little miss austin

When he saw Alice laughing again, he shut up wisely: it seemed that he had said the wrong thing.

She laughed again for a while before asking: "Then do you 'don't remember' or 'never'?"

"there has never been."

"you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Very well then. If Master Paul comes and offers to fight you, must you agree?"

"I have to agree." He frowned in annoyance.

"Then if you kill Master Pavel, don't you need to acknowledge the engagement?"

He nodded reluctantly, "I don't want a duel. A duel means that one party must die."

"Aren't there dead ones too?"

He smiled wryly, "You ignored the military training I received. Thomas Paul did not receive military training. He only knew how to hunt, which is incomparable to military training."

"I don't want to pretend to care about Paul. His family is also very strange. Why must I fight you?"

"It's for family honor. For example, if you have my child, but I don't want to marry you, your brothers have the right to come to me for a duel, and if I win, then you become an unwed mother; if I If I lose but survive, I have to marry you; or, if I die, then your child can use my surname."

She laughed again, "You really never forget to mention marriage."

"I'm going crazy with this inexplicable engagement! Help me, Alice, and find a way to fix it."

"You really can't solve it?"

"Yes, duel, I won the duel, and they won't talk about it. But I don't want to really kill Thomas."

"You can miss it a bit and hit his thigh."

"I can not guarantee."

The Indian servant grabbed the blue peacock that had been selected, broke its neck at once, held it under his arm, and brought it into the house.

Oliver frowned, and Alice said: "Tomorrow I will eat roasted peacocks, and Ivo will come over for dinner. If you are still alive, come over for dinner too."

He frowned again, but said nothing.

"Is Miss Paul pretty?"

"Not very pretty."

"Is she cute?"

"It's okay, at least it's cute when you're 17."

"So, do you remember what she looked like when she was 17? Do you remember what I looked like when I was 17?"

"remember."

"What color do I like?"

"green."

"What flowers do I like?"

"Rose, tulip."

"Do I speak German?"

"will not."

"Why don't you write to me?"

"I don't want you to worry about this matter, I—" he brushed her hair lightly, "I told my father that I'm already engaged to you, and my father is very happy."

"Then you now have two fiancees."

He laughed. "Don't be silly, I'm pretty sure I'm not engaged to her at all. Are you coming back with me? Come to my house for dinner and meet my father. Oh, and little Isaac, he's cute."

"Let's go later, I don't want to have enough time to see the Paul family. Tell me, I'll just go there in this suit, how about it?"

"As long as you're happy."

"No, I have to dress up very beautifully. I can't lose to your fiancee in appearance."

He glared at her, "Aren't you my fiancée? I hope that one day, you will become Mrs. Bundfield legally."

"Let's talk about this later." She took out the pocket watch hanging on his coat, "It's almost 4 o'clock, I should go back and change my clothes."

She took him back to the main house, told him to wait in the living room, and went upstairs to change.

Kate changed her into a new dress and brushed her hair.While muttering, "Miss Alice, that Miss Paul is really shameless, how could she come to snatch your Master Oliver? You are already engaged to Master Oliver."

"She said she got engaged to Oliver years ago, so I was the one who came later."

"I don't think it's believable. If they were privately engaged, why hasn't she said it in years?"

"I agree, this is really strange. She is 26 years old, even in London she is considered an older unmarried young woman, and her family should be urging her to get married." Unable to figure it out, she put the question aside for the time being.

Kate spent half an hour braiding her hair into intricate braids, which she then fastened with tiny ruby-encrusted flower-shaped barrettes.

This era is all about pure natural cosmetics, but some cosmetics are poisonous. For example, the face powder used for whitening contains lead powder, and the cinnabar powder used as blush contains mercury. Alice does not use these.She found a small shop run by a Turk who sold homemade face powder made from ground rice powder; she made her own blush and lipstick from olive oil, beeswax, and rose extract; there was no eyebrow pencil, In the 18th century, it was popular to paint eyebrows with roasted clove buds. Alice and her sisters were at home baking and grinding clove buds, adding a little almond oil to form a powder cake, and then brushing it with a small brush to use as eyebrow powder.

High-class ladies and noble ladies still regard white as beauty, not only must have fair skin, but also have a slender body, so as to appear very delicate; apply a large area of ​​blush on the fair face, and sometimes even put some on the earlobe Blush, in this way there is a sharp contrast in color, coupled with the weak body, creating a sickly delicate beauty.

So that's why many women don't find out they have tuberculosis until they start coughing up blood, their blush and face powder masking the outward manifestations of their disease.

Most of the time, Alice just smears a thin layer of face powder, blush and lipstick. Bright red lips can brighten the complexion. Pure natural ingredients are not dangerous and can even be eaten. Of course, there are not so many colors , that is, the difference between thick coating and thin coating.

Then there is jewelry.

Everyone loves small shiny stones. The French court has always been the object of imitation for the nobles of the European upper class. The beheaded Queen Marie Antoneva was the fashion of her time. People imitated her makeup style, wearing clothing style, but also includes her favorite jewelry style.

