Seducing Mr. Heywood by Jo Manning

stammering slightly. Sophia smiled. Although it had exasperated her at first, the vicar’s hesitancy and occasional stutter were now endearing,part of his sweet and unique personality. She was cross about the way he had behaved in the rose garden, but that story was still to be continued. Her seduction had suffered a temporary setback only; she was not through with the handsome clergyman. She smiled at him, her eyes half-hooded, and delighted in the flush that covered his cheekbones.
    “I vow,” she said, her voice a bit husky, “that the boys enjoy Greek as much as they do fishing. John was repeating the speech by Achilles, his argument with King Agamemnon that he had recited for us several nights ago. He was asking if his pronunciation was correct. The piece concerning the slave girl, you remember?”
    She spoke in flawless Greek. “How can the generous Argives give you prizes now? I know of no piles of treasure, piled, lying idle, anywhere. Whatever we dragged from towns we plundered, all’s been portioned out. But collect it, call it back from the rank and file? That would be the disgrace. So, return the girl to the god, at least for now. We Achaeans will pay you back, three, four times over, if Zeus grants us the gift to raze Troy’s massive ramparts to the ground!”
    Charles was astonished. She did understand Greek! How on earth?
    The earl broke into Charles’s thoughts, his tone irritable. “God’s blood, Sophia, do you still remember that nonsense from your governess? That bluestocking! Filling your mind with such faradiddle.”
    Brent interrupted his friend, ignoring the profanity. “My lady, you speak as well as my tutor at Jesus College,” he remarked. “A Grecian could do no better, I vow.”
    Dunhaven snorted, then seemed to think better of the situation, stifling his comments into an incoherent mumble.
    Charles leaped into the breach. “You shame me, my lady. My own efforts pale beside yours. I congratulate you.” The lady never ceased to surprise him. She was so much more than she appeared to the world at large, the shallow world of the
beau monde.
    Lady Sophia peered into her wineglass as if calling up an old memory from its dark ruby depths. “I had a governess named Clarissa Bane, the daughter of a country vicar. Her father taught her Greek and she taught it to me.” She raised her eyes. “She left when I was scarce sixteen, Mr. Heywood, and I have always regretted that loss.”
    Charles registered the pain and grief in Sophia’s glance. He had a sharp desire to embrace her, notwithstanding the presence of her father and Brent, a feeling cut short by Bromley’s announcement that dinner was served. Moving to offer her his arm, Charles found that Lord Brent was too fast for him. Instead, he found himself walking in to dinner with the earl, who seemed more than a little foxed from his pre-dinner imbibing of spirits.
    Dunhaven, the vicar noted, had an odd look on his face. Was he annoyed, or was it something more? It was a furtive, guilty look. Did the man now think he’d been foolish to denigrate his daughter’s education, seeing that Brent admired her facility with Greek? Charles suspected something else was afoot. Dunhaven’s remark about the governess had been telling, but what exactly did it say? There was an inference there.…Perhaps his imagination was playing tricks on him, but he felt ill at ease.
    The trout was served from two cunningly designed porcelain tureens, their covers realistically painted fish that appeared ready to leap off the table in a showy arc. The handles resembled twisted green seaweed resting on the long, fish-shaped bowls, which were in turn set on round platters decorated with painted scallop shells and sea grasses. Brent remarked on the fine pottery.
    “It is from a dinner service commissioned by George’s mother from the Derby pottery, my lord. She had an eye for lovely dinnerware; we have many examples of Bow, Derby, Chelsea, and Spode at Rowley Hall,