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“What do you like to read?” Annie asked with interest. She was fond of a good book, too, but she had her limits. She glanced back to her mother to check she wasn’t paying too much attention as their chaperone. Seeing that Barbara was looking around, apparently interested in seeing who else had gathered for the promenade, she felt some freedom to talk at ease.
“I enjoy a good book, but I must confess, my reading is somewhat limited to what my mother thinks is appropriate for me to read. I would be glad for any recommendations you have.”
“I could recommend many.” Mr Knight looked down at her. “Though if you are wanting something that will open your eyes a little, I can recommend a few tales that will offer you a different world.”
“Do tell,” she encouraged him on.
“TryMoll Flanders,by Daniel Defoe. It will certainly open your eyes to another side of life, Miss Storey. It is those sorts of tales that intrigue me so. They show another world to the one I am living in.”
“Truly?” Annie asked, intrigued by the idea. “Tell me, Mr Knight, are you not fond of this life?”
“I am perfectly happy with it, but sometimes, I think there could be more to it than the way I am living it. Do you not think so too?” His question had her chewing her lip in thought.
She glanced back at her mother, thinking of many things. She thought of how she was walking, just as her mother had instructed her, and she even thought of the way she was holding her reticule as her mother had demonstrated to her when she was young.
There was little that was free about the way she walked; it was all to a specification. So much so that when Barbara caught her looking, she widened her eyes, clearly urging her to turn her focus completely back to Mr Knight.
“I think you may have a good point, Mr Knight,” Annie said as she smiled up at him. “Please, tell me more of the books you have read. I’d like to know more.”
She seemed to say the very thing that brought him the most pleasure, for he launched into telling her of such grand tales that she began to make a reading list in her own mind of all that she had to read. It was a pleasant conversation and one that Annie found rather eye-opening, realising there were many different styles of books out there she had not been permitted to read by her mother.
When their promenade came to a close, Mr Knight offered to escort Annie and her mother home again, but Annie politely allowed him to go on his way, for it was quicker for him to return home from where they were.
“I enjoyed our conversation, Mr Knight,” she said, wanting him to know the truth as she curtsied. “Very much.”
“As did I. I look forward to the next. Goodbye.” He bowed to her and took his leave, parting quickly. He did not take her hand and offered to kiss it, but Annie was rather relieved for it.
“I thought he might have kissed your hand,” Barbara whispered, moving back to Annie’s side. Annie chose not to answer her mother.
She may have enjoyed the conversation with Mr Knight, but she had liked it because it was pleasant. It was not exciting, thrilling, or even overly entertaining. She had admired the cleverness of Mr Knight’s mind and the complexities of the subjects he was reading, but it was a narrowly focused conversation.
“If his attentions are to continue, I hope he will kiss your hand next time,” Barbara whispered as she led the way back down the street.
“I still do not know the man, Mama, and there is no….” She could not describe the feeling, but Barbara did not seem to notice she was struggling for words.
“Sometimes, very few meetings are enough to get to know a man. It depends on how much a man is willing to let you in to know who he really is.” Barbara’s words had Annie’s mind casting elsewhere, for she felt she knew another man more than she knew Mr Knight at present.
Lord Yeatman.
“Yes, Mr Knight is a good hope for your marriage. We’ll have to mark sure he is invited to our ball at the end of the Season. We may also have to orchestrate a private moment between the two of you.”
“What?”
“So that he may have the opportunity to propose, of course.”
For some reason, the idea did not appeal to Annie. Mr Knight may have been kind, polite, wealthy, and he even danced rather well, ticking off many of the things on her mother’s list for a perfect husband, yet the thought of Mr Knight left Annie rather numb. She turned her head away and peered into Hyde Park, breathing in the scent of the flowers as she tried to think of why Mr Knight bored her so.
There is just no…excitement!
***
“What about this one?” Annie asked as she pointed in through the window of the modiste’s shop on Bond Street.
“I fear what my cousin would say of such a material.” Peggy sighed and pushed her nose closer to the window. “You should have heard him this morning, Annie. He told me I’d never find a husband if I continued to dress as I did and insisted that I leave at once to find some new gowns.
I suppose I should be glad he gave me the money with which to buy the gowns, but I can’t help feeling as if I have been dismissed. As if I was an irksome pup under his foot that he had sent for a bath.”
“The sooner you are away from the guardianship of your cousin, the better,” Annie murmured, shaking her head as they looked away from the modiste’s window. She had no wish to visit the modiste herself today and was on the lookout for a bookshop, wishing to follow Mr Knight’s advice and read a little wider.
