70,000 words and the villain's revealing himself...

I reached the 70,000 word mark today and am nearing the pivotal moment.  As if by stealth, the villain (I still don't like that word) has slowly begun to show himself.  I am a little worried by this, any publications I have read about writing romantic suspense all say that a villain should either be revealed right from the very beginning thus giving the reader the suspenseful journey of watching the hero and heroine discover.

The other option is to not reveal until the end and hope that your reader doesn't  discover it until it is right upon them.  Throw in a red herring or two and the reader gets a bumpy journey.




What are writers meant to do when the villain decides to drop a few clues of his own?  We're not talking mustache twirling baddie tying the heroine up to a railway track - but still, he's showing his 'other' side before I wanted him to.

I think I better watch out for him......