There was a very slight lilt to it, too, attesting to a childhood spent far from Lincolnshire, and Grace felt herself sway, as if she could fall forward, lightly, softly, and land somewhere else. Far, far from here.
Julia QuinnMots clés fainting
Your talents are for pointing guns and removing necklaces off ladies' necks?'
'I charm the necklaces off their necks ... Kindly make the distinction.'
'Oh, please.'
'I charmed you.'
She was all indignation. 'You did not.'
'Recall the night in question, Miss Eversleigh. The moonlight, the soft wind.'
'There was no wind.'
'You're spoiling my memory,' he growled.
'There was no wind,' she stated. 'You are romanticizing the encounter.'
'Can you blame me? he returned, smiling at her wickedly. 'I never know who is going to step through the carriage door. Most of the time I get a wheezy old badger.
She should have been relieved that she did not do something she was sure to regret. But she wasn't. She wanted her regrets. She wanted them desperately. She wanted to do something she knew she should not, and she wanted to lie in bed at night letting the memory keep her warm.
Julia QuinnArt,' she said.
'My second favorite subject.'
She gave him a shrewd look. 'You wish for me to ask you what your favorite is.'
'Am I so obvious?'
'You are only obvious when you wish to be.'
'And alas, it still doesn't work. You have not asked me what my favorite subject is.'
'Because,' she returned, sitting down, 'I am quite certain the answer will contain something highly inappropriate.'
He placed one hand on his chest, the dramatic gesture somehow restoring his equilibrium. It was easier to play the jester. No one expected as much from fools. 'I am wounded,' he proclaimed. 'I promise you, I was not going to say that my favorite subject was seduction, or the art of a kiss, or the proper way to remove a lady's glove, or for that matter the proper way to remove - '
'Stop!
The trip to Ireland...' her father was saying.
'Is to determine his legitimacy,' Wyndham confirmed. And then, with a morbidly jolly expression, he continued, 'It's going to be quite a party. Even my grandmother is going.
Wyndham was a bore, in his humble opinion, but everything he did, every last decision and action - they were for others. It was all for Wyndham - the heritage, not the person. It was impossible not to respect such a man.
But this was different. The duke wasn't standing up for his people, he was standing up for one person. It was a far more difficult thing to do.
I hate maps.'
'Really?' She sounded stunned, and maybe just a little bit delighted by his admission. 'Why?'
He told her the truth. 'I haven't the talent for reading them.'
'And you, a highwayman.'
'What has that to do with it?'
'Don't you need to know where you're going?'
'Not nearly so much as I need to know where I've been ... There are certain areas of the country - possibly all of Kent, to be honest - it is best that I avoid.'
'This is one of those moments,' she said, blinking several times in rapid succession, 'when I am not quite certain if you are being serious.'
'Oh, very much so,' he told her, almost cheerfully. 'Except perhaps for the bit about Kent ... I might have been understating.'
'Understating,' she echoed.
'There's a reason I avoid the South.'
'Good heavens.
He still had dreams about it. Certainly not nightmares - it could not be worth the energy. But every month or so he woke up from one of those annoying visions where he was back at school (rather absurdly at his current age of eight-and-twenty). It was always of a similar nature. He looked down at his schedule and suddenly realized he'd forgotten to attend Latin class for an entire term. Or arrived for an exam without his trousers.
Julia QuinnThe weather is fine,' she said after a moment.
'Have we already run out of things to say?'
His voice was light and teasing, and when she turned to steal a glance at his face, he was looking straight ahead, a small, secret smile touching his lips.
'The weather is very fine,' she amended.
His smile deepened. So did hers.
Mots clés small-talk
We're not doing maths again?' Harriet lamented.
Lord Winstead looked at Anne with unconcealed curiosity. 'Mathematics? On Rotten Row?'
'We have been studying measurement,' she informed him. 'They have already measured the average length of their strides. Now they will count their steps and compute the length of the path.'
'Very nice,' he said approvingly. 'And it keeps them busy and quiet as they count.'
'You have not heard them count,' Anne told him.
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