Margaret smiled and a slight color filled her cheeks. She reached for the plate of goodies and selected a small sweet bun, bringing it to her mouth to take a small bite out of it. She chewed slowly, letting the sweet taste of the bun roll over her tongue. She took her time trying to identify flavors - brown sugar, cinnamon, was that vanilla? - just to delay the time until she had to answer him. Her thoughts seemed to have fled from her mind and they didn't seem inclined to return any time soon. That was all right, she decided. She honestly didn't know how to continue their conversation without making herself look like a fool.
He'd called her stunningly beautiful.
No one had ever called her that before. Well, her father had, but he didn't count. Fathers always thought their daughters were beautiful, even when they were so ugly they had to wear veils all the time to cover up their faces. Men had said she was pretty for a homely girl. Other girls had said she was too fat or too plain or too this or too that to be considered beautiful. Her sister, on the other hand, was her complete opposite, and was praised for her luxurious hair and her bright eyes and her obvious beauty. Molly had never been jealous of her sister; the girl wasn't even aware of her own looks and just as obviously didn't care about them. She was more into experimenting with her cheeses, just as Molly was more into experimenting with the flavors of wine, to care about what people thought about her.
All Nadya really wanted in life was her own sheepie.
Just as all Molly wanted to do was save her family from her idiot brother's crushing debt. Her parents didn't even know she knew. They thought that they were protecting her from the horrors of not having enough to eat, or enough to pay their workers, or enough to buy the food for the schoolchildren's meals. But she knew. She saw. How could she not? Molly wasn't a fool and she wasn't blind. She loved her parents, she loved her sister, and she loved her brother - she really did, even if she wanted to take a wine bottle and smash it over his head for being so stupid - and she loved her home. She didn't want to lose it. That was why she'd even accepted Lysander's invitation in the first place - to ask him if he could help her save her family. But she'd chickened out. She'd changed her mind. She decided she hadn't wanted to come to him asking to share his wealth with her to save her family, because it wasn't in her nature to ask anyone else to help, even if she desperately needed it. She could do it on her own. Somehow. Some way. She could do it.
She swallowed the bun and looked toward Lysander. "I ramble sometimes, when I talk about things I actually know quite a bit about. It tends to bore others, since it isn't about the latest fashion trend or the latest gossip. I prefer a more... educational conversation." She lifted her shoulders and let them fall. "I enjoy learning about many things. I enjoy reading many books. Usually I discuss them with my sister, for she often reads the same things I do, and learns the same things I do. Her interests lie elsewhere though. I think you may have had some of our cheeses for tasting on your tables, but I really wasn't paying attention to them. If you had anything flavored with mint or lemon, that was probably my sister's experiments."
She picked up another treat, this time a biscuit. She took a bite, chewed slowly, and then chuckled. Molly covered her mouth with her fingers to keep from blowing crumbs everywhere and looked away from Lysander as she did her best to make sure her lips weren't covered in half-chewed biscuit parts. She swallowed and reached for the wine.
"She and I try to match flavors. Wine does go well with cheese, you know. And different fruits." Molly worked the cork open, then looked around for glasses. Her cheeks reddened again as she realized they had forgotten to bring wine glasses with them.
She looked at Lysander out of the corner of her eye and lifted the bottle of wine into his line of sight. "How do you feel about sharing a bottle?"
