page14 (1/2)
George shrugged ‘People love to talk, especially here, where Heaven knows, there’s hardly much else to do If someone wants to pay a penny for brandy or soovern oodsus all a favour, I say’
‘Have you done , Mr Neville?’ Mr Anders inserted ‘Before ht of the coast What majesty there is in the sea! All the awesoile expanse of sail The whine of a wind in the ship’s rigging, the vibration of the hull as she hangs upon a crest, then plunges into the trough, a tiny toy at thedeep’
‘You make it sound wonderful!’ Althea breathed ‘How do the sails harness the wind?’
Amanda listened appreciatively as Mr Anders went on to answer her cousin’s question More wonderful than his descriptions, she thought, was the skilful way he’d steered the conversation away from the shoals of discord between her father and brother over the matter of free-traders…just as, she suddenly realised, he’d intervened to turn the tide when she and Althea appeared to be at loggerheads this
She didn’t think his intervention in either case was merely coincidental
No, he was perceptive, as he’d been when he’d sensed her reservations about his association with Althea And straight-forward, to ie her concern and discuss it with her
He was a good storyteller, too, she noted as he spun out his tale of sailing the blue-water ocean, from the icy Irish sea to the turquoise warmth of the Mediterranean off the African coast
His conduct when he wasn’t recounting sea stories was also just as it should be Unlike some of the parvenu lace ave the footht a theht have spent time as a common sailor, but it hadn’t led him to treat the servants with familiarity, as if he felt himself one of them
All further evidence he was exactly the gentle would lead one to expect So how had he ended up on the deck of a man-of-war?
Resting her curious gaze on hiht over his lips as he wove his tale What would it feel like to have that ainst hers?
Heavens, now he had her thinking of kissing again! Jerking her thoughts frohed in exasperation Given his disconcertingly strong pull over her senses, Mr Anders’s presence was a co her last feeeks at Ashton
How much easier it would have been had he proven to be a boor! Slurped his soup, dripped gravy on his cravat, gulped wine by the glassful so that by the end of thered-faced and stupid
Instead of looking as he did now, so regrettably handsoreen eyes that sparkled, inviting her to share some amusement He tempted her to share a friendship, to build upon the war sensual tension just below the words
But she ive in to that inclination Mr Anders was definitely not part of Marand plan, a fact she would reaze fro face, she stood to lead the ladies out of the dining room
As Amanda expected, her brother did not join the roo hi the necessity to rest after his first full day out of his chamber
Froe flashed into her ar li, that she’d soon be in London, all her efforts bent towards wedding and bedding, if a handsohts in that direction!
Before Anders left, Althea exacted his pro about the estate the next day—an invitation into which, to her cousin’s obvious displeasure, Aed to insinuate herself Althea looked as if she wished to protest, but as Papa ihter would be a pri on the estate, froirl could hardly object
Had her father recognised the need to provide her cousin with a chaperon? She wasn’t sure Papa even thought of his sister’s little girl as a young lady with a reputation to protect Alar as the idea was, she’d have to remind him