Miner's Daughter by Alice Duncan Read Free Book Online

reminded
herself that the offer was probably a lot of hooey to begin with.
She wasn’t altogether successful. Even the thought of so much money
thrilled her.
    “Would you like a glass of wine, Miss
Pottersby?”
    Tony had asked the question, breaking into
the conversation abruptly. Mari thinned her eyes and peered at him
narrowly. Wine? Good grief, was she going to have to drink wine?
Were they going to ply her with liquor to get her to sign some
contract detrimental to her financial situation? Not that there
could be any situation much worse than the one she already
occupied.
    Then again, wine drinking was probably
expected at these business dinners. All sophisticated people drank
wine. Since she was about as unsophisticated as a human female
could get and had never even thought about wine, much less tasted
it, she wasn’t sure about that, but she read widely and recalled a
lot of wine being drunk by rich people in books and magazines.
    She swallowed uncertainly, hoping this wasn’t
an evil plot on the part of her dining companions to weaken her
resolve. “Thank you. That would be nice.” She hated being even this
courteous to Tony Ewing, but knew it would be worse to show her
dislike openly. Except when he was being mean to her. Then she
could be mean back. That was only getting even, and that was
allowed.
    Or was it?
    Lord God Almighty, Mari was so jumpy, she
wouldn’t have been able to recite the twenty-third psalm at the
moment, even though she’d recited it every day of her life until
her father died. He’d liked her to say it as an evening prayer.
    Thinking about her father and his favorite
psalm made her sad, so she ceased.
    “When did your father die, Miss Pottersby?”
Tony asked as if he’d tiptoed into her brain and known she’d been
thinking about her father. As he spoke, he poured from a bottle of
red liquid into a glass the likes of which Mari had never seen in
person. It had a stem and was a glass especially designed to hold
wine. Mari recognized it from pictures she’d seen.
    Trust this rat to bring up her innermost
thoughts and spill them all over the dinner table. She frowned and
said, “He’s been gone for six months now.”
    “I’m sorry.” This gentlemanly comment came,
naturally, from Martin, who had a shred or two of human compassion
in his soul. “His passing must have been very difficult for
you.”
    “It was. Thank you.” Mari lifted her glass,
took a largish drink of wine because she felt insecure, and nearly
choked to death. She set down her glass, too hard, and some of the
liquid spilled onto the white tablecloth, thus adding humiliation
to her already skittish state. Blast it all.
    As she wiped her teary eyes with her dinner
napkin, she noticed Tony eyeing her from over his own wineglass.
She sensed him smirking at her, although he was too suave to do so
openly. She hated him then.
    Once her nerves settled somewhat, she
admitted that this latest gaffe on her part eliminated any
necessity to pretend a sophistication she didn’t possess. Nobody’d
believe her at this point, whatever she did.
    In order to show Tony Ewing that she had a
sense of humor, as well as the mine he wanted so darned badly, she
grinned at Martin. “Can you tell I’ve never drunk wine before?”
    Martin grinned back and lifted his glass in a
salute. “It takes some getting used to.”
    It sure did. Although she didn’t want to, she
shot a peek at Tony. If he’d been smirking before, the expression
had tipped upside-down, and now he frowned. Fortunately, his frown
wasn’t aimed at her. In fact, he didn’t even mention her abysmal
table manners when he next spoke. “Maybe we should get down to
brass tacks.”
    Mari blinked at him. What brass tacks? The
mine? Are those the brass tacks he meant? She was willing, although
she’d sort of expected the Peerless people to try to curry her
favor awhile longer before they talked business.
    “Tony . . .” Martin appeared displeased.
    “I don’t think a