Lord Julian, well versed in the lore of womankind and usually at his ease with ladies of the beau-monde, found himself oddly constrained before this frank and unsophisticated niece of a colonial planter.
They moved on in silence and as if by common consent towards the brilliant sunshine where the pergola was intersected by the avenue leading upwards to the house.

Across this patch of light fluttered a gorgeous butterfly, that was like black and scarlet velvet and large as a man's hand.

His lordship's brooding eyes followed it out of sight before he answered.
"It is not easy.

Stab me, it is not.

He was a man who deserved well.