Page 32 of Burning Secrets of a Lady's Pen
“It’s March,” Corin snorted from beside her.
“There’ve been particularly balmy Marches,” Spencer argued instantly, backing Charlotte up.
Imelda had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“It is a nice day,” she said instead, lifting her own face and smiling at the immediate warmth it brought. “I was hoping that we might take some time on the water?”
She opened her eyes to Corin’s dark gaze on her, something wild passing in his eyes before he looked away.
Charlotte, though, grinned readily. “Oh, I’m so glad! Corin already rented boats for us here. Those two tied up at the dock. I didn’t want to push, but we’ve been here a little while already, and I swear there was a family of ducks with new ducklings that I saw just a little way down—”
“Yes, she’s been nattering my ear off about getting after them,” Corin murmured, barely flinching at the well-placed elbow to his ribs that his commentary earned him.
“I’d be happy to row you over to look,” Spencer offered gallantly.
Or maybe it was supposed to sound gallant. To Imelda, it sounded just a touch too excitable to be that.
“Thatis a gentleman’s answer,” Charlotte said pointedly, shooting her cousin a none-too-fond look before reaching out to take Spencer’s arm. “Maybe you can talk my cousin into rowing you over as well, Miss Merrit, though if you did, I’d admit to being more than a little surprisedandawed.”
Imelda’s lip twitched at the quick look Corin shot her as if begging for her not to request any such thing.
“Luckily for your cousin, Lady Charlotte, I’d much rather see what might be in those reeds at the far end,” Imelda said smoothly. “Or even just row to the middle of the lake. My greatest joy is always watching the sunbeams play about the top of the water. The colors it can create—”
“And all of the other boring things she imagines that she sees,” Spencer teased readily. He shook his head, grinning down at Charlotte as the four of them set off for the boats. “I’d much rather go find a family of ducks. Did you know that ducks mate for life?”
“Do they?” Charlotte looked confused. “I could have sworn that that was geese.”
“It is geese,” Corin interjected matter-of-factly. “Ducks only mate for a season.”
“Oh.” Spencer seemed to deflate a little.
“Don’t listen to him,” Charlotte declared, suddenly more upbeat. “He’s just whatever the opposite of romantic is. I think it’s fully possible that any animal might mate for life and we might just miss it. How could we not? It isn’t as if we can speak to the creatures.”
The more she spoke, the more Spencer smiled, and not for the first time, Imelda realized just how enamored with her friend he really was. Spencer, despite all of his occasional silliness, really was a romantic at heart. It wasn’t something she would have ever coined him as before, seeing how taken he was with Charlotte.
“I see subtlety runs in your family,” Corin commented dryly as Spencer and Charlotte moved ahead to begin getting into their designated boat.
Imelda glanced quickly at him, her eyes roving his face as she tried to determine how he meant it, but one corner of his lips was quirked as he looked at her and she quickly realized that he was teasing. She must have been smiling at the pair.
“It isn’t exactly a strong suit,” she admitted with a small smile as he held out his hand to help her into the boat. “I don’t think of it as a necessary one so very often.”
Corin’s eyebrows rose slightly as he got in as well, untying the rope that bound them to the dock as he seemed to consider her words. “No, I don’t imagine you would.”
It was Imelda’s turn to stare in question at him, her hands folding on top of her lap as she sat back on the bench, and he pushed the boat slowly away from the dock, headed in the opposite direction that Spencer was currently rowing them.
“You don’t share the same values as so many ladies of theton,” Corin explained with a half-smile. “That is hardly an insult, Imelda.”
She snorted.
“I much prefer literary endeavors,” she admitted with a sigh. “Subtlety within text makes sense. In society? It’s boring and wasteful. Why not just say what one means? Why is it always some intricate dance that we play out?”
Corin’s dark eyes gleamed for a moment before he laughed, his smile fond as he took the paddles in either hand and began rowing.
Lord, but he made it look effortless, his shirt stretching and contracting over his broad shoulders and chest in a way that looked almost indecent.
“Yet subtlety in text, you excel at,” he murmured. “Did you know in the first half of your story I wasn’t sure whether Sir Reginald was alive or already dead? He was so reclusive both in life and death it seemed.”
“Did it?” Imelda frowned, unsure whether he meant it as a compliment or another suggestion.
