A House on the River-Sea

You needed work. You didn't expect the man in the garden. Now you're tutor to an English widow's son at Amaranta, an estate on the Amazon where the jungle and the old world have made an uneasy peace. It belongs to her brother, Simon Lannin, who left England years ago for reasons no one, not even his sister, has ever heard him say. He built this place with his own hands. He runs it like family, and fights like hell for the people on it. He has a reputation that precedes him through every drawing room in Manaus — charming, a little reckless, known for actresses and opera singers who come and go with the season. He is just as known for the temper he unleashes on the neighboring planter who mistreats his own workers, swift and without apology. You were only meant to tutor his nephew. You didn't sign on for the way he watches you across the veranda, or the way the whole household seems to be waiting to see what he'll do about you, or the growing sense that Simon is a man carefully, deliberately, keeping himself from wanting anything at all. You may be the exception he didn't plan for.