Carousel of Hearts by Mary Jo Putney Read Free Book Online Page B

dreamy with inner visions. “Powerful forces that we have only the barest inkling of shaped the earth. Now rivers run through the fertile valleys and fields fill the dales, but the peaks still lift their defiant heads to the sky, and the earth still changes, slowly but inexorably.”
    He halted and gave her an apologetic smile. “Please stop me when I get carried away like that. I shouldn’t be boring you with such dry stuff.”
    “You aren’t boring me,” Antonia said softly, mesmerized by the images he created of her beloved land, and how close his shoulder was to hers. “You make it sound like poetry. In fact,” she confessed in a moment of candor, “I love the way you speak, so slow and thoughtful. I would enjoy listening to you read the most boring sermon ever written.”
    “I guess that is a compliment,” he said with amusement, “but one I don’t deserve. I speak the way I do because I had a terrible stutter as a boy, and the only way I could speak at all was to do so slowly. It took years to get the knack of it.”
    “How dreadful for you!” Antonia had gone to school with a girl who had a mild stutter, and had suffered vicarious agonies of embarrassment when her friend couldn’t manage to get her words out. “I suppose you were teased unmercifully.”
    “Schoolboys can be horrid little beasts,” he allowed. “I spent much of my childhood buried in books, because then I didn’t have to say anything.”
    Antonia didn’t reply for a moment, realizing that Simon had just told her something very important about what made him the way he was. It was easy to imagine him as a shy, sensitive boy turning to books because they wouldn’t taunt him, growing more comfortable with things than people.
    That lack of confidence must have been what saved him from the arrogance of beauty. The thought increased her tenderness. “Books proved good friends. Adam says you are considered a brilliant scholar.”
    “Adam flatters me,” he demurred. “I’ve written a few articles, but I’ve produced no earth-shattering discoveries or theories.”
    He lifted his glass for a sip of wine.  She watched the flexing muscles of his throat with fascination as he swallowed. “Adam is the one who is brilliant. He has a great breadth of knowledge.  He seems to know something about every topic imaginable. Beyond that, he can take a theory and see its practical applications.”
    Antonia drew her legs underneath her, demurely tucking the dark fabric into place. “How did you two meet each other? Adam said something about an observatory.” 
    “Yes, the East India Company maintains several observatories. I was doing some studies at the one in Bombay when Adam wandered in one night. He had never used a telescope and was curious to examine the heavens. I let him do some viewing and we started talking.” Simon gave his self-deprecatory smile. “If I had realized who he was, I might have been shy about talking to him, but fortunately I didn’t.”
    “Knew who he was? What do you mean?”
    “Why, every Briton in India has heard of Adam Yorke.” He gave her a surprised look. “He was known as one of the cleverest and most daring merchants in the East, someone who drove a hard bargain but was always impeccably fair. His youth and the speed with which he built his fortune made him something of a legend.”
    “My cousin Adam?” she asked incredulously.
    “None other.’’ Simon reflected for a moment. “I suppose he’s too modest to have boasted of his accomplishments in his letters to you.”
    Antonia nodded, trying to absorb this new information. “I got the impression that he was doing rather well, but he never hinted at being a legend.”
    She picked a sprig of ragwort, saying absently, “Judith makes the most exquisite drawings of plants like these.” Brooding at the yellow blossom, she added, “How exasperating of Adam not to hint how well he was doing. I shall have to ring a peal over him.”
    “Don’t do