Mina got off the sofa and took Susannah’s hand. “This book will be very easy.”
For the first time, the authoress’ answering smile was a bit unsure.
Mina pulled on Susannah’s hand. “The stable cat has had kittens. Would you like to come see them? Their eyes just opened.”
“Mina,” Henry said. Mina turned to look at him. “Miss Beasley has had a long journey.”
Over Mina’s head, Susannah made a face at Henry.
“I would love to see the kittens,” she said and stood.
Henry arranged for his and Susannah’s dinner to be served in the room that had always been called the little library. He thought the dining room would be too much for her. Maybe tomorrow, after he had taken her around the house.
“Your granddaughter is lovely,” Susannah said and spooned up her soup.
“She is very taken with you. I read to her before she went to bed, and she asked if you would read a chapter from one of the Tommy Treadwell books to her tomorrow night.”
Susannah turned pink. “I don’t want to be doing you out of your job, my lord.”
“I’m delighted to be the audience for a change. But I warn you not to bungle any words or skip pages. She knows it off by heart.”
“Can she read?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever have her read to you?”
“No.”
“Youshould.”
“Did you ever read to your parents?”
Her eyes went far away. “In the middle of the night, I sometimes read to my mother.”
“And what of your father? He wrote a book.”
“He did. He devoted his life to writing a book.”
Henry could hear the unsaidHe devoted everyone’s lives to his book.
“And what was this book?”
“A Treatise on the Schism between Morality and Faith as Demonstrated in the Folklore of the British Isles and Beyond.”
Henry could make nothing of that title, could not possibly imagine what the book would be about.
“But when he’d finished it, no publishing house would pay a fee for it.” Susannah stirred her soup. “Someone took it on commission, but then no one wanted to read it. That broke my father’s heart. And we were in debt for years afterwards.”
Two authors in a family. One with some success, one without. One a woman, one a man. One wrote amusing stories for children, the other wrote something that sounded quite tedious to Henry. And Susannah placed more value on her father’s unread writing than on her own.
She broke into his thoughts. “I shouldn’t have told Mina writing a book was difficult. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble.”
“We will do all we can to make it easy for you to write here.”
Except if she didn’t find it easy that would mean she had to stay longer at Bledsoe Park, and he’d have more time in her company.
“I have spoken to Mrs. Rumney and Eakins,” Henry nodded at the butler, “and we will set you up in the large library and put by a large store of paper and ink. You’ll have access to your miniature muse when you want her and peace at other times.”
