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Alice suppressed the desire to screw up her face and answer hirasped her fork tightly and stabbed at a piece of beef, spearing it onto the prongs Her argument would be lost immediately She had behaved badly on her own and his precautionary ood reason She clearly hadhim otherwise

Unfortunately, Ed Buxton, and her lack of worthy occupation, caused Alice to drift back to her old practices of thoughtlessness

After luncheon, she searched the bureau in the library and found patterns for samplers and a tapestry She requested threads and canvas for stitching and Pri into aseat, she began to fashion a red rose

She could hear dogs barking raucously outside and knew that Eda roo over to kiss her cheek, he spied her handiwork

“Pretty,” he commented “Where did you find the pattern, it looks familiar”

“In a drawer,” she confided She bit her lip “I haven’t been amiss?”

“They wereinto an armchair

Alice had heard little about his o “Please, would you tell me about her?” she asked sweetly

“Her painting is there on the wall” Edant if slightly delicate wo

Alice gazed up at the portrait “She is most beautiful,” she said truthfully

Edmund studied his feet rather than the portrait “She and my father were childhood sweethearts However, she didn’t take to being an aron train and preferred to abide here while my father toured abroad She had my sister, who died in infancy, and myself, and then my father died in the Caribbean Her heart broke and in her weakened state, she succumbed to consumption”

“I am sorry, Edmund” Alice put down her needlework “To lose both of your parents at a young age is tragic”

Edmund waved a dismissive hand at her e Ensured I went to school and then to officer training He said he could see my father in me”

“How did your father and mine become friends?”

“Your grandfather, Henry’s father, married the sister of one of the housekeeper’s here Henry would coh of different classes, Henry had been well educated and he took an interest in the engineering books in our library here My father stuck to thetwo boys ih, they made some mischief about the house”