“Thank you,” she repeated, and waited while he poured tea for himself, as well, before she sipped. “Ummmm… delicious,” she purred, and the Reverend smiled back at her as he enjoyed her sensual delight in the treat.

Allison recognized that smile, for she’d seen it often in her life. Most men seemed to take a simple pleasure in making her happy (and they darned well should, too, she thought comfortably), but Sullivan’s smile still surprised her a bit. Oh, she’d discovered very quickly that Grayson males were much more gallant than most, but she’d known before she ever came to Yeltsin’s Star that, however gallant, they could also be smug, patronizing, and paternalistic. She’d come prepared to cut them off at the ankles if necessary to turn that around, and so far she’d never had to squash one of them more than once. On the other hand, she’d spent almost all of her time on Grayson here in Harrington Steading, where public attitudes tended to be a bit more “advanced,” and this was the first time she’d actually met Reverend Sullivan, aside from the intensely formal, emotionally shattering day of Honor’s funeral.

But even though she hadn’t had the chance to form a firsthand opinion of him, she’d gathered from Miranda—and from Honor’s letters—that Sullivan was much more conservative at heart than Reverend Hanks had been. No one had suggested that he was anything but committed to supporting Benjamin Mayhew’s reforms with the full power of his office, yet he clearly seemed less comfortable with them on a personal level than, say, Howard Clinkscales. Somehow she’d expected that to carry over to the same sort of discomfort with women as authority figures which she’d seen from the more reactionary Grayson physicians. And even if he hadn’t been stiff and ill at ease with her, she still would have expected the spiritual head of the Church of Humanity to be more… ascetic? Was that the word? No, not quite, but something like it.

Except Reverend Sullivan wasn’t whatever it was she’d expected. Indeed, there was a warm appreciation for her attractiveness in his dark eyes, and she sensed a willingness to play the game hiding just beneath his attentive surface. She knew he was married—with all three of the wives Grayson custom enshrined—and she could tell he would never dream of going further than a cheerful flirtation, yet there was an earthy vitality to him which she had never anticipated.

Well, maybe that makes sense after all, she thought. Honor may not have noticed it—she felt a pang as she thought of her daughter, but she kept the thought moving despite the hurt—because, Lord love the girl, the universe had to hit her between the eyes with a brick just to get her to recognize the opposite sex was even out there! But underneath all that gallantry and all those codes of proper behavior and how to act and react around another man’s wives, these people are just as “earthy” (she chuckled mentally at the repeated use of the word) as my high school sex counselor back on Beowulf. Heavens! All you have to do is poke your nose inside an upper-class lingerie shop to know that! That’s rather healthy, really.