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"We spend a great deal of our tihtfully

Manners were certainly not Lisette’s strong suit, but Eleanor kept her mouth shut

Squire Thestle was a tall, thin man who had powdered his hair so heavily that little snowfalls kept drifting to his shoulders and then sliding, as if down a mountain slope, to the floor He had melancholy eyes that reminded Eleanor of Oyster after a bout of incontinence and a scolding His as even taller than he, and certainly broader in the shoulders

Strangely enough, these homely parents had produced a remarkably beautiful son With a brilliant smile, Lisette introduced Eleanor to Sir Roland "Lady Eleanor, I know that you will be so pleased to meet Roland Or Roly-Poly, as we used to call him Roly, will you escort Lady Eleanor to her seat, please?"

Sir Roland clearly didn’t care to be reminded of this nickname; he looked at Lisette with the respectful dislike one reserves for a veno She was starting to remember just how much she used to dread her annual summer visits to Knole House, before Lisette’s mother died and their families drifted apart

By fivemuch better Roland didn’t look at her with cool eyes thatat her Lisette had been right about his Root to add how handsome a nose like that could be when it was paired with a deep lower lip and a strong chin A Grecian chin, didn’t she say?

Whatever kind of chin it was, she liked it And Roland apparently liked her as well They found so reeable subjects of conversation that she had to remind herself to turn now and then and ask the squire a fewin the church steeple

The ad "I’ now

"I find Al the fact that she was there every Wednesday last season No one who’d seen her in April would recognize her now "So tedious…All the same people, and everyone on his best behavior"

"I know just what youat her a little shyly He had nice eyelashes Not as thick as Villiers’s, she noticed, but long and curling "How do you like to entertain yourself, Lady Eleanor?" He caught himself and actually turned a little pink "I certainly didn’t mean that in an improper manner"

Anne answered him from across the table, which was a breach of etiquette, but it was that sort of dinner party "Eleanor does what every wolance at Eleanor and she could see laughter in his eyes Anne was definitely the worse for all that rune Popper see was to float all the unwanted guests in a sea of bubbles

"And what is that?" Roland asked, looking adorably interested

Eleanor smiled at him He was as fresh and sweet as an early peach For all he er He looked like someone as ready to fall in love

"We watch men, of course," Anne said with a tiny, ladylike hiccup "Men are endlessly a"

Eleanor had discovered that if she leaned toward Roland, his eyes slid down to her breasts as if he couldn’t stop himself And when he looked back up at her face, there was so in the depths of his eyes that ine why you aren’this voice below the huled for aabout dukes, she sounded like a snobbish fool On the other hand, if she aded to Villiers, she would have to stop flirting Rather than decide, or dissemble, she turned the topic back to Roland "What do you do for recreation, sir?"

"I write Day and night, I write poetry" He ain, steadily "I feel as if we shall definitely meet many times in our lives, Lady Eleanor"

Her heart skipped a beat at the pure intensity in his gaze "Ah--I hope so"