Rules of Surrender Read Online Free PDF Page A

gathered her carpetbag and descended from the carriage with Skeets’s assistance. ”What do you think?“
    Charlotte thought any man who went barefoot, wore his hair like a woman and couldn’t manage to button his shirt all the way to the top should not be passing judgment, but her ingrained manners would not allow her to say so. Instead she folded her hands before her. ”It’s not what I think or you think that matters. What matters is the hospitable treatment of guests.“
    ”Yes. In the desert, if a guest is not treated hospitably, the sand and the sun bleach his bones.“ He looked past her as if seeing the shifting dunes and blazing sun. Then, behind him, someone cleared his throat and Wynter’s attention snapped back to the present. He moved away from the top step of the portico to allow Charlotte to ascend, and without inflection, said, ”Speaking of guests, Mother, you have one.“
    Adorna faced the well-dressed gentleman standing in the open doorway. Her fingers fluttered at her throat, and she said, ”Lord Bucknell. Dear Lord Bucknell, what a surprise! Always pleasant, of course, but I had no idea… and to catch me away! But you’ve… met my son?“ Her usual husky tone held a note of consternation, yet a smile curved her lips, and she moved toward Lord Bucknell with both hands outstretched.
    Lord Bucknell stepped into the sunshine, a fit, hand-some man of perhaps fifty. His hair was sprinkled with gray, his carriage erect, and he took her hands in his as if he knew better than to indulge in such a greeting, yet couldn’t resist. ”Yes, I met your son. Quite a shock, after these years. But you must be happy, Lady Ruskin. I know his absence caused you no end of grief.“
    ”It did.“ She gave a gurgle of youthful laughter. ”But I told you he wasn’t dead.“
    ”So you did.“ His solemn smile contrasted oddly with Adorna’s warmth. But perhaps Wynter’s unflinching gaze constrained him.
    Charlotte stepped foot on the veranda, and as smoothly as some great-maned predator, Wynter again switched his concentration back to her. She stood still as he closed in behind her and proceeded to circle, examining her with the open curiosity he might show a zoo animal.
    She did not lower herself to do the same, but neither did she turn her eyes away in a pretense of cowardice. Nothing intimidated Charlotte; the sooner he learned that fact, the less conflict they would endure.
    He had truly grown tall in his sojourn away from England; he topped her by more than a foot. His bulk filled her gaze, but she kept her vision properly affixed to his countenance.
    He might have been a geometry proof, for angles of every kind made up his face. His forehead was a handsome rectangle, his cheeks jutted out from the point of his chin, his nose was a sharp, beaked triangle. A long scar tugged at the edge of one eye and bisected his right cheek. His brown eyes, she noted, no longer contrasted with his fair complexion. The sun in El Bahar had tanned him to the color of toast, and lightened his hair in streaks. He still sported those unusually dark eyelashes and brows, but he no longer allowed them to droop in Byronesque brooding. He looked at the world with such direct and avid interest, some lesser beings might find themselves discomfited.
    ”Mother, does she fulfill all our requirements?“
    He directed his question to Adorna, acting as if Charlotte were either deaf or invisible. Notables did behave so to their servants, of course, but governesses lurked in that ill-defined domain of neither servant nor aristocrat. Charlotte, especially, as a doyen of deportment, tended to be treated with respect. But Wynter was obviously oblivious to the niceties.
    Charlotte would be offended—was offended— except she wanted to hear the answer.
    ”Mother?“ Wynter repeated.
    ”Hmm?“ Adorna was still holding Lord Bucknell’s hands in her own and paying very little attention to the scene at the edge of the veranda. ”Yes, she’s