The fan was made of feathers. Feathers with silver spangles. They had a long reach.
“Oh, do. Please do,” she said, far too enthusiastically for Augustus’ peace of mind. No one wanted to hear his poetry that badly. In fact, no one wanted to hear his poetry at all. This boded ill.
Augustus brooded. It wasn’t quite a brood of Byron caliber, but it passed muster. It had bloody well ought to. He had spent hours practicing. “My soul shies back! To flourish, the delicate blooms of poetry must be gently nurtured and watered from the well of an understanding spirit, not withered in the harsh glare of unfeeling criticism.”
“Do go on, Mr. Whittlesby,” said Miss Wooliston soothingly. “I assure you, we are all attention to hear how Cytherea comes about.”
“All thirty dithery cantos,” added her friend cheerfully.
Did she think it was easy to consistently perpetrate works of such poetic awfulness?
He could have told Emma Delagardie a thing or two about that. Years, it had taken, years of grueling practice and downright hard work. It was a hard balance to maintain, writing poetry dreadful enough to be laughable, but just credible enough to be believable.
Augustus rustled his roll of papers. “Shall I go on? Or need I fear the slings and arrows of outrageous interruptions?”
“We’ll be good,” promised Emma Delagardie, in a way that signaled anything but. “Mum as church mice.”
The church mice he had known had been rather noisy, actually, in the walls of the vicarage of his youth, but that was beside the point. He wasn’t going to let himself be drawn into yet another pointless argument.
“In that case….” Augustus made a show of scrolling down his page, searching his place. The gilded doors to the music room racketed open and someone skidded into the room, dressed inappropriately for an evening entertainment in boots with the mud of travel still on them. He was a young man, cheeks flushed, hair mussed, cravat askew. He was dressed in the glorified riding dress that the upper classes had made their common clothing, a tightly fitted coat over a bright waistcoat, tight pantaloons tucked into Hessian boots. The difference was, these clothes had obviously been used for riding, and recently.
A few of the ladies whispered and giggled behind their fans. The dowager made a snorting noise in her sleep and burrowed deeper into her chair.
What in the hell was Horace de Lilly doing here? As a very junior sort of agent, employed for the sole purpose of his aristocratic connections, de Lilly was meant to be at Saint Cloud, hanging about the fringes of Bonaparte’s semi-regal court, not in Paris, attending a ball at the Hotel de Balcourt.
This did not bode well.
With a wary eye on his young associate, Augustus returned to his poetry. “For in the lady’s youth was told/ A tale of prophecies ancient and old—”
Horace began to bounce on the balls of his feet, striving to be seen over Mme Delagardie’s plumes. He mouthed something.
Augustus frowned in his general direction. Raising his voice, he proclaimed, “That once in Triton’s court did dwell/ And ring a nasty watery knell,/ With a clangety clang and an awesome—”
“Yell?” suggested Emma Delagardie, in something that strove to be, but was not quite sotto voce. “Knell? Mell?”
If Augustus had been holding a book, he would have slammed it. Instead, he jammed the roll of poetry under his arm. “No more! My sensitive soul can endure no further interruptions! The muse has fled. The Graces have left the building.”
He jumped down off the settee, landing with a thump on the parquet floor and had the satisfaction of seeing Mme Delagardie take a step back. He had landed rather close to her feet, inadequately shod in Grecian sandals that showed off the diamond rings on her toes.
Augustus wafted a trembling hand in the air. “I beg you, good people! Do not attempt to follow! I must soothe myself and my muse in the only way available to one of my delicate temperament, with a spell of solitude and solitary reflection, making humble homage to the Muses in the hopes that they will once again heed my call after so brutal and rude a series of interruptions to their delicate endeavors.”
The excess fabric in his sleeves made a highly gratifying swishing noise as he swept towards the door.
As he passed de Lilly, he murmured, “In the study. Five minutes.”
Moonflower! They’re pretty and white and come out at night. Seeing as how your heroines tend to get into villain-chasing mischief in the evenings, it seemed apropos.
Angelica is fluorescent in white but a bit florescent in the dark. European Daisies are white, but can have varied colors at the center. Orange blossom also comes to mind.
Iris
Found in an article:
“The flower symbolism associated with the iris is faith, wisdom, cherished friendship, hope, valor, my compliments, promise in love, wisdom. The blade-shaped foliage denotes the sorrows which ‘pierced her heart.’ The iris is the emblem of both France and Florence, Italy. The fleur-de-lis, one of the most well-known of all symbols, is derived from the shape of the iris flower. The fleur-de-lis is a symbol of the royal family in France and is the state flower of Tennessee.
How about the White Daffodil? They remind of Emma, all exuerbutant and just in your face for so small a flower.
Gardenias signify joy, purity, secret love, while magnolias are associated with dignity and nobility.
Magnolia, White Daisy, or Mayflower. (The first and last one are U.S. state flowers.)
Emma sounds like a peony to me, somehow…not the tallest of flowers but very plumy, poofy, and bouncy. Laurel could be a sly reference to Augustus and his poetry (since it was sacred to Apollo). Lily might be too close to Blood Lily? Or (depending on where the plot goes) potentially misleading vis-à-vis Horace de Lilly?
I suppose it depends on whom the flower is meant to reference: heroine, hero, villain?
Love the excerpt–can’t wait for more!
I also like the mayflower idea. Very American, what with pilgrims and Plymouth and all…
Now I really am going to turn off the internet and get over to Rare Books, Eloise style…
While I was reading about Emma for some reason I started thinking about fruit. I don’t know, just felt like I needed to share.
Agreement with #7 –not a lily.
Disgruntlement with having to wait months to find out why Emma cares to inflict fourth rate (is it that good?) poetry on herself at a ball. Could that echo of Henry Higgins’s voice “It’s almost irresistible. She’s so deliciously low …” apply to Emma’s view of Augustus? Will Eloise be driven mad by forcing herself to read Whittlesby’s verse? Will Colin chuck her out for inflicting it on him? Oh, well …
I think the magnolia would be perfect
How about the astounding azalea? Or the adventurous aster? The honeyed hyacynth? The fortunate fressia? (very pretty flower)
I agree with Pam I think that the peony is a great match. Dahlia is also lovely, bold with beautiful folds, or how about a white foxglove.
Oh – I was going to suggest peony but I think Pam mentioned it first. When I think of French fabric prints – I often think of peonies. I also like the idea of the magnolia because I think of it as a very American flower (well, technically a very Southern flower, but America non-the-less)
isn’t moonflower reserved for jack’s story? 🙂 also, what about narcissus? it has white varieties and the bulbs are poisonous and can mistaken as onions-someone usually ends up dying- and the plant is native to europe, but was popular here in the colonies, especially in the south.
I suggest a mignonette. It’s small, like Emma, and fragrant. It’s also a very French flower; Empress Josephine loved it and it’s still grown in windowboxes there.
A white camellia is lovely….
Narcissus/daffodils are perfect! They’re slender but dynamic and the way they move in the wind reminds of Emma’s headdress….Also, narcissus have a poetic element(Augustus!) with their root in Greek mythology and could (ironically of course) refer to his self importance as a “suffering artist” 🙂
Please don’t use lily! Even though the blood lily is a totally different color, it still makes the book sound like it’s a
sequel to The Betrayal of the Blood Lily.
I’m not really literate in the language of flowers, so thought I’d troll the internet for suggestions. Many have already been mentioned like the peony, azalea, and magnolia. What about honeysuckle or the violet? There’s the forget-me-not, iris, and something called the nodding ladies tresses. I’m not kidding! That’s a real flower.
Nooooooo Lily!
There already was a lily, plus lilies represent purity.
I was going to pick Daffodil.
Crocus (in season)
Lilac
Dogwood
Iris
I like Robyn’s idea with fruit.
apple blossom’s
or orange blossom’s
now I have been waiting for this for a while and thinking about it. I know you just want a flower, but I have ideas about the rest of title.
I like the daisy or magnolia idea.
I would have to put my lot in with Apple Blossom or Magnolia or Dogwood. Definitely not Lily as everyone has mentioned its already been used.
