Did I suddenly stop understanding English? Did he really just say I was beautiful?
I hoped he had. I hoped he was not Frederick.
With a nod of a dark-haired head and a jaunty smile, he left me.
It wasn"t a largely attended affair. There were only about one hundred of us at the modest mansion, Gravel Court, of George Tiffany and his wife, Isabella. It was one of those sedate, family affairs, the kind my mother detested, and I thoroughly enjoyed. Good, but not overly rich food accompanied by quiet, sincere conversation. Peaceful.
Yet I wanted more. Not the more my mother wanted, but a more that surprised me.
As I strolled about the Italianate villa, in and out again, along the porches festooned with merry guests, down the lush, rolling humps of lawn, this “new woman” searched for a man.
