Paintings dotted almost every wall, but the ones in the gallery held her interest the most. They were portraits of the Delameres going back generations, and there was one of the earl as a young lieutenant in uniform and another with him older and standing behind a seated woman who held a very small child in her lap. A young boy stood beside her, leaning into her.
In that painting, the earl touched no one, and no one was touching him. He seemed very apart.
“Which is Mina’s father?” Susannah asked. She deliberately did not ask about the beautiful blonde woman, the countess, his late wife.
“The older boy. Hal was about five then, and Charles was almost one.”
“Both are very like you. But Charles a little more, I think.”
The earl moved to the next painting.
“Here is my brother and his wife. This was painted before their son was born.”
Susannah had already learned that the earl’s brother Charlie and his son, yet another Henry, had died when the man she knew as Ashthorpe was still in the army.
“And your sister-in-law? Where does she live?”
“In London, I believe.”
“You don’t see her?”
The earl almost smiled. “I see no one.”
“Mina is enough company for you, then.”
Was there a hesitation before he answered? “Yes, she is the best kind of company.”
He took her through the many drawing rooms and the billiards room, music room, ballroom, dining room, chapel, the Queen Elizabeth bedchamber. He even took her through the cellars and the kitchens where the kitchen maids looked at her with wonder.
I know, she wanted to say to them.I know I belong with you and not with him.
But, besides her own bedchamber, her favorite rooms were the earl’s study, the little library, and Mina’s nursery.
The study was a favorite because it was his. It smelled of him. He told her something about the desk and its history, but she didn’t listen because she was busy sniffing up air that was full of Henry.
No, not Henry. The earl. His lordship.
She liked the little library because that was where he and she ate their dinners and talked. And she laughed, and he tolerated her laughing. It also held the cabinet with no key, and Susannah quickly learned that was Mina’s favorite place to hide in a game of hide-and-seek.
“I like it,” Mina said. “I imagine it’s the magician’s cupboard inFurther Adventures, and it will take me anywhere I want to go.”
Mina’s nursery was where Susannah and the earl read to Mina in the evenings. Mina did not sit in Susannah’s lap—that privilege was quite rightly reserved for her grandfather—but Mina and Susannah could sit snugly side by side in a big chair, despite Susannah’s own round bottom, and hold a booktogether and read. And the nursery was where Susannah saw her own stories bound and printed just like proper books for the first time.
“I’m sorry they’re not better specimens,” the earl said. “A bit worn.”
“They’re marvelous,” she said, touching the covers, turning the pages. “Is that terrible to say that about my own work?”
“Terrible,” he agreed.
“I’ve asked Grandfather to send away to London for new ones,” Mina said. “Because these aren’t mine, and I want my own.”
Susannah looked to the earl, who said, “These were Charles’ books when he was young.”
“And I don’t want to wear them out in case he wants them back,” Mina said. “I am going to be very careful with my new Tommy Treadwell books and not get them dirty or cat-ear any of the pages.”
Susannah loved those evenings sitting in the nursery, either reading or listening to the earl or Mina read. On occasion, she had to tell herself that she mustn’t be sad or envious that other people got to do this with their families all the time or that the earl and Mina would continue to read together after she left. She must not be mawkish about anything. She needed to remember how lucky she was to be a small part of this, to bear witness to the great love between the two of them.
The earl also took Susannah over the extensive grounds bit by bit, and he showed her the rose garden one fine afternoon. Mina skipped ahead of them on the gravel path, and Susannah asked the size of the estate.
