…Catherine took it, going to the settee. She seemed to change her mind and took the chair next to his instead. She put the glass down on the table between them.
He went back to where he’d been sitting. Obviously, he wasn’t going to do any reading today. Not when he could watch her.
She tucked her feet under her. “I don’t get along with my dad either,” she said, flipping through the book. She leaned forward to free her damp hair, fanning it over her shoulder.
“That would explain why he leaves you to work too hard,” he said.
“Yeah well, parents are struggling too. He can’t afford to pay off debts I made making choices he didn’t approve of.”
“Maybe he should have provided you with better choices.”
She smiled. It was the first time he’d seen her smile like that since she’d first bumped into him on the street.
“What year were you born?” she asked.
“Seventeen-hundred-and-forty-nine.”
She shook her head. “Damn. Well, yeah, I guess that’s how you might think. But women didn’t have many choices back then.”
“Maybe not, but much has been lost since then as well.”
She smoothed her hand over a page of the book. “Like what?”
He shrugged. “Some women were born to work, and others to be taken care of.”…
Darcy Branwyn 
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