The Dutch Girl by Donna Thorland Read Free Book Online

she was doing.
    â€œHow long will you stay at Harenwyck, Miss Winters?” He placed his hand over hers, which she did not like at all. With each step he pulled her a little closer until they were hip to hip. It was entirely too familiar for the shallow depth of their acquaintance. The Widow had taught her how to extricate herself from physical danger, but Anna was unpracticed in the far trickier art of evading this kind of subtle encroachment.
    â€œIt is difficult to say how long I will be,” she said truthfully. “Much depends on what sort of curriculum the patroon has in mind for his nieces, and of course how quickly the misses Van Haren progress.”
    â€œThen allow me to tender a piece of practical advice: charge the patroon by the day, and dearly, and we’ll have you back in New York before the month is out.”
    It was an invitation to flirt. She ignored it. “Is Harenwyck so grim, then?”
    He gave her a sidelong glance. She doubted that many young women declined an opportunity to flirt with him. “Harenwyck is a pleasant enough countryseat,” he said. “The new house is very English and very modern. The patroon is another matter. You will find these rural Dutch even more boorish than their city counterparts, and their entertainments and diversions rustic at best. They think a cider pressing the highestsort of social occasion and account their greasy oil cakes a great delicacy.”
    He did not know she was Dutch, of course. He did not know that she had eaten hot
olykoecken
, her lips and gown frosted with sugar, her fingers sticky, standing next to the bubbling pot, while the cider that leavened the dough was pressed on the great granite stone. It was like drinking in pure autumn, the perfume of apples and wood smoke and frying oil.
    â€œThe Dutch are notoriously mean,” continued Tarleton, oblivious to the offense he gave, “but that parsimony may work to your advantage—if you are eager for a swift return to New York, where I might call on you.”
    She did not in fact like that idea at all.
    â€œI am certain that the patroon will expect at least a complete sampler from each girl,” she said, “if not other accomplished works from his nieces before I depart Harenwyck, and that will likely keep me in the Hudson Highlands at least into the new year.”
    â€œTeaching the patroon’s nieces embroidery will be like throwing pearls before swine. They are sure to marry some country cousin with a desirable mill or sandpit or some such thing, who will not care a whit whether his wife can embroider an angling lady scene on a fire screen or not.”
    â€œYou know a remarkable amount about the current taste in schoolgirl embroidery, Colonel Tarleton,” she said. She did not altogether disguise the suspicion in her voice.
    To her surprise he laughed. “I assure you that is not because I have been
fishing
among your young charges.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo. Though surely no man could blame me if I had.”
    Their fathers might,
thought Anna.
    â€œSome of your young misses,” continued Tarleton, “are decidedly saucy pieces, and wise in the ways of the world beyond their years. Impossible to avoid, I’m bound, with so many lambs all in one fold.” There were some men, Anna had long ago realized, who could not conceive of a gathering of unrelated women in any other context than the one with which they were most familiar: a brothel. It said more about those men, she believed, than about the essential nature of female education.
    â€œIt is my sister,” continued Tarleton, “who writes to me about the fashion in stitchery. She is tutored at home, of course”—
of course
—“but she debates a choice of motif for her silk picture with the seriousness Parliament reserves for taxes.”
    â€œAnd how do you answer her?”
    â€œThat any man who cares more about the quality of her stitchery