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    Dinners With Mr. Danville
    Dinners With Mr. Danville
    Dinners With Mr. Danville
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Dinners With Mr. Danville

    By Kate Dolan

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    Christmas is an inconvenient holiday for Helen Wright. Her sister Lucia always invades the household with her husband and seven children. Her stepfather insists on carrying on ridiculous traditions and her brother, Geoffrey, constantly invents new ones. The result of all this chaos is that Helen has no place to conduct her experiments in peace and worst of all, no one of good sense with whom to discuss them. During most of the year, she looks forward to a weekly dinner discussion with Mr. Danville, a friend in the neighborhood. He finds her work quite interesting and always suggests new applications or variables to expand her projects. Of course, during these dinner discussions with the family, he is not aware that the experiments they discuss are Helen’s—he believes Geoffrey to be the scientist and that the other family members just observe his work. But that does not matter. What matters is that every Christmas for the last four years, Mr. Danville has left to spend the season with his sister.
    But this year, his sister comes to stay with him instead. So their dinners may continue uninterrupted during the holidays. However, when Mr. Danville arrives for his weekly appointment, he is quite distressed. His sister has reorganized all of his scientific papers and spilled ink all over his favorite rare volume of Philosophical Treatises of the Royal Society. Helen assures him that they have a copy of that same volume and that he may borrow it as long as necessary. In gratitude and relief, he takes up her hand and kisses it.
    The practice of kissing has never made any sense to Helen. She has seen her sister frequently engage in such gestures of affection with her husband and could never understand why the touch of lips would be a desirable sensation. But Mr. Danville’s kiss on her hand suddenly opens her mind to a host of sensations and feelings she never knew existed.
    Her sister notices the sudden change and for once, she is the one making the scientific observation. Helen is in love. Though she denies it at first, Helen realizes her regard for Mr. Danville has become quite personal. But she has no idea what to do about it. Mr. Danville sees her only as the sister of Geoffrey, the student of natural philosophy. She decides to reveal to Mr. Danville that the experiments are hers, so that his admiration for “Geoffrey’s” scientific work will be transferred to her.
    Her plan misfires. Mr. Danville is somewhat horrified to find that they have duping him all these. He knows that women like his sister have no proper understanding of science so Helen must either be lying or be an unnatural sort of woman.
    He tells Geoffrey that he will not be dining with them any longer. Helen is distressed at first, but then realizes that Mr. Danville only needed time to grow used to the idea.
    As part of their Christmas visits, she knows they will probably see Mr. Danville in the village. Her assumption is correct, but when they pass him he pointedly ignores them. Helen is crushed. All she has to look forward to now is “Thirteenth Night” when her sister and children are gone.
    While she stays home to avoid possibly meeting him at some neighborhood festivities, Mr. Danville calls to return the book he’d borrowed. Helen tells him he may keep it because she didn’t agree with one of the main papers. She realizes she needs to apologize for deceiving him for so long about the experiments.
    At the Twelfth Night Dance, Lucia’s husband tells Mr. Danville he thinks it’s ridiculous to consider giving women the right to vote. Mr. Danville ends up defending women, admitting that some of them, at least have more intellectual power than he gave them credit for.
    Lucia and her husband leave them alone and Mr. Danville apologizes. As Helen accepts, she takes his hand, gives it a squeeze and then brushes a kiss across his fingers, to see how he will react. His eyes widen in surprise and he is at first taken aback.
    Then he gives her his

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWordWorks Editorial Services
    Release dateDec 2, 2017
    ISBN9781370184460
    Dinners With Mr. Danville
    Author

    Kate Dolan

    Kate Dolan began her writing career as a legal editor and then newspaper columnist before she decided she was finally ready to tackle fiction. As the author of more than a dozen novels and novellas, she writes historical fiction and romance under her own name and cozy mysteries and children's books under the name K.D. Hays. When not writing, she enjoys volunteering as a living history interpreter, coaching jump rope and riding roller coasters with her daughter. She loves to connect with readers on Facebook and through her website, www.katedolan.com.

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      Book preview

      Dinners With Mr. Danville - Kate Dolan

      Dinners

      With

      Mr. Danville

      Love & Lunacy

      Book 4

      by

      Kate Dolan

      Copyright 2017 by Kate Dolan

      First published in 2011 by Ellora's Cave Publishing

      Cover art copyright 2017 by Meg Weidman

      Edited by Helen Woodall

      Editing and formatting by Wordworks Editorial Services

      Smashwords Edition

      This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. This ebook is priced low because it is meant for one user only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

      Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally.

