“Good morning, Lord Elmwood. How are you today?” she asked as soon as she saw him standing near the window. “I’m sorry to report that Mama has taken ill this morning and sends her regrets that she cannot attend the lesson.”
David bowed to her. “Good morning, my lady. Best wishes for your mother’s recovery.” There was an awkward pause that he felt obligated to fill so he added, “I see you have more flowers.” He immediately wanted to kick himself for the comment. Not only was it obvious, it was clumsy. Couldn’t he find something better to say? He should have told her how beautiful she looked. How she made the rest of the space fade into a blur when she stepped into the room. How the scent of her perfume put the fragrance of the flowers to shame. Damn. What was becoming of him? Was he in danger of waxing poetic? He sincerely hoped not. Army men were not poetic.
“Yes, well, gentlemen can be so predictable,” she replied with a sigh, waving her hand toward the foyer filled with flowers.
He arched a brow. “I take it you don’t prefer flowers?”
“Flowers are lovely,” she replied, with another noncommittal wave of her hand. “They’re just…predictable. Mama said that Father practically bought a conservatory for her every day the first sennight they were courting.”
“Yes, your mother mentioned they married quickly. I suppose she was impressed with the flowers.”
“She was,” Annabelle replied in a monotone voice. “Little substance though they held.”
“It sounds as if it will take more than some flowers to impress you,” he prodded.
Annabelle shook her head. She was staring unseeing at the far wall. She swallowed hard. “Much more. Flowers and gifts are merely distractions. A man’s character is what’s truly important.”
Well,thatwas interesting. “Tell me.” He stepped closer to her, intent on finding out what a lady like her would prefer to a vase full of predictable flowers. “What would you rather receive?”
She stepped in a small circle contemplating the question before turning to him and saying, “A book perhaps. One the gentleman picked out because he had asked me what sort of books I prefer to read. One he saw in a bookshop while browsing and it made him think of me.”
“You like to read?” Reading was one of David’s favorite things to do. So much more enjoyable than talking or exchanging pleasantries with strangers.
“Yes, do you?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face.
“Indeed, I do.” He rubbed his chin. “I regretted that I could only fit one book in my rucksack on the Continent.”
She clasped her hands together. “Oh, do tell me, what was it?”
“In English you would call itThe Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, but I had the Spanish version.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of it.Don Quixote. A comedy, is it not?”
The hint of a smile touched his lips. “Marianne gave it to me. She said I would need something silly to cheer me on the battlefield. But I read it so many times, I must say my opinion of the book changed, more than once.”
“How so?” she asked, a truly interested look on her face.
“At first I thought it was a comedy, then I came to regard it as a tragic novel, because Quixote was considered mad and treated like a lunatic. But in the end, I found it to be life-changing.”
She continued to study his face. “How so?”
David took a deep breath. “The book saved my life, in more ways than one. Reading it kept me sane all those long, sleepless nights in the cold. I was fortunate enough to be in an officer’s tent, of course, where I could read by candlelight. The average soldier did not have such luxuries.”
“How else did it save your life?” Lady Annabelle asked, her brow furrowed.
A humorless smile on his lips, David said, “It quite literally saved me from death. When the French captured me and a small group of my men, they began executing the officers. Only when they got to me, they rifled through my rucksack and when they saw the book, they realized I could speak Spanish. That was of use to them, so they kept me alive as an interpreter.”
Lady Annabelle gasped and cupped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, dear, now that you mention it, I remember Marianne telling me you were spared because of your ability to speak Spanish.”
He nodded. “By giving me that book, my sister helped save my life,” he breathed. “I’ll be grateful to her forever.”
“My brother saved me too,” Lady Annabelle whispered, a faraway look in her eyes.
David was not certain he’d heard her correctly. “Pardon me?”
“Never mind.” Lady Annabelle shook her head and replaced the stark look on her face with a bright smile. “I didn’t mean to bring up such a sad subject. We have lessons to attend to. Shall we begin?”
“By all means,” David replied, his smile equally as bright. He clasped his hands behind his back. He shouldn’t have said so much. Lady Annabelle didn’t want to hear poignant tales of battlefields and being a prisoner of war. No one wanted to hear those things. He turned to her. “What will you teach me today?”
