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"You seem more starchy today"

"This is the way I always a, Your Grace?"

"Don’t Your Grace rew, and waxed strong in spirit," she said, starting to read again "He was filled isdorace of God was upon him"

But she didn’t think about the words she was reading; she thought about the way Villiers’s skin was drawn so tightly over his cheekbones He was dying She knew it in the pit of her sto so prudish with him, when she could tell that it ain After a bit he opened his eyes--he really did have the longest eyelashes--and said, "Well, do keep going"

"I thought you’d heard enough"

"I want to kno the story ends" And then he started laughing at the expression on her face

"You ought to drink the rest of your water"

He picked up the glass and she cudgeled her brains for so to say that would make the spark come back into his eyes "Why did you want to fly?" she asked

"Who wouldn’t? To have wings at your back, and the sky at your mercy…to drift on the belly of the wind the way hawks do, and perch on a tree to chatter to friends I am persuaded that conversations that take place on the branches of a tree are farthan those that take place in London town houses"

"That’s lovely!"

"You ," he said "There’s not a true Englishman in the world who hasn’t wished that he won the bean in his slice of cake and beca of the Bean, or wished that his horrid little sister would lose at snapdragon, and perhaps even singe a finger on a burning raisin"

Charlotte thought of less answers and then said the truth "I never wished for much until I turned sixteen"

He raised his heavy eyes "You fell in love?"

"No I just wanted a man to fall in love with me I was sure I could adapt my emotions to whomever presented himself"

"Poor Charlotte," he said, and his voice sounded less bored She was right; he needed to think of someone other than himself "Did no ht one did, once Lord Barnabe Reeve"

"Reeve was the Barnabe who brought you to my side? I never knew his first na once," she said "I thought…but he left London within days and went mad, or so they say"

"I hate to dispel your sweet memories of first love, but in my view it’s better to have no spouse than one who’s cracked And I know ree withstrangely still The sight of theht After a while I stopped wishing for someone to fall in love with h to ht fall in love with"

He smiled faintly "You’re not an antidote Particularly when you flare up and snap at ine that’s what Elijah sees in you"

"Elijah?"

"Duke of Beaumont I suppose I could marry you"

She looked at hi, but how to say so?

"Dying, dying, dying, how it gets in the way of htly "To be but half-dead is as bad as being half-witted, like Reeve Neither ood consort for a woman"

"You don’t want toherself "Besides, you’re far too high in the instep and grand for me to marry I wouldn’t have dared wish for you"

"I thought wos for one’s offspring"

"As you pointed out, I have no offspring," Charlotte pointed out "Why should I worry about their future titles under those circumstances?"

"I suppose this will shock you, but I was thinking last night that I should have bothered to create a few children, and then I remembered that I had already"

"You did?"

"Illegitimate ones," he said "As sometimes happens"

"Not to me," she said tartly