Treadmill Goals/Tracking

• Get on the treadmill (or equivalent exercise) daily
• Pace is fine at 30 min/mile, although I may up it on occasion
• Time range between 30 minutes and 1 hour per day
• Distance 1-2 miles per day
• Read the chosen book, which I won’t allow myself to read outside of my treadmill time, hopefully motivating me to reach or exceed the above goals (exception…at the end of the week where a book is highlighted, I will finish it off-treadmill so I can feature something new the next week)

Week 122: March 24, 2019 – March 30, 2019

DAY	PACE	TIME	DISTANCE
Sunday	30 min/mile	30:05 min:sec	1 mile
Monday	30 min/mile	30:33 min:sec	1 mile
Tuesday	30 min/mile	32:30 min:sec	1 mile
Wednesday	30 min/mile	31:28 min:sec	1 mile
Thursday	30 min/mile	31:03 min:sec	1 mile
Friday	30 min/mile	30:09 min:sec	1 mile
Saturday	30 min/mile	30:33 min:sec	1 mile

What I’m Reading

Note: Although I will try to avoid them, my weekly reading snippets may or may not contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

What I #amreading: Eleventh Hour (The Carstairs Affairs book 1) by Elin Gregory … in which a new-to-me author moves directly onto my very short auto-buy list.

Borrowed from the Secret Intelligence Service cipher department to assist Briers Allerdale – a field agent returning to 1920s London with news of a dangerous anarchist plot – Miles Siward moves into a ‘couples only’ boarding house, posing as Allerdale’s ‘wife’. Miles relishes the opportunity to allow his alter ego, Millie, to spread her wings but if Miles wants the other agent’s respect he can never betray how much he enjoys being Millie nor how attractive he finds Allerdale.

Pursuing a ruthless enemy who wants to throw Europe back into the horrors of the Great War, Briers and Miles are helped and hindered by nosy landladies, water board officials, suave gentlemen representing foreign powers and their own increasing attraction to each other.

Will they catch their quarry? Will they find love? Could they hope for both?

The clock is ticking.

Amazon US | Amazon UK | B&N | Kobo

My favorite lines this week…

✿✿ SUNDAY ✿✿

“There.” Throckmorton gave the skirt’s hem a final tweak and got up. “What do you think?”

Miles tilted his head and studied his reflection. He—she—Millie looked good. Smart. Miles adjusted one of his spit curls and let out a long calming breath. He deliberately lowered his shoulders and felt the first easing of tension as he began to relax into the role. The excitement would come later.

✿✿ MONDAY ✿✿

Miles consulted the map. “Ah, I think we need to turn left here.

“Are you sure?” Allerdale—Brian—asked.

“What do you mean? Of course I’m sure.” Miles shot him an exasperated glare that turned into a scowl when Allerdale chuckled. “I’m not going to play one of those fluffy dimwits who can’t read road maps,” Miles informed him. “The way I see it, Brian Carstairs can’t have married Millie for her good looks, so it must be her intellect.”

“Maybe you’re really good in bed?” Allerdale suggested as he made the turn.

Miles felt his cheeks heat. “That was uncalled for.” He folded the map with a snap and tucked it into his bag.

✿✿ TUESDAY ✿✿

Miles snored. It was nothing untoward, just gentle snuffles, interrupted by the occasional sigh, but Briers had to restrain himself from throwing a boot at his head. After their dinner, which was as uninspiring as Briers had feared boarding house fare might be, Miles had undressed inside his flannel nightgown and had hone to bed on the chaise long, the epitome of chastity. It was just as well—Briers couldn’t afford complications, not with his job—but if Miles had deigned to share the bed, at least Briers could have relieved his feelings and stopped the snoring by elbowing him sharply in the back.

✿✿ WEDNESDAY ✿✿

Several times, Miles’ terse warning came back to him—“Just because I’m good at it, doesn’t mean I enjoy it”—but Briers wondered how true the assertion had been. Miles did seem to take a nervous satisfaction in the playacting, but his care and attention to his appearance seemed to Briers to be more than caution. As the layers were applied—padding, lace, beautifully-cut clothing, hosiery, the soft hairstyle that curled around his ears, and finally the merest hint of lip rouge—so Miles’ natural diffidence faded to be replaced by Millie Carstairs’ sharp-tongued and witty self-possession. Small, delicate, unimpressive Miles Siward was a pale shadow of Amazonian Millie, and the more Briers saw of them, the more he felt Miles was really enjoying the freedom.

✿✿ THURSDAY ✿✿

“So…” Allerdale murmured.

An innocuous word, said with a slight rising inflection that could easily be the prefix to an equally innocent sentence. Just a word that, to those not in the know, would mean nothing but to the initiate posed a question that begged an answer.

“Well, yes, as it happens. And you?”

“Christ, yes.” Allerdale tilted his head again feeling for Miles’ mouth. The man was a judgmental menace, but by God he could kiss. They kissed until Miles was dizzy and his hands had found a warm place under Allerdale’s clothes, his palms flat against the smooth skin above Allerdale’s arse.

✿✿ FRIDAY ✿✿

It was a pleasant evening. They joined the Joneses for a hand or two of whist while a concert played on the radio. Mrs Jones was very attentive to Miles until it seemed she was sure Miles and Briers were happy together. Briers wondered at her cautions support and the reason for it. Maybe that too was a female thing. He’d heard enough of his colleagues discussing their women but generally only to complain or in more basic carnal terms. Perhaps women discussed their men in much the same fashion, though presumably not in similar language? He couldn’t imagine a woman as politely spoken as Mrs Jones complaining her husband was overly partial to a knee t rambler against the kitchen door, but he supposed one never knew.

✿✿ SATURDAY ✿✿

“that’s the ticket.” Briers grinned and took himself off to work. Miles was showing a resilience Briers was sure would surprise the office boys he normally mixed with.

He said as much to Naylor when he checked in during the afternoon. “Be prepared for problems getting him back into the cipher division,” he said. “Blood will out and for all he’s a half pint, he’s Siward to the core.”