Page 27 of Give Him a Chance

All Lucy could do was stare.

WhathadI thought he wanted to do there?

In truth, she had no idea. The idea that the man couldreadhad never crossed her mind. So few people could read, even with the efforts so many were making with schools for the poor. It was rare, indeed, that a man of his age, and he had to have been older than her, perhaps as old as her Cousin Thomas, would have had the schooling necessary to read.

And to read for pleasure?

Heat burned her cheeks and Lucy swallowed down her embarrassment as she said hastily, “Yes, well, if you need any recommendations—”

“You presumed I could not read,” Dixon said with a delighted smile, stepping into her father’s study with pinched lips, as if holding back more laughter.

“No, I didn’t,” said Lucy automatically, shame burning within her.

“You assumed that I, as a criminal of the lower classes—”

“Workingclasses,” Lucy corrected. “There is no lower class. That smacks of privilege.”

The dancing mischief in Dixon’s eyes were most unfortunate. “I’m sorry,LadyLucy, sitting at your father, the Earl of Lindow’s, study, are we talking of privilege?”

It was not shame that crackled down her spine now, but irritation. “It is not my fault how I was born,” she pointed out sharply.

But Dixon was not cowed. He closed the door behind him and moved to sit in the chair opposite her on the other side of her father’s desk. “I suppose not. Just as it is not my fault that I can read.”

Oh, this man is exasperating. “I did not say that.”

“Though it is true that I need not have actual books,” Dixon continued, leaning back quite comfortably in the chair and grinning. “I have spent the last few days reciting poetry in mybedchamber. It has been quite entertaining, though I say so myself.”

Lucy blinked. Perhaps she had fallen asleep at her father’s desk. That had to explain why this man was here, intruding so definitely, and why he was saying such nonsensical things that she could not understand.

Bernard Dixon? Criminal—reciting poetry?

The twinkle was still there. “You don’t believe me.”

Shame branded her again. “I didn’t saythat.”

“‘Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! And again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.’”

Lucy stared, enchanted. The man spoke with such feeling, such eloquence, his tongue never grasping for the subsequent word, the poetry merely pouring out of him.

Wordsworth. One of her favorites.

Dixon’s teasing air diminished as he continued, his great presence pouring instead into the poetry. “‘—Once again—

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose