Rumors by Anna Godbersen

Author:Anna Godbersen [Godbersen, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anna Godbersen
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-05-29T05:00:00+00:00

Twenty One

With our many modern conveyances, arrivals late at night and early in the morning are highly avoidable, as any polite house guest well knows. A hostess cannot always select her guests according to their manners, however, and should make herself presentable and gracious at whatever hour is required.

––VAN KAMP’S GUIDE TO HOUSEKEEPING FOR LADIES OF HIGH SOCIETY, 1899 EDITION

W HEN DIANA ENTERED HER FAMILY DRAWING ROOM late on a Tuesday evening it was with a composed appearance her older sister might have strived for. She wore a simple black dress that circled in to display her small waist but disguised her other physical gifts, and her hair was more neatly in its place than it had been all evening. She carried herself with quiet dignity across the carpet to the unlit fireplace where her aunt Edith was waiting as though engaged in some kind of performance, and indeed it seemed to Diana that several layers of artifice would be required to disguise the emotions she felt within. Henry loved her again; her whole body was beating with it.

“Mr. Cairns,” she said, extending her hand but letting go of his grip before he could kiss it. Snowden Cairns had been her father’s occasional business partner and sometime fellow adventurer. The poor man, she thought. He was looking at her so earnestly, and she knew that her skin was lit up like some Hudson River sunset and that her pupils were dark and wide. “It’s been so long.”

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