JANE ARDEN IN WESTERN GARB FROM JANUARY 7, 1934

Here we have our friend Jane dressed as a cowgirl.

1/7/1934

Converted to black and white

I do have the paper doll that follows this one and will post her in 7 days. 

I haven't mentioned any books I've been reading of late, just wanted to keep the posting swift and up to date.  I'm reading a book now entitled THE KNIGHT'S BRIDE by Lyn Stone, it is the first in the Trouville Trilogy. The book takes place in 1314 during Robert the Bruce's fight for the
scottish throne.  It is about a knight, Alan Strode, who answers his friends dying wish that he take care of his "bonny" bride Honor, with whom he fell in love with. Honor, on her part, though she cared for Tavish, didn't love him as she should have. In fact she'd used him to get away from her father and an unwanted betrothal to a man she despised and feared, although she made Tavish think that the marriage was sanctioned by her father. She actually forged the marriage papers and lied to him. So far I'm disenchanted with the heroine of this novel. She wants to manipulate Alan, to control him like she did Tavish. So far Alan has unintentionally thwarted her at every turn. He on the other hand has fallen under Honor's spell. He adores her little knowing that she wants to control him so she can have some semblance of freedom.  He's never given her a moment in which to think he is anything like her father, who abused her by locking her away and beating her from time to time, and yet she still wants to have him at her beck and call to do her will.. 

Honestly, the woman annoys the heck out of me. From not wanting Alan to touch her or have any relations with her at all, to trying to entice him to make their marriage "real", she's sending the poor man mixed messages. He figures she is still in love with her first husband, when it is the opposite. She figures that if she allows him access to her and his husbandly rights, she will have more control over him. Alan is not stupid just blinded by her beauty and wanting to be worthy of her by changing his speech (like all scotsman he has that lovely brogue) and even changing his

CIRCA 1440

way of dressing and wearing the garb of an Englishman who'd left his clothes behind after the battle of Bannockburn (where Tavish sustained his mortal wound).  Honor wants him to go back to being a "savage" highlander while Alan is determined to be more of a refined knight and worthy of her. Personally she isn't worthy of him. She's manipulative and tries to use her looks to get what she wants. I mean Alan has taken on the rearing of Tavish's daughter, which he didn't have to do. In fact he loves little Christiana as if the little babe where is own. What more can a woman ask for? At any rate, I suppose I can understand why she's the way she is given the time period she lives in where pretty much all women were considered property rather than a person within themselves with thoughts, feelings and ideas all their own.  I'm at the part in the book where Honor's father has just shown up and demanded that she be returned to him, to which Alan has refused. Seeing as her father has brought an army with him, she's afraid that he'll overcome Alan's meager forces and she'll be forced to wed the man she ran from. Alan has sent a message to his estranged father (who he hasn't seen since he was 7 and he's in his twenties now) for help but has yet to receive a reply
I have to purchase the other books in the series but at least I started with the first one. There are actually five books that have characters that are related in one way or another to each other. I found out about the fourth and fifth books, THE QUEST and MY LADY'S CHOICE, when I was looking up the synopsis for the second book in the series, BRIDE OF TROUVILLE. 

                               ALOHA!!