But if Henry hadn’t married Diana, there would be no Charles. No Hal. No Mina. That was unthinkable.
Alongside the estate business, Henry would sometimes include a few words about Mina in his letters to Charles. How tall she had grown. How she liked to play bowls. How she thought she might like a pony if it were well-mannered and didn’t go at too fast a pace.
Pen still hovering over the foolscap, he rubbed his jaw with the soft end of the quill.
Perhaps he should write to Charles about how Mina had developed an appreciation—no, an adoration—for the Tommy Treadwell storybooks. A year ago, she had found thebattered volumes ofThe Tales of Tommy TreadwellandThe Further Adventures of Tommy Treadwellin a chest in the nursery, and now Henry had read them to her so many times, they both had all the words off by heart. Tommy’s books had also been favorites for Charles. Or had it been Hal who loved Tommy? No, no. It had been Charles.
“Grandfather.”
He looked up from his unwritten letter and saw damp, dark curls, a broad forehead, a pair of eyes peeking over the top of the desk.
“The big hand is on the six, and the little hand is between the three and the four.”
Henry put his pen back into the encrier. “What time is it, then?”
“Half past three. And I’ve had my bath.”
“Have you?”
“My hair is still wet, you see.”
“Yes, I see.”
One of the many young nursemaids appeared in the doorway and bobbed a curtsy. “Miss Mina didn’t want to wait, my lord.”
Henry pushed back his chair as Mina came around the desk. “A towel,” he said, and the nursemaid departed, presumably to fetch one.
“Her name is Swift,” Mina informed him as he lifted her onto his lap.
“And is she?”
“Yes.”
The nursemaid was true to her name and back in the room and handing Henry a warm, dry piece of linen within a minute or two. He draped it over Mina’s head and patted lightly.
“No, Grandfather,” she said from under the towel. “You must be more rough.”
He rubbed with a little more vigor.
She said, “Rougher still.”
But he could never be rough with her. He carefully pressed her curls between his towel-wrapped fingers and wiped at the trickles on the nape of her neck. Finally, he whipped the towel from her head to reveal her short hair in a jumble.
“Now my hair must be combed,” she said. “And all the tangles taken out.”
Henry put out his hand, and a comb appeared in it. He dismissed the nursemaid with a nod and started working the teeth of the comb through Mina’s hair.
“Combing makes your hair lie flat,” he observed.
Mina’s eyes went to his head. “Like yours.”
“But then your curls spring up again. They always do.” Indeed, her curls were already asserting themselves.
Mina reached out and touched the pounce pot on Henry’s desk. “How many books have ever been written? In all the world.”
“I don’t know. Many thousands, I should think.”
Mina tipped her up face and stared at Henry. “So why are there only two about Tommy Treadwell?”
