Moptop, I have taken many of your suggestions just as they are - and thank you.

Ones I am less sure about are...

---Quote---
She took another glance through the small panes of the window
---End Quote---


Does the window in the captain's cabin have a special nautical name? Sailing folk do stuff like that, after all; I’m sure sheepy would know! I believe the Captain’s cabin is also referred to as the State Room. Just general wonderings, really.

I toyed with the idea of using a more technical term, but delibrately avoided it. The problem with using such a term is that it means a lot to those who fully understand it, but little or nothing to those who don't. It was important to me that the read had the right impression of where she was.


---Quote---
As she sat at the table in her spacious captain’s cabin looking at the chart she had a private moment of doubt.
---End Quote---
chart, she

I had a comma there, but decided to take it out, since I thought the sentence still made sense and the comma made it rather jerky.



---Quote---
Her fingers ran over the rich cream silk of the dress she had brought for this moment.
---End Quote---
Did you mean brought (with her)? or bought?

Brought with her - saw it as something which she had packed in anticipation.


---Quote---
A knock on her cabin door and a line of sailors entered carrying pitchers of precious desalinated fresh water.
---End Quote---
I actually like this construct, but I think 'With a knock on her door' or some such would probably read better.

I would prefer to keep it, unless others agree with you. I was hoping to give a slight change of tempo.


---Quote---
the steam lifting the scent of the soap as she inhaled and felt wonderful.
---End Quote---
She felt wonderful? or the steam lifted and felt wonderful to her?

She felt wonderful. Come on - do you not sometimes feel as if you could just walk on air?


---Quote---
The light musky floral scent more reminiscent of an elegant dinner party than a captain’s cabin, she dabbed it on, replaced the stopper, took
---End Quote---
I know what you wanted to do but it would only work if the scent were not itself the object of the next bit, I think. I think you have to say the scent ‘was more reminiscent’ (and full stop after cabin).

Went through all sorts of hoops sorting this one out - one thing threw the other - but got there eventually!


---Quote---
A shadow passing beneath her boat showed it was rich in fish.
---End Quote---
Only one shadow for lots of fish?

Yes - a school of fish joins together to look like one shadow, although you can see them individually if you look harder.


---Quote---
The boat crunched over the pebbles and he leapt into the water carrying her shoes and pulled it as far as he could onto the shore.
---End Quote---
The objects are getting a bit mixed up. I think it would be easier to read if the shoes were separated out more, for example “The boat crunched over the pebbles and, carrying her shoes, he leapt into the water and pulled it as far as he could onto the shore.”


---Quote---
Lifting her skirts and gathering them up she climbed out into the clear warm water, swayed as she found her footing and then whispered to herself “Here be Dragons”. He knelt down to put her shoes on for her, they bid each other a formal farewell, and then with mixed emotions he took her into his arms and reminded her that she was her father’s daughter and wished her well.
---End Quote---
Well, I know it’s a story and he has already taken a certain liberty with her, but this doesn’t sound right for a crewman towards his captain. Just too familiar.

I can see your point - but he is also the link back to her youth, he is one of those who helped to bring her up, and I think at such a time he might well show affection. It stays unless it is beaten out of me.


---Quote---
yet there was a dark foreboding aura which hung around it.
---End Quote---
I think you could shorten this to ‘yet a dark, forbidding aura hung around it.’ Note – I’ve put forbidding not foreboding, because foreboding as a verb must take an object. The aura could forbode ill, or fill her with foreboding, but it can’t just forbode.

I don't like forbidding - it asks the question what does it forbid. Also...according to an online dictionary I have just checked, foreboding is either a noun or an adjective, it is not mention that it can be a verb. Definitions -
Noun 1. foreboding - a feeling of evil to come

2. foreboding - an unfavorable omen

Adj. 1. foreboding - of ominous significance


---Quote---
the semi circular steps to the door which appeared to be the main entrance. As she lifted her hand to knock on the great heavy door it creaked open revealing a panelled baronial hall,
---End Quote---
Replace first ‘door’ e.g. with gateway or similar?

‘creaked open, revealing

I prefer it without the comma - will see what others think. It breaks the flow, and I don't feel is needed. But then that could be because I know what is coming.


---Quote---
Around the fire were two high backed, winged leather arm chair.
---End Quote---
chairs.

Ohhhhh - picky aren't we!


---Quote---
Her muscles tensing and her palms sweating she breathed deeply to control her rising panic.
---End Quote---
sweating, she breathed deeply

Again I would prefer not to break up such a short sentence with a comma unless you think it has to be there to make sense.


---Quote---
“Well you are a sight for sore eyes” he said, chuckling to himself.
---End Quote---
“Well, you are a sight for sore eyes.” he said, chuckling to himself. (Would just ‘he chuckled’ sound better? Or is chuckling quite the right noise? I assume you want him still to be, well, imposing, even if he is putting her at her ease. Chuckling just seems a bit too jolly. Mind you, the only alternative I thought of was the long-winded, ‘laughing gently to himself in appreciation.’

I wanted to give the impression that he was completely at ease, in contrast to her. Also that he was just a little smug. Any ideas for a better word?


