Forever My Love(12)

"It's an attractive path. Yes, I believe I will."

"Then I will find some other part of the forest to occupy until you're gone."

Alec laughed, his smile an attractive white slash in his dark face. "Do you sit out here every day?"

"I enjoy the privacy," Mira said pointedly, closing her book with a firm snap.

His eyes traveled over the book cover assessingly, then returned to her face.

"Jane Austen… Northanger Abbey… surprising."

"Why is it surprising?"

"I would have expected," Alec said softly, "some­thing more along the lines of Bewildered Affections or The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactors."

It was a remark calculated to annoy Mira, since those were absurd and sensational romantic.novels. currently popular among many of the foolish, women-who were attending the hunt. She smiled reluctantly. saw the teasing glint in his eyes, and then laughed.

"No," she said, "but I will confess that a copy of Manners of the Day was recently pressed on nie with firm admonitions to read it carefully."

Alec grinned. "Really? I can't imagine why."

"Perhaps you would like to borrow it after I'm finished?" Mira suggested.

"Ah… what a kind offer," he responded with exquisite politeness. "But I'm afraid that I'm far too set in my ways to change—"

"What a pity."

"Yes." Alec's eyes lost some of their glinting cool­ness as he looked at her. "You like to read?"

"Constantly. I like almost anything. But Jane Aus­ten is my favorite author."

"Why?"

Mira's expression became distant. She thought back to those long, lazy summer days in the little French village of Anjou… when she was fifteen, and Rosa­lie Belleau had taught her the nasal and complex sounds of the English language. They had pored over poetry, newspapers, and the novels of Defoe and Addison, studying and reading until the laughter or the glare of the sun on the pages overcame them. Rosalie had taken Mira's rudimentary knowledge of reading and writing and doubled it… and Mira, eager to please, eager to learn, had soaked up the lessons quickly. Five years ago, when she had been Mireille Germain, a girl in love with life, a girl who had loved her brother devotedly, unaware of his plans to betray them all… Mira, Rosalie, and Rand Berkeley.

"I read her books when I was in France," she said finally. "They gave me a sense of what the English might be like."

"Superficial?" Alec asked. "Materialistic… pleasure-seeking?"

Mira sensed that he was trying to trap her in some way. She did not know what he was trying to make her admit, but she chose her words carefully as she an­swered him.

"I discovered after spending some time here that her works were less reality than satire," she said qui etly. "But her portrayal of the English seems to be very accurate at times. The English are very odd some times, and difficult to understand. You are seldom a straightforward people."

"And the French are?"

"The French I knew were."

"And what kind of people did you associate with in France?"

"I think you already know," she said, meeting hi: gray eyes squarely. "It is obvious that I'm not put-sang. It is obvious that my background is very differ­ent from yours and that I am not highborn as you are."

"Not so obvious," he replied slowly. "You have a certain air of pride that I wouldn't expect from a mere rustic."

Mira laughed suddenly. "A rustic . . . how snobbish you sound."

Alec's expression went blank with surprise. Impu­dent little wench! Hardly anyone ever dared to criti­cize him to his face, especially not a woman in her position. Yet she sat there and taunted him with a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "Why do you look so amazed?" she asked innocently. "Aren't rustics al­lowed a little pride?"

"I suppose they are," he said, his handsome face shadowed with a dawning scowl.

"I think we rustics are more entitled to pride than you are," she said, smiling flippantly and daring to annoy him further, finding an unaccountable enjoy­ment in provoking him. "There is more merit in the struggle to raise a family than in attending endless parties. There is more value in the hunt to find food for the table than in the chasing of a small fox."

"You seem to have experienced life among.the virtu­ous poor as well as the decadent rich," Alec mur­mured. "Yet it is obvious whose company you prefer."

His dart was sharp and superbly accurate. All of a

sudden Mira's enjoyment fled. Oh, she should have known better than to cross swords with someone like Alec Falkner. What was the matter with her, that she would try to taunt him so? She bent her head, unable to look at him.