[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.When he’d been beside her in his office he’d been unable to keep himself from touching her.As he’d expected, her shape had been augmented by stuffing, but not totally.Above the wad of cloth dwelt a breast, round and sensitive, and he’d liked its shape.Finding it had ignited his curiosity, and now he wondered what other mysteries his fiancée concealed.His own curiosity had brought him too many sleepless nights.Mimicking his thoughts, although she didn’t realize it, she said, “You’ve fulfilled a great curiosity of mine.”“In what way?”“I had read about Midsummer Night and the Irish celebrations in the Gaelic manuscript I was translating, and—”“Translating?” He recalled the tale Northrup had told him.“You mean reading.”Her hand flew to her mouth, her gaze to his face.She looked the picture of guilt, and she agreed, “Reading! I meant reading.”She lied.There was no doubt.He’d questioned enough cabin boys and seamen to know shame when he saw it.Lesser men than he could decipher her gestures, but what did it mean? Surely his little noblewoman couldn’t read Gaelic.Elaborately casual, he asked, “Where were you reading such a thing?”“In Ireland,” she answered.“Look at the stars.They’re big and bright, without a cloud to hide them.”Trying to distract him, and none too cleverly, he diagnosed, “That’s right, you lived in Ireland as a child.That’s one island I’ve never visited.”With the mood swing of the tipsy, she twirled around, laughing.“You should go.It’s the most beautiful place on earth.”Without exerting his imagination, he could imagine the urchin she had been.“Did you run free during your time there?”“No.No, no.” She shook her head so hard that her wig slipped, and a bit of moonlight gleamed close by her hairline.“We had a governess, a Miss O’Donnell.In that lovely brogue of hers, she called herself a distressed noblewoman and made it sound like an honor.Da paid her to teach us, and teach us she did.”Homing in on the information he sought, he put a foot upon a boulder and propped his arm against his knee in a nonchalant gesture.“What did she teach you?”“Everything.I thought my head would burst before she was done stuffing it.”“Embroidery? Harp? Deportment?”“Miss O’Donnell? Not at all.Well, deportment,” she allowed.“Miss O’Donnell believed in deportment.But mathematics, languages, history mostly.”“Languages?” He slid her a keen glance, but she had turned her face into the breeze and didn’t see it.“Is that where you learned to read Gaelic?”“No, that’s where I learned to read Latin,” she corrected, not suspecting how she betrayed herself.“The manuscripts were at the convent where we—Olivia and I—went to learn harp and embroidery.I found one old manuscript written in both Latin and Gaelic.I’d heard the peasants speak Gaelic, of course, but this wasn’t the same kind of Gaelic.This was”—she struggled to define it—“archaic.I would have never battled through, but the text was interesting.”“About Midsummer Night?”“About Druids, bards, and a world long vanished.” Solemn, she shook her head.“Gaelic is difficult.”“What did Miss O’Donnell think of such a thing?”“She’d had brothers, you see, and learned everything they’d learned.But she said if I were to get an education, I’d have to do it myself.She said as soon as I came to England, all I’d learn is how to dance and simper and use a fan.” She drooped.“She was right.”He wrapped his arm around her waist and started them back down the hill.“Is that such a dreadful thing?”His touch seemed to wake her to her circumstances, and she tensed.“Not at all,” she said.She sounded silly and feminine, but her own natural intelligence made it a parody.Tomorrow he would worry about it, about her intelligence and how it clashed with his own needs.For now, satisfaction struggled for dominance.Another bit of the mystery surrounding this Edana changeling had been solved.At the inn, Gilda greeted Bronwyn with another tankard of ale.“Havin’ a good time, m’lady?”“Marvelous.” Bronwyn sipped the rich brew and queried, “Have you got a room where I can repair a little of the damage this good time is inflicting?”“A’ course.Give way fer m’lady.Don’t crowd m’lady.” Gilda pushed through the throng of curious, thirsty revelers to an upper-level hall
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]