Ooh. I love dogwood or magnolia or moonflower or even white gladioli…
I think the Lily would be confusing.
I agree, please, please, please don’t use Lily! I also like the idea of using magnolia or daisy.
Magnolia, dahlia, peony, or daffodil are all great ideas! I agree with everyone else that lily is too similar to blood lily.
Chamomile
I love the idea of Mayflower, since Emma is from America…kind of a double meaning. Perfect.
I love the idea of the mayflower or magnolia, but the peony or a narcissus could be characteristically true too. 🙂
For the scent I have to recommend tuberose. Yummy.
This teaser makes me so excited for the book! I loooove Augustus and am so looking forward to his story 🙂
There are a lot of great flowers suggested, my favorite suggestions so far are laurel, magnolia, and gardenia.
I would also suggest a white aster. they are small but they stand out.
I like the mayflower idea. When I read this snippet, in all honesty, I thought Augustus’ opinion of Emma was similar to how someone would feel towards weeds. Weeds are stubborn, ostentatious in their growth (meaning everywhere), but they do have pretty dainty flowers. Unfortunately, most weeds with white flowers have the most atrocious names usually pertaining to barn animals. The ones I could find with a decent name are a yarrow and a daisy. Thanks for the teaser! I’m looking forward to your next book!
I like the idea of “Mayflower” as well!
For something a little different, how about Gladiolus or Agapanthus? Both grow on stalks reminiscent of plumes, come in white varieties, and Gladiolus stands for strength of character, faithfulness and honor, while Agapanthus signifies “Love Letters”… LOL
My vote is for Azalea. But mayflower makes sense.
Definitely NO to the Lily.
My vote would be for paperwhite–they are small dainty flowers that come out in early spring. My other thought would be for a camellia.
I second the motion for Iris- they are usually very exotic and flamboyant in their plummage. A title could be something like “The Serenade of the Flaming Iris” or some other adjective…
I dont like Lily, because Blood Lily was already used once…
I am loving this book already! Can’t wait to read about these characters 🙂
From reading this, my suggestions would be: orange blossom, camellia, apple blossom, camellia, jonquil, and snapdragon.
Laural i also like for hidden meanings. i love thing with double messages! Mayflower is also good in this respect. What about Foxglove or Honeysuckle
if anyone has mentioned these I didn’t mean to steal 🙂
Bellflower
Foxglove
Hollyhock
Hyacinth
golden poppy- which ironically means dormant affection
Happy Flower Picking 🙂
Since Emma was from New England and I’ve only been to the South and Midwest, I don’t know what grows up there in your part of the country. The daisy came to mind first because it doesn’t seem as refined, delicate or “pure” as some flowers, and stands out as a bright and accessible sort of flower. I also thought of the gardenia because it is just so lovely and smells so good, but I tend to identify it more with the south, similar to the magnolia. The daffodil might be a good choice similarly to the daisy. I thought of queen anne’s lace since it is a wild flower and also the peony but tend to consider them to be more traditional and romantic. Emma seems like she might have much more “contemporary” and stand out taste. I love the forget me not. Even the name is charming, but it would need the right character and story.
One more… how about a white SNAPDRAGON? A website said it meant “Deception,and Gracious Lady.” The name of the flower also reminds me of the banter between Emma and Augustus. Hmm…
Daffodil just sounds fun, like the banter between Aug & Emma.
I also like Blossom on its own, or a fruit is good too.
Some of the more unusual flowers are very pretty, but may not work for a book title. (just a thought)
I also vote ‘no’ on lily.
Love the excerpt!
Magnolia
Daisy
Nightshade
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned this, but what about the white violet? I believe that it is native to the eastern United States and Canada 🙂
I love the idea of using a flower that is native to America, but popular to Euro gardeners at that time. What about a dogwood? The name isn’t romantic, but it’s a lovely tree, one of my favorites. Alternatively, using a friuting tree flower is also a great idea.
What about a Sunflower? Both Emma and the flower are rather ostentatious. Emma has straw-coloured hair; Sunflowers are yellow. Most importantly, both are bright, cheery, and tend to overshadow the rest of the flowers in the garden with their showy head of petals.
