Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,119
the alphabet. Some letters were represented, but the user would have to code the sentence into a more phonemic form and produce that as the message.
I simplified this by having Pru modify Barbier’s system for use in English, and, not wanting to create my own form of night writing, didn’t go into too many specifics of how she accomplished this. Knowing Pru, she came up with a clever modification.
Louis Braille did much the same thing when he used Barbier’s method as a starting point for Braille. The French government wasn’t all that interested in adopting night writing for the military, and Barbier presented it to the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris in 1821. Braille learned the Barbier method and reduced the number of dot positions from 12 in 2 columns to 6 in 2 columns.
Barbier designed night writing in 1815, which makes it unlikely that my fictional Pru and her family would have been in Paris after he’d developed it as this novel is set in late 1817. So I have taken some liberty with the date when night writing was invented. It also seems unlikely that Pru and her missionary parents would have reason to know Charles Barbier, but Pru could probably make friends with a rock, so I hope you’ll allow it.
About Shana Galen
Shana Galen is three-time Rita award nominee and the bestselling author of passionate Regency romps. Kirkus said of her books: "The road to happily-ever-after is intense, conflicted, suspenseful and fun." RT Bookreviews described her writing as “lighthearted yet poignant, humorous yet touching." She taught English at the middle and high school level for eleven years. Most of those years were spent working in Houston's inner city. Now she writes full time, surrounded by three cats and one spoiled dog. She's happily married and has a daughter who is most definitely a romance heroine in the making.
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About a quarter hour into the journey, Ines realized it was more difficult than she’d anticipated to pretend she did not understand English. Miss Wellesley or one of the gentlemen often said something she was tempted to comment about. More than once, Miss Wellesley gave her a pointed look when Ines was paying too much attention to the conversation. She knew how one behaved when one did not know the language. She hadn’t known Spanish when her sister had first taken her to Barcelona. When one didn’t understand what was being said all around, it was easy to ignore the conversation and focus on one’s surroundings. But now she was having difficulty ignoring what was said. One method that seemed to work was to watch Mr. Murray speak and notice how his lips moved or his amber-colored eyes crinkled when he laughed.
But she’d obviously stared at him too long because he gave her a questioning look, and she was forced to go back to staring out the window again. Though Ines had been disappointed the Scotsman hadn’t tried to take advantage of her the night before, she realized it was probably for the best. Benedict would kill Murray if he ever found out, and Ines didn’t want that blood on her hands. But Draven would probably only lecture Murray if he kissed Ines. Surely, she was worth a lecture.
The Scotsman caught her looking at him again, but this time he nodded out the window. “If ye look before we start down this rise, ye can see Wentmore below.”
Ines waited until Mr. Fortescue and Miss Wellesley looked out the window, then followed their example. She winced a bit at what she saw. Wentmore had probably once been a lovely manor house. It was still lovely, though the stone of the front face was three-fourths obscured by the overgrown ivy that seemed to have wrapped itself around the house in a choking embrace. The front lawns were also poorly maintained. The grass was yellow, and the hedges and topiary were overgrown. Along one side, she caught a dark stain on the stone. She almost forgot herself and asked about it, but Miss Wellesley asked first. “What is that mark on the side of the stone? It looks like a burn.”