“So there is a story behind it.” She nodded, of course there had been, nothing the man did was without some sort of tale of his dashing exploits. She saw a bit of that self-congratulatory satisfaction on the younger man but it fell more to the side of enthusiasm than arrogance. When had he changed? What had caused it?

“I was never good at that game, I tried it because it drove my aunts to distress.” She laughed lightly and emptied her glass, thinking it might be a good time to slow her pace with the drinks. “They hated anything that wasn’t proper, so one day I laid out a deck of cards and started playing. You would have thought I’d pulled a vibroaxe on them the way they scrambled and gasped.” And then she got grounded, again.

“This is a good drink, it must be. I haven’t told stories like this in a long time.” Or ever in the case of her skinny dipping escapades.