---Quote---
Whilst I can’t say you’re a surprise since I’ve been watching you
---End Quote---
Whilst I can’t say you’re a surprise, since I’ve been watching you

Again I would rather not break up a not very long phrase unless it is really needed. I tried saying this out loud - how I normally end up getting commas etc sorted, and I did not put one in.


---Quote---
Her curiousity grew, she did not know what she had been expecting, but it certainly was not such a gentile everyday greeting.
---End Quote---
Her curiousity grew. She did not know what she had been expecting, but it certainly was not such a gracious, everyday greeting.

Gentile is definitely not the right word!! And would it be both gracious and everyday?

Laughing - whoops think some other work I had been doing crept in here. How about genteel? And I would certainly hope that in all realms of life graciousness is everyday.


---Quote---
With that he waved his hand and she suddenly noticed a small table between the chairs with a couple of glass and a jug
---End Quote---
glasses

It was a collective glass????


---Quote---
“Oh yes” he replied with the wry smile, “well one dragon, one rather lonely dragon truth to be told.”
---End Quote---
“Oh, yes,” he replied, with the wry smile. “Well, one dragon; one rather lonely dragon, truth be told.”

Rejecting your comma after replied, since I think it makes the whole rather jerky.



---Quote---
His eyes cut her short. “You want?” he repeated with an emphasis on the want.
---End Quote---
I think the typography could do the emphasis for you here, “You want?” he repeated. And is he being stern, for example? Cold? Chilling?

I was taught that the use of typographical variations covered inadequate vocabulary or syntax. So it goes against the grain to use such things in something which has had at least some word smithing. The whole thing has been taken from school days - I can hear one of my teachers telling me 'wants don't get'. I have modified it though.


---Quote---
“And I would like you to sit next to me too”, he nodded.
---End Quote---
“And I would like you to sit next to me, too,” he nodded.

When I say this, I don't say a comma, infact a comma sounds wrong, even though I agree that logic says there could be one there.



---Quote---
She lifted her glass to her lips and sipped, and then drank, blushing when she suddenly realised that she had just drank best part of a large glass as though it were water.
---End Quote---
Sipped, then found she’d drunk most of it? How about sipped, was enraptured by its flavour or such, sipped and sipped again…

Well....my reasoning was - and I did think about this one - if a wine is really easy to drink, sometimes I can feel as if I have only taken a few sips, but then discover my glass is nearly empty. I have not drunk more knowingly, just that I have been subconsiously enjoying it whilst listening etc. Value your thoughts on this - other than I should take more care with drinking wine - grins.


---Quote---
As they ate she became intoxicated with the range of fresh and powerful flavours, her senses seeming to heighten the longer she was in the castle. Her senses and her emotions; as her plate emptied her attentions became even more focused on her strange host.
---End Quote---
The semi-colon seems to be in the wrong place here. It would make more sense as “the longer she was in the castle; her senses and her emotions. As her plate emptied…” But still – her senses and her emotions what?

Hmmmm, have changed the semi colon to a full stop. I know that makes a gramatically incorrect sentence, but I think it is justified.


---Quote---
Picture after picture formed in her mind as she listened, but fascinated as she was, her eyelids got increasingly heavy until in her dazed state it seemed the most natural of things to feel him to pick her up and carry her from of the dining room and along another corridor to a room which a had a large four poster bed in the middle of it.
---End Quote---
Woo! Loooong sentence…

Get working on those breathing exercises then you will be able to make to the end. In the meantime have broken it up for those with small lung capacity.


---Quote---
which is actually just another world is closed to your people by a magic which was created when the worlds divided.
---End Quote---
world that is closed, I think


---Quote---
Those cries would not be enough to more than dent the portal. You have my word that although you will feel pain which is sometimes far beyond your imagination you will not suffer any long term damage.”
---End Quote---
I can’t believe I’m actually accepting a split infinitive… maybe someone else won’t. No, no I can’t – ‘to do more than’ gets round it.

It is narrative....lets see......


---Quote---
her hand and helped her to feet, and helped her into a soft robe
---End Quote---
and helped… and helped

He's helpful! But made him less so - just for you.


---Quote---
It looked as if it should have creaked as he opened it, but it swung effortlessly revealing a wide torch lit staircase curving downwards.
---End Quote---
effortlessly, revealing


---Quote---
At the bottom of the stairs was an iron bar gate through which she could see what she instinctively knew to be a dungeon.
---End Quote---
iron bar gate, through

Once again, I can see your logic, but I am not sure that it is needed, and I feel too many commas, if not needed for comprehension break the flow. Will be interested to see what others think.


---Quote---
It was not damp, it was also lit by torches, and heavy with equipment the uses of which she tried not to think about.
---End Quote---
Why ‘also lit’? And… can she really see it is heavy with equipment at this stage? Would it not just be ominous with dark shapes she can’t quite make out yet? (or is that just the way I’d like it to be!!)

Because the passage way she has just come along was also lit in the same way, therefore the light levels are similiar, therefore she can see. Phew - got round that one!

Now I have to go and do housework! How boring... would much rather carry on doing this...

Housework - wash your mouth out with soap and water. And another big thank you. Huuuugs. C
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