The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

Author:Susanna Kearsley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780749012564
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2013-01-01T11:02:20+00:00

Chapter 25

Her laugh turned the head of the sentinel standing on guard at the house of Lord Admiral Apraxin, across from the Admiralty, and from the long look he gave both herself and the man walking with her, she guessed he had no love of foreigners. Many still didn’t, although there were certainly many more foreigners living here now than there had been when she’d first arrived, and the young Duke of Holstein, now pressing his suit for the hand of the tsar’s daughter, had brought a whole host of new faces with him, his courtiers and cavaliers, testing the patience of men like this sentinel.

As she herself did, no doubt. But she couldn’t have held in the laughter.

“You’re only inventing this,” she told the man at her side.

He denied it. “You give me too much credit if you think I could invent a speech like that one.”

Anna stepped aside to let a sledge go past, the horses’ breath a fog around their frosted muzzles as the sledge’s runners sliced the hard-packed snow. “And so what did Sir Harry say then, in reply?”

“Sir Harry has wit of his own, as you know, and he told Mr. Elmsall that should he desire such another display, he’d be happy to lighten the barrels beforehand.”

She laughed again. “Do you merchants do no work at all, at the Factory?”

“’Tis winter,” he said, “and the trade has been slow.”

Someone called to her: “Anna!” and turning she saw a tall soldier approaching across the great open space teeming with people and horses. Charles always walked like that, she thought—in a straight line, with full confidence everyone else would get out of his way. Which they usually did. She lifted her cheek for the cold but affectionate brush of his kiss, and said, “Charles, do you know Mr. Taylor?”

The two men assessed one another in that vaguely measuring way that men did when they met, that all the centuries of civilizing influence had not yet managed to erase from male behavior. Charles was several inches taller than her own companion, and a shade more sturdy, and secure in his advantage he remarked politely, “No, I’ve not had the pleasure.”

“Mr. Taylor is a member of the Factory,” Anna told him. “Mr. Taylor, may I introduce Lieutenant Gordon.”

“Sir.” Charles inclined his head in that distinctive blend of Russian and Scots mannerisms that, together with his accent, marked him as a member of the second generation, born in Moscow to a father who had come across to Russia at the turn of the last century. “Allow me to congratulate you.”

Mr. Taylor looked perplexed. “That’s very kind, I’m sure, but—?”

“And my cousin. I was not aware she had become betrothed.”

Anna rolled her eyes and looked at Charles in a way that let him know she knew what he was doing, and was unimpressed.

Beside her Mr. Taylor said, “Lieutenant, I assure you we… we are not… Mistress Jamieson has done me no such honor.”

“No? You will forgive me, but with you escorting her in public, I assumed that was the case.

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