Mmmm. I would have to say the white camiella or a white daisy.
I root for Daisy or Queen Anne’s Lace (weed)
Ooooh, I’m really excited! I can’t wait! =)
Gardinia I like all of the other ideas as well. Lilly has been used to I’m not so sure about that one.
What about Cherry Blossom – no real symbolic meaning toward the story but they are beautiful when in full bloom and the ones in DC are white.
I also like magnolia.
Magnolia. Definitely. 🙂
What about a white lilac? Someone mentioned that Emma’s a New Englander (as am I), and when I think of home I think of lilacs. They’re pretty, a little frilly, and have a lovely, distinctive scent.
I think a white oleander would be a good flower to use, since you have already done a book with lily as the flower
I like Magnolia. Magnolia flowers are tough little flowers. They can endure quite a lot. Plus the flower was named after a French botanist!
I would go with the Lotus. From the way you’ve described Emma at the beginning of this post (wearing lots of white), this flower just seemed to fit. I even found this quote about the lotus:
“I love the lotus because while growing from mud, it is unstained.”
I love the magnolia or gardenia-both are American. Also, both seem to be fragile but pack a punch.
Morning Glories, they come out once a day as this beautiful small flower and are hidden the rest of time looking like a weedy vine.
I vote for Mayflower! I searched for pictures, and they look small (like Emmma), but bold and tough with big, evergreen leaves (Emma doesn’t seem like she would be easily daunted and the big leaves remind me of her feathers). Also, the American connection would be perfect.
PS When is Jane going to get her own book??????? Not that I want the series to end, of course.
Since I live in Mississippi, the magnolia…but I am more partial to stephanotis.
I think the Trillium would be fitting. Emma seems bubbly and vibrant, yet small and delicate, just like the flower.
Plus, I am fond of the title(s):
The Tantalizing Trillium
Or
The Trial of the Trillium!
I like iris and magnolia, cammelia is pretty good too. I am also partial to Rachael’s idea of trillium. (We have a lot of trilliums where I live, and they are so lovely!)
Please don’t use Lily! Imagination is everything, and one needs variety. 🙂
I’m liking mayflower,but I’m not sold on it. Definitely not lily. There’s no such thing as a “loud flower” is there?
Forgive me, but I have to get off-topic for a minute. When does the new book take place? Was Byron famous at the time? Sorry to be “that guy,” but the line stopped me in my tracks. Looks interesting nonetheless!
Agh, Amber, thank you!! I’d meant to take that out. I think Byron was still at Harrow in 1804– or, at any rate, not brooding publicly quite yet. Thanks for catching that for me!
I don’t think the lily is appropriate, because it represents purity and is the most common symbol of the Virgin Mary, and Emma has been described as being a bit sexy.
The peony is nice. I don’t think you should make it magnolia – if you ever had a Southern American character, or had one in New Orleans (hint from Orchid Affair??) then you should reserve it for that book.
There’s also the snapdragon. Or Queen Anne’s Lace – quite a mouthful but it grows in abundance in the north.
Or you could go with a non-flower a la “emerald ring”
I do also like Mayflower
[…] can read a bit of Chapter One of The Garden Intrigue here (and my favorite outtake […]
I love Mignonette! And Morning Glory. And Foxglove. And Hyacinth. NO lily.
[…] you haven’t seen it already, you can read a bit of the first chapter of The Garden Intrigue here. More coming up […]
I love the idea of a moonflower but that is bccause i adore moonflowers and grow them every year. I am a little suprised that no one suggested a white rose. Partially in reference to the Josephine’s rose garden and partial because white roses often symbolize secrecy and silence (?). There is a language or code to where and how roses are worn or presented.
White rose would work, too, Lauren. The rose was designated the official flower and floral emblem of the USA in 1986. But I also like the mayflower, too. Definitely no lily.
How about white nockout rose? they really stand out like emma dose. And thanks for creating another heroine who’s heavy on the accessories, reading about Jane’s simple attire gets kinda dull.
[…] can find a bit of Chapter One here. Cover coming […]