Excerpt:

"Here's to being too old!" Eleanor Hayden held up her margarita. "Thirty-one, and I'm a damn single woman again!"
Her friend Annah chuckled and raised her glass as well. "And many happy returns!"
They leaned back and chugged the margaritas, Ellie finishing first with a whoop. Annah banged her glass down on the table. "Damn!" then she laughed. "Happy birthday, darlin'."
Eleanor sighed and propped her chin up on her hand. "Thanks. Some birthday."
"Ahh, could be worse," Annah rose from her seat with a slight hiccup. "You could still be married to that dickweed."
"God," Ellie moaned, "it doesn't bear thinking about."
"Exactly," Annah said firmly. "Time for gifts."

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There seemed to be a strange amount of animosity between the Count and the Earl. Anton seemed unwilling to either look at or speak to the Englishman, conversing politely, if stiffly, with Eleanor's father and coming as close to totally ignoring Vence of Padriac as civility would allow.
The Earl, on the other hand, was the epitomy of curteousy. He spoke engergetically with her father and offered comments to Anton --who merely responded with a bare word or three. But there was something amused about the glances Vence kept throwing the Count.
This, Eleanor decided, could get very interesting indeed. "My Lord," she said to Vence when there was a pause in the conversation. "You and the Count seem to have met before. Do you trade?"
Anton gave a small grimace as he looked at Vence from the corner of his eye.
The Earl raised an eyebrow at her, and Eleanor had the feeling he knew she was just asking for the entertainment. But he only said "We have met on former occasions, yes, but our views do not always do the same. I believe I am too saturnine for our friend here, who prefers his compatriots rather less studious." He nodded politely to Anton once again. "Merely an unfortunate personality difference out of which we both lose, I would think, the possibility of a worthy friend." He shot an amused glance at the Count.
"Unfortunate," agreed Anton stiffly.
Eleanor wondered if it was unkind of her to find the situation so amusing.