Sheri Cobb South by Of Paupersand Peers Page A

tutor’s benefit her lack of interest in a life of fashionable frivolity, it was possible that his interest in her was not entirely unreciprocated.
    “Oh, dear, do you think so?” fretted Aunt Hattie. “I feel sure you must be mistaken. While it is true that the conduct of the doctor’s eldest son while he was in London might have been calculated to break his poor father’s heart, one must own that he was a sadly ramshackle sort even as a boy— plucking tail feathers from Lady Palmer’s peacocks, stealing apples from the duke’s orchards—” She shook her head over the youthful sins of the doctor’s eldest son, having unwittingly reduced her youngest niece to chastened silence.
    Margaret, however, noted her sister’s guilty expression, and correctly interpreted it. “Have you been making free with the duke’s apples? Really, Amanda, you must not!”
    “But he said I might!” Amanda protested.
    “The old duke said so, but you have never met the new one, and he, you know, may feel quite differently on the subject.”
    James, beholding his goddess’s discomfiture, came swiftly to her rescue. “The duke’s orchards,” he said. “Might those be the ones I glimpsed from the window of my bedchamber? We must have driven past them on the way, but I fear my impressions are somewhat hazy.”
    “And no wonder! But yes, the orchards may indeed be seen from the westward-facing windows. If the fine weather holds, perhaps Philip might show you about the place tomorrow after his lessons.”
    “Or even,” put in Philip, “instead of his lessons.”
    James grinned. “Your generosity overwhelms me, Philip, but afterwards will allow us sufficient time, I’m sure.”
    And, he added mentally, allow him an opportunity to look about him for any clues as to his past or, for that matter, his present.
    In this unexceptionable manner, the remainder of the meal passed. The ladies did not withdraw from the table, as Philip was too young to indulge in after-dinner port, and apparently even Aunt Hattie felt that it would be too great a familiarity to allow the tutor to enjoy in solitary splendor the fruit of her late brother’s cellars. Instead, the entire company forsook the dining room in favor of a small but comfortably furnished withdrawing room situated at the rear of the house.
    James, settling his long frame on one end of a worn horsehair sofa, took stock of his surroundings. A framed watercolor painting of the Darrington family home held pride of place over the mantel, while on an adjacent wall hung a charcoal sketch of a young boy whom he had no difficulty identifying as his pupil.
    “You have an artist in the family,” he observed, moving nearer for a closer look at the sketch.
    “Yes, our Amanda is very talented,” agreed Aunt Hattie proudly. “That portrait of Philip is very like, is it not?”
    “As well it should be,” grumbled Philip. “She forced me to sit on the most uncomfortable chair in the house, and wouldn’t let me move for hours!”
    “I did no such thing!” protested Amanda.“It was twenty minutes at the very most.”
    “Hours,” reiterated Philip emphatically. “So if she suggests taking down your likeness, you would do well to heed my advice. Run!”
    “I shall bear it in mind—although I fear my appearance at the moment is hardly a fit subject for any artist.”
    Her muse now fully awakened, Amanda studied her prospective subject with interest. “No, but I could paint you en silhouette, and the bruises would not show. I think you would look very well in profile, for your nose has great character.”
    “It certainly has great something,” conceded James, rubbing his rather prominent proboscis. There arose in his fickle memory a vivid image of himself as a skinny schoolboy, being teased by familiar yet nameless tormentors. “It was a great trial to me in my younger days. As I recall, ‘Weathervane’ was the nickname of choice.”
    Amanda wrinkled her retroussé little nose.