Extraits

Laurence dismounted quickly and came to help her out of the saddle. She reached down to place her hands on his shoulders intending to jump down, but he surprised her by grasping her about the waist in a firm hold and lifting her down without, it seemed, any great amount of effort. It was a pleasant experience and made her feel ridiculously girlish. She stepped quickly away from him, her cheeks feeling a little hot.

“You will do yourself an injury, sir. I am no lightweight.”

“And I am no weakling,” he countered swiftly.

“You wretch,” she said indignantly. “I was completely taken in when I thought you a true gentleman, such a one would have said I was as light as a feather.”

Amusement flickered in Laurence’s eyes. “Then he would have grossly exaggerated.”

Mrs Webb offered him a curtsy, the stiffness of which he knew to be due to a touch of arthritis and not meant as a reproof to him.

And then there was his smile. He had many. Sometimes his firm lips twisted in irony, sometimes they tilted up by the smallest degree in a wry fashion, but every now and then they curved in the gentlest of ways, and at those moments she thought it would be difficult to deny him anything.