Alice also has a lot of jewelry, ranging from topaz necklaces for a few pounds to ruby ​​necklaces for several hundred pounds.

She still had her ears unpierced and wore a pair of earhooks.Since Susan began to wear earrings after her marriage, a new fashion for wearing earrings has become popular among aristocratic women in London in recent years.

Put on a ruby ​​necklace, a gold bracelet inlaid with rubies and diamonds, and a ruby ​​ring on the ring finger of her left hand. With her fair skin, it can be said to be gorgeous and beautiful.

Oliver waited patiently downstairs, a little bored, called Jacob to play chess with him, and asked Alice what she did when she lived in Winchester.Jacob answered some tactfully, anyway, it was just riding a horse and taking a walk to the cemetery, and he didn't know anything else.

Alice appeared at the door of the living room, and he was amazed by the beauty of her costume: she was rarely dressed so gorgeously before, and even if she went to the ball, she would only wear a simple necklace at most.

It dawned on him that she had really grown up, that wearing a set of jewelry would not be considered a child sneaking around with grown-up jewelry.

She smiled at him. "Ollie."

The beauty of Alice Austin also amazed everyone in the Paul family.

The Paul family didn't expect Alice to come, and they were caught off guard.Cynthia Paul didn't have time to dress up, so she looked too plain and inconspicuous in comparison.

In fact, it is a bit too much for Alice to dress up like this if she is only here for a meal, but the three men in the host’s house expressed their appreciation and appreciation, and the guests can’t say anything. High, a little confused about the occasion.

This dinner is full of chicken hair and dog blood.

The baron made the hostess seat, and the hostess's seat was vacant when the baroness did not come down to eat.The person from Paul’s family was Cynthia Paul’s uncle, and Cynthia sat on the baron’s left; Oliver, Alice, Julian, and Maria sat on the baron’s right, so Alice and Cynthia sat face to face. with.

"Does Miss Austen live in London?" asked Uncle Cynthia.

"Correct."

"I heard that the Austin Typewriter Company was started by your brother."

"Yes." There is nothing to hide about this, everyone in Newton Manor knows it.

Cynthia asked: "I heard that Miss Alice knew Oliver a long time ago, didn't she?"

"It was very early. How old were you then?" She turned to Oliver.

"16 is old."

"Oliver said that he knew a cute girl from a neighbor's house in his hometown. He didn't have a sister himself, and he always treated her as a little sister."

"I was young then."

"I will also treat you as my sister." Cynthia said sincerely.

Alice glanced at her with a smile.

"Alice is now my fiancee." Oliver said seriously.

Uncle Cynthia immediately sank.

Cynthia stared at Oliver heartbroken, "Why? You refused to acknowledge our engagement, but proposed to another woman? What about your promise to me?" She left the restaurant crying.

Alice was stunned at first, then stood up, and said to Oliver angrily: "What's going on? Why didn't you tell me that you were engaged to someone else? You liar!"

She also left the restaurant crying.

Oliver immediately chased after him, "Alice, Alice!"

Uncle Cynthia glared at the baron, who had a calm expression on his face.

Oliver walked with Alice on the lawn outside.The sky is getting dark and the setting sun is slanting.

"Are you angry?" he asked cautiously.

"A little bit, but not particularly angry."

"That's good." He breathed a sigh of relief, "This matter is very strange. I can't think of any reason to target me. There are more rich young people who have inherited the family property than me. I am not rich. You have seen my account book, I only have tens of thousands of pounds. Ivo must be richer than me after inheriting the family property."

Alice laughed out loud, "That's right!"

"how is he?"

"not too good."

"I'm really sorry for him. The Gordons are very kind and love him very much." Thinking that this favored baby lost his parents all of a sudden, it must have been a big blow.

"Don't talk about him, he will be fine. Tell me about you, you have to make sure that you are really not drunk and get engaged to her."

"What do you think of me? I'm very controlling and rarely get drunk. Have you ever seen me drunk?"

She shook her head.

"Assuming I was really drunk, she should have taken me to the priest to get married. Engagement can be canceled, but it is too difficult for marriage to be declared invalid."

She was surprised, "Yes! She should have said that she was married to you."

The unexpected happened the next day: Thomas Ball arrived at Newton Park with a vicar, claiming that Oliver Bundfield had married Cynthia Ball in Cambridge in October 1803!

The clergyman testified that he had performed a private wedding for Master Bundfield and Miss Ball, witnessed by Thomas Ball and a young student named John Craig, and the marriage certificate signed by the bride and groom.

Oliver steadfastly refused to admit it, saying there was neither an engagement nor a wedding.He didn't know what happened, he only knew that someone was trying to trick him out of nowhere.

Alice, who was listening in, was absolutely amazed!

When you want a man to confess to something he didn't do, you arrange all the evidence witnesses, repeat the lie several times, and in the end, the poor man will wonder if he really did that thing .