      Thanks for reading!

      Chapter One

      Geoffrey lunged toward Helen brandishing a long knife.

      You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you? She grabbed her brother by the wrist and smacked the back of his hand. The knife clattered to the tile floor of the orangery. Mr. Danville arrives in less than a quarter of an hour and we’ve hardly covered anything.

      But I need to practice. Geoffrey bent down to pick up the knife. I could mince those peppers quite finely for you.

      Helen stepped on the knife handle before her brother could reach it. The peppers cannot continue to grow if they’ve been minced. After nearly three decades of living with her twin, she knew what he planned to do next as soon as he did, if not sooner. The problem was that her irrational and quite possibly unbalanced brother very often operated with no plan at all.

      Geoffrey sat back on his heels, his thin shoulders arched upward in a shrug. They look big enough to me.

      Oh… Helen groaned. You’ve paid no attention whatsoever. Those are the peppers fertilized with eggshells and I expect them to grow twice as fast as the unfertilized specimens. Or rather, you expect them to.

      I do?

      Yes, this is your experiment, remember.

      Geoffrey sighed and pulled himself to a standing position. Why must I always conduct experiments of your choosing?

      Because I do all of the work.

      But you always make me talk about it.

      The high, nasal tone of his voice warned her that she had better quickly interject some flattery into her reasoning if she didn’t want him to rebel. She clasped her hands together and contracted her face into what she hoped was a convincing smile. "It is because you are so eloquent in your speech, brother. My work—I mean our work is given much more serious onsideration when you describe it."

      He kicked at a crumpled leaf on the floor. But why must I bother reciting your speeches at dinner today? It’s hardly anyone of significance. Just Mr. Danville. We see him every week.

      It is your practice for when we present the results to a bigger audience. And Mr. Danville is of significance. He has a great understanding of the sciences.

      Hmpf, Geoffrey sniffed in derision. He has no appreciation of the culinary arts. He said the plumb duff I made last week tasted like bookbinding paste.

      He merely reported the truth as he observed it. That is what a man of science does.

      Is he then in the habit of eating paste?

      Helen had no answer for that so she decided to try a different approach to convince her brother to focus on the task at hand. This will be the last experiment you’ll need to discuss for some time, you realize.

      Will you give up your experiments?

      Heavens, no. But Christmas is fast approaching. And Mr. Danville always travels to visit his sister for several weeks at Christmas, so we shall have no dinners with him all that while. She hoped Geoffrey hadn’t noticed the little catch in her voice. And Lucia’s army is due to arrive within the week so we shall have no reasonable discourse at any dinners regardless of guests.

      She reached for a dead leaf on a plant and yanked it off, crumbling it in her hand. Christmas had to rank on the uppermost reaches on any list of mankind’s biggest mistakes. Pointless festivities, superstitious traditions, frivolous games, visits to the most tedious people in the neighborhood, and obligatory time spent with family. Oliver Cromwell knew what he was about when he put a ban on Christmas, she observed.

      What has that to do with your pepper plants?

      Nothing. Helen bit her lip in annoyance as she considered how little time they had left. Listen carefully. The plants in this section include experiments with fertilization substances to increase the rate of growth of the fruit of the plant. In these over here, she stepped to the side to gesture to a row just beyond I have used different substances to encourage the production of more of that oil which gives the pepper its painful spice. I believe it may be used some day as a weapon.

      But sister you forget. Napoleon is gone. We are no longer at war.

      It will come again, soon enough, as long as men continue to lead us.

      Geoffrey pounced on the knife which was no longer under Helen’s slipper. Then perhaps I should buy a commission in the army. He held it out en guard.

      Very well, but you may not use my peppers for bayonet practice. I thought you had decided that after you finished your career as a chef you would become a dancer at the opera?

      I did have this rather splendid idea of becoming the first dancing chef but Cook has too much equipment in the kitchen and I haven’t room for a proper leap. He took several steps backward.

      Recognizing the preparation for a potentially disastrous leap demonstration, Helen stepped in front to block him. In the corridor outside, if you please, Geoffrey. You’ve not sufficient room to leap in here, either.

      "There’s not enough room

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