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Post by Anne on Dec 20, 2008 17:08:49 GMT -5
*Anne walked across the little beach, happily talking to herself and making small notes in pencil in a book she carried with her.*
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 20, 2008 17:47:18 GMT -5
*Willoughby tugged on the reins of his stallion, prancing dangerously near the clifftop as he narrowed his eyes at the small figure of a woman walking alone on the beach below. Looping the leather round a sturdy small tree nearby and leaving his horse to graze, he made his way down to the cove in an easy manner. A loose page blew from the young woman's hands and she gave a small cry of surprised dismay as twirled towards him. He caught it in his fingertips.*
"Pray, tell me, do I trespass upon your privacy to return this to you, miss?"
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Post by Anne on Dec 20, 2008 17:49:39 GMT -5
"Not at all. Thank you," *she said, holding up the paper as she slipped it back into the book.*
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 20, 2008 17:51:30 GMT -5
"It may have been a great loss. Was it poetry? Or some great truth in succinct wit?"
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Post by Anne on Dec 20, 2008 17:52:04 GMT -5
"Neither, really," *said Anne with a laugh.* "I...write. I write books."
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 20, 2008 17:53:32 GMT -5
"A novelist, indeed?" *He grinned.* "Allow me to introduce myself--John Willoughby, of Allenham. And you are an acolyte of Mrs. Radcliffe, then?"
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Post by Anne on Dec 20, 2008 17:55:02 GMT -5
"Anne Shirley of Green Gables...and...well, I couldn't say, exactly. I've yet to be published; but it's all my own imagination."
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 20, 2008 17:55:38 GMT -5
"To be sure," *he said softly.*
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Post by Anne on Dec 20, 2008 17:56:08 GMT -5
"Have you newly arrived from England, then?"
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 20, 2008 17:57:43 GMT -5
"Yes, only just yesterday. I am staying at the White Sands Hotel. It is no difficulty for an unmarried man such as myself, indeed, but I should not feel truly settled til I had bought a house, here, perhaps, though the space may be wasted on a bachelor."
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Post by Anne on Dec 21, 2008 5:02:11 GMT -5
"Of course. --One of your countrymen owns the White Sands, actually. Mr. Darcy, of Pemberley. Do you know him?"
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 21, 2008 5:03:19 GMT -5
"I know of him, indeed. One hears of such people of high standing...only he disappeared from what little society he went about in some months back. Has he been hiding out here all this time?"
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Post by Anne on Dec 21, 2008 5:07:20 GMT -5
"I do not know that he has been hiding from anything, as he has nothing to hide...but he has been working very hard to make the White Sands a successful business..."
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Post by Willoughby on Dec 21, 2008 5:08:46 GMT -5
"From a gentleman to a businessman...a sad price to pay for errors not wholly his own. His estate was woefully mismanaged from what I hear. He trusted the wrong men with the running of it. Well, he will not make the same mistake twice. He will be ruined if he does."
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Post by Anne on Dec 21, 2008 5:09:47 GMT -5
"Ye-es...well." *Anne looked out at the sea.* "Perhaps his judgment of others comes too quickly, sometimes."
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