The Darcy Code Read Free

herself if war did break out again before Harriet returned to England .
    However, although this was sufficient reason to satisfy Mama as to the cause of her unusual pensiveness, the real reason lay elsewhere. She had never felt so powerfully attracted to a man as she did to Mr. Standish, but did he feel the same way about her? If only she were more experienced, to know whether his sitting beside her and his conversation meant that he felt any attraction to her, or whether it was simple good manners.
    Warning herself to appear calm and not too interested, she broached the subject with her mama. "It was agreeable talking to Mr. Standish. He did not seem full of all the serious things that everybody else did, he is an amiable companion."
    Lady Gosforth was still attending to her gown. "New on today, it really is too tiresome. Mr. Standish? Well, he is too much the gentleman to talk about serious matters with such a young lady as you, my love, but he is a man that people speak of as being destined for a successful political career. He made a fine speech in the House the other day, so your father told me, and I believe he has an important post in some government office or other. I forget which, if I ever knew, which I probably did not, because your papa, who knows about such things, is always so vague."
    There was a silence, and then Anna ventured, "He is very handsome. I wonder he is not married."
    "I daresay he will be, soon enough; he has reached the stage in life when a man must take a wife, particularly if he is to get on. He is quite eligible, he is an elder son and will come into a good estate, he will marry into one of the political families, you may be sure of it. He probably has his eye on some young lady already."
    "Henrietta has said that before he went abroad he broke someone's heart."
    "Did he? Oh, I know who you mean, Amelia Norton. Yes she went into quite a decline, it looked as though everything was going on for an engagement, and then quite suddenly he went cold on her. It was distressing, but she got over it, as you young girls do."
    Anna longed to ask her mother why, if Mr. Standish were so eligible, he was not included among those young men that Mama was keen for Anna to know. She wasn't a fool, and could have written a list of the men that Mama had in her eye as possible matches for her. Not that it mattered, since she hadn't felt any particular attraction for any of the men that she had met so far, and certainly nothing like the fascination that Mr. Standish was exerting over her.
    What was it that she found so irresistible? Her attention had first been drawn to him by his handsome features and his fine figure and an air he had about him. Now she had been introduced, she was enchanted by his engaging smile and the attention he paid her, as though there were no one else in the room. She sighed, and then hastily turned the sigh into a yawn.
    "You are indeed tired, my pet, and you shall go to bed the minute we get home. Tomorrow is a busy day, and you need to feel and look your best, because it is the Wellcomes' ball, and that is certain to be one of the highlights of the season.
     
    Lord Gosforth, unusually for him, was in when they got home, and he came strolling out of his library to greet his wife and daughter. "Well, young lady, did you have a good evening?"
    Lady Gosforth told him who had been there, but the only one that Gosforth expressed any interest in was Mr. Vere. "Vere was there, was he? I wonder why, I shouldn't have said it was his kind of party at all."
    When Anna, now genuinely overcome with yawns, had taken a candle and gone upstairs to her bedchamber, Lady Gosforth said to her husband, "One or two people were speaking of France , and the likelihood of war, and Anna is worried about Harriet."
    Gosforth said, "Did Vere mention war?"
    "No, he didn't."
    "I would be surprised if he had, but I've been thinking about that myself. There couldn't be a worse time for the girl to go to Paris , and so I