Read Online What the Duke Doesn't Know by Jane Ashford - Free Book Online

she didn’t know how else she could have answered the studier of turtles. Even if she’d been inclined to help him, which she emphatically was not, her mother would have forbidden it. After the bird killer, her mother had vowed that no such person would be allowed on the island again.
    â€œHarris will get over it,” Alan replied. “His temperament is quite impervious.” He dropped back to walk next to his brother.
    Ariel took her arm. “Are you all right?” she asked. “I’m sorry for the way he spoke to you.”
    Kawena shrugged. “He has nothing to do with me. But I understand better what you said about the way they treat you here.”
    â€œYou’d think that intelligent, educated men would be more open-minded,” she responded. “They’re always talking about testing out theories and shifting their ‘hypotheses’ when they prove faulty. My hypothesis is: they put too much stock in their schooling. They’ve worked so hard at it, are so proud of their scholarly accomplishments. If you don’t have that…stamp of approval, you’re inconsequential.”
    Clearly, Ariel had thought a great deal about this. Because she had to live her life here among them, Kawena supposed. She was glad she didn’t. “At least Lord Alan isn’t like that,” she offered. She’d discovered at the lecture that her host and his brother were supposed to be addressed as “lords”—another new custom to remember.
    â€œNow,” Ariel agreed. “When I first met him…” A reminiscent smile crossed her lips. “It was quite a while before he acknowledged my abilities.”
    There was a whole, tender tale in her expression. The glow in her hazel eyes made Kawena a bit envious. Even in the short time she’d been here, she’d observed that Ariel and her husband shared a special bond. “You’re fortunate,” she said.
    â€œYes.”
    That one brief word was full of love. As Ariel glanced over her shoulder at her husband, Kawena wondered whether she could hope for such a marriage. Sadly, it seemed unlikely. At home on her island, there was always a…distance between her and the young men. That was partly—no, mainly—her father’s doing. He had not encouraged such connections. But she knew it wasn’t only that. With all her father had insisted she learn and do, the island men found her unsettling, foreign in a way that put off rather than intrigued. She intimidated some, irritated others. She’d been told as much, during a fumbling, humiliating encounter at age fourteen. She felt it from her side, too. She wasn’t like them.
    And here, on the other side of the world, amidst the other side of her heritage, she felt even more alien. Of course, until the last few days, it had been critical to hide the fact that she was a woman.
    â€œYou’re very silent,” said Ariel. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
    Kawena nodded. “Just thinking.”
    â€œIt must make your head spin, sometimes, so many new things to absorb.”
    These professors are fools to dismiss this woman’s abilities , Kawena thought. Ariel saw right to the heart of things.
    Her mind did feel muddled at times like this. Kawena was a foreigner at home, and a foreigner here. The Englishmen she’d met so far treated her as an oddity, even more than her childhood companions had done. Except Lord James. He seemed different, less rigid. Perhaps it was because he’d spent so much of his life at sea. On their recent walk along this same lane, she’d felt comfortable and stimulated and curious and…
    But he—any Englishman—would expect her to live in this country, and she couldn’t imagine doing that. It wasn’t home, would never be. And yet, home wasn’t quite home any more either, with her father gone. Add the long ocean voyage, and her life had been turned