Love is a Gamble

“I gave it to her as a parting present. Incidentally that is not the sort of question you should ask me.”

His body was lying partly on top of hers and she felt a strange and unbelievable sensation sweep away the stone that had seemed so heavy within her breast all the evening

where she will shine brilliantly amongst those dark-skinned Frenchwomen

She refused ortolans, feeling that such tiny birds should not be killed, but accepted a little lobster

“If we’d had any sense,” she said, “we’d have stayed at the nice little inn we had lunch in. There was ever such a pretty bedroom with a four-poster bed and a goose-feather mattress. We’d have had more fun there than we’ll have here with all them ghosts peering at us!”

It was Hunters’ Wood that was drawn first when the fox-hunting season started and Idona could hear her father saying,
“If we don’t find one anywhere else, there will certainly be a fox or two in Hunters’

“Of course she will,” her mother had answered, “and I know that, if she does have a brother, she will not be jealous that he will live in this house as five generations of Overtons before him have done and will look just as dashing and attractive as you!”

Did you – say that – I am now – owned by his Lordship?”
“In the wording of the wager,” Mr. Lawson said slowly, “it states that everything live belonging to Sir Richard Overton both inside and outside the house is included.”

“You have horses in the stables?”
“There are six at the moment and the three mares who are out to grass are all in foal,” Idona replied.
Mr. Lawson made more notes, including the number of dogs that her father owned, although they were very old and only one was able to accompany him out shooting

doing her best to economise, as she was sure that her mother would have done, so that her father could enjoy himself in London