Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn discussion
Monday Puzzler
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A glimpse into the future, Nov 7th
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It's unanimous! I've read it too and cannot think of the book it's from! LOL
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I love this book, but it really is fairly dark, and so this little scene of levity is wonderful. Usually we see what the HEA will look like at the end--here, I don't know if she did it intentionally but she offers it in the middle.
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“I would have slid down this banister, past all your gaping servants, and shimmied on out the door.”
“The balustrade?” He ran a skeptical eye down its length. “A happy thing you decided to tarry, then. You’d have broken your neck.”
She snorted. “This here is a prime prospect for sliding, hero.”
He opened his mouth but was startled by a dim recollection that caused him instead to laugh. “You’re right.” As a boy he’d had these exact thoughts: it was the perfect banister for sliding. He’d never done it, of course; it hadn’t taken long to realize that banisters in this house were not meant even for gripping: a proper gentleman should make his way downs the stairs straight and stern and untroubled by any obstacle, even a missed step.
A devil seized hold of him. “Let’s do it,” he said. Why not?
Disbelief deepened her smile. “You can’t be serious.”
“God help us, butr that’s a phrase nobody should have taught you,” he said. “Now you sound like every stuffed-up lady I’ve ever known.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Stuffed up, am I? I’ll wager you can’t keep your seat past the curve.”
He eyed the drop from the aforementioned curve. A good ten feet to the marble flagstones below. It could crack a man’s head. “For the sake of the family line, one hopes otherwise. But I supposed there’s only one way to find out.” He leapt up to sit on the rail.
She shrieked. “No! I wasn’t—“
“Serious?” He finished for her, and then let go.
Like flight. No friction: his staff was too well trained; they oiled this banister morning and night. Heroine continued to shriek above him. He laughed as he leaned into the curve, exhilarated and also aware of how absurd this was, to laugh his head off at a boy’s game. Such a simple pleasure. Such joy.
The bend flew by; he was home free now, bound at startling speeds for the bottom of the staircase. He remembered this skill at the level of muscle and sinew; he pushed himself off the rail and landed on his feet at the base of the stairs.
He turned around. She stood at the top of the stairs, hands cupped over her mouth.
“Graceful as the breeze,” he called up.
She dropped her hands to her hips. “More like a lunatic!”
“And you’re a braggart. All talk. No follow-through.”
He could see from here the sudden tilt of her chin. Another laugh welled in him as she stalked over to the banister, her movements jerky with spite. She was too easy.
But she didn’t hop up on the railing quite as easily as he had. Of course. Her skirts would impede her.
Concern overlaid his amusement. “Don’t,” he said. “I was only jesting. You’re not dressed for—“
She launched herself down.
He made an aborted movement to mount the stairs. But she was moving too quickly; he would be as likely to knock her off as catch her. His mind began to calculate the best place to position himself on the ground floor, so that when she fell backward and came tumbling down, he could break the fall—
And she whooped. “Here I come,” she cried and he realized she was going to make it.
Laughing himself—from relief as much as from delight—he stepped backward to provide her space to land.
She made nearly a perfect dismount. But the speed caught up to her, so that she came stumbling forward, right into his arms.
No, he thought—a perfect dismount all around