“He thought there would be none.”
“Perhaps.”Bailey shrugged ruefully.“In any case, he sent a small batch of copies to Hatchard’s Bookstore the morning they were printed.By afternoon the store requested more, and other stores clamored for copies.He sent them all!The poor man was quite proud of his success and most remorseful when I explained what he had done.I set out right away to bring apologies, and warning.”
“Warning?”She heard her voice quiver.She was shaking.
“I’m afraid it caused a stir in London.Drawing rooms are full of talk about ‘the Lady Scholar.’”
She looked around the room.Andrew looked worried and Dunning puzzled.Jamie’s eyes twinkled; he enjoyed this as much as Harley.
“A lady author isn’t a novelty, I fear, but scholarship of this magnitude is rare.I’m afraid there has been loose talk and speculation.”Bailey looked pained.
Dunning’s earnest expression made her apprehensive.“Copies have reached Cambridge already,” he said.“Mallet is being given great credit for the brilliance of the work, but he tells me that that is an injustice.”
Her eyes darted to Andrew who watched her with inscrutable intensity.
“Am I correct that I have the honor of addressing the Lady of Scholarship who brought us these works herself?”Bailey hesitated, uncertain how to go on.
An electric moment passed; her eyes and Andrew’s met and held.
Bailey spoke up in the silence.“Mallet hasn’t said, of course.Forgive me if I intrude.I gathered that perhaps you...”
“Yes, Mr.Bailey, I am the translator of the poems.However, without Mr.Mallet they would have remained disconnected notes and fragments.The work as a whole would never have been completed.”What she saw in Andrew’s eyes turned her insides to jelly and caused her courage to swell.
She looked back at her questioner.He beamed at her; the printer actually beamed.“It is an honor, my lady, a true honor to meet a scholar of your caliber.”
“Indeed.”Dunning now smiled broadly.“You deserve the praise the literary reviews are unjustly pointing elsewhere.If you were a man, they would not.”
“Literary reviews, Mr.Dunning?”She held her breath.
The sad brown eyes filled with sympathy.“I am afraid they fall into two camps.Some—and may I say I am of this mind— believe the translations are exquisite and the poems themselves of great, if somewhat unusual, interest.Generally, those—not me, of course, but some–who take that point of view find it difficult to believe a woman did this work.Andrew has been called a cagey self-promoter who is responsible for an unusual body of work.It’s unfair, but there you have it.”
“And the other reviewers?”The words had to be forced out over the lump in her throat.There were reviews, good and bad.People were paying attention to her work.In Georgiana’s experience, attention caused pain.
“They’re of divided mind about the authors themselves.Speculation is that the poems must have been the work of men using female pseudonyms or that the women in question were rare, or different, or—” Dunning shrugged.
“Peculiarly unfeminine?”
“Yes, I fear so.”He colored in embarrassment.“Or worse.”
Georgiana didn’t wish to know what “worse” meant.She took refuge in anger at the narrow-minded prigs.
“I am sorry, Georgiana.”Andrew’s soft voice sounded consoling.“I should have left my name off the title page.”
“No!”She swung around.“No.Without you, there is no book.Without you, there is nothing.”She reached out and took his hand, drawing strength from its warmth.
“You understand that all five hundred copies have been sold?”
Thoughts jumbled in her head.“Mr.Dunning, is it actually being read?”
“My, yes.No bookshop in Cambridge could keep it.It has caused a sensation among the undergraduates,” Dunning told her.
“As I said, the same is true in London,” Bailey added.“I came to apologize, yes, but also to beg you to order a second printing.”He looked up at her under furrowed brows, pleading.
She turned back to Andrew who suddenly looked like a proud Papa.He waited for her to speak.
“It’s all too much.It’s being read?Yes, of course it is, you said that.The women’s works are actually being read!”
Jamie finally spoke up.“Even I’m reading it, Lady Georgie.Didn’t care to read the commentary, but the little verses are, well, even I can understand them.The ancient ladies must nothave been as protected as ours.”
