“Course I can,” Betty said scornfully. “Went to the school in the village for three years, didn’t I?” She examined the books eagerly. “Got any scary stories?”
That was all right then. For a moment he thought he’d embarrassed the girl, but of course an innkeeper’s daughter would have some schooling. He selected a small gray volume and handed it to Betty. “Try this—Mr. Lewis’s The Monk. It’ll curdle your blood.” Betty seized it gleefully and curled up with it in the corner of the carriage.
He selected a book bound in pretty blue leather and offered it to Lily. “This one might appeal to you. It’s called Persuasion, by the author of Pride and Prejudice, who I know all the ladies love. By all accounts it is—”
“No!” The word almost burst out of her.
He frowned. What the—?
“Sorry, but no thank you.” She avoided his gaze, her color a little heightened.
“Already read it? Then what about—”
“No! I—er, I cannot—” She took a deep breath and seemed about to say something, but then she hesitated, slumped a little and said in a defeated-sounding voice, “I get sick if I try to read in a moving carriage.” She sounded almost ashamed, but plenty of people suffered from travel sickness in a carriage.
“Never mind, I used to have an aunt with the same problem,” he said easily. “I’m sorry now I didn’t bring any games or puzzles.”
There was a short silence, and then he added, “Have you actually read Persuasion?”
“No,” she said stiffly.
“Then what if I read it aloud to you?”
She blinked. “Aloud? You’d read it aloud—for me?”
He nodded. “It would be my pleasure. I never get carriage-sick, and I’d quite like to read this. So how about it?”
“That would be lovely, thank you.” She gave him a brilliant smile.
He opened the book and began to read: “‘Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage . . .’”
As he read, his voice deep and clear, even over the rattle and creak of the carriage and the sound of the horses’ hooves, Lily’s panic slowly subsided.
Can you read, Betty? Of course, ask the innkeeper’s daughter that. Don’t bother asking the earl’s daughter—no question that she could read.
I get sick if I try to read in a moving carriage. It was perfectly true—except that she felt sick whenever anyone asked her to read.
When was she ever going to get over this, the fear of people discovering that at the age of eighteen Lady Lily Rutherford still barely could read? And not at all if anyone was watching her.
It was a disgrace, her greatest shame. And she had no excuse for it. There was nothing at all wrong with her eyesight. She could see perfectly well to embroider, to knit, to pluck a stray hair from her eyebrows. It was stupidity, that was all. There could be no other answer. She didn’t feel stupid, but the evidence to the contrary was overwhelming.
And to admit to Edward Galbraith that she was so stupid as to not even be able to read—she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it. That look would come into his eyes, the look she dreaded but was so horridly familiar with, the look first of incredulity, then scorn—or worse, of barely disguised pity.
And then they treated her as if she were really stupid and couldn’t understand the simplest things. If Edward ever started to talk to her like that, she couldn’t bear it.
He read on, his voice deep and almost mesmeric, carrying effortlessly over the rattle of the carriage and the sounds of the horses. “‘His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had acquired a little artificial importance by becoming Mrs. Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way—she was only Anne.’”
Like Papa, who valued Rose for her beauty and spirit, and had seemed to love Lily equally—until he’d learned, after Mama had died, that Lily, who was almost twelve at the time, still could not read.
Papa had called her an imbecile.
And so he’d sent them both—punishing Rose as well for Lily’s inadequacies—away from everything they knew, from everything they loved, to an exclusive school in Bath.
And promptly forgot about them.
She had lost her father’s love when she was almost twelve.
An imbecile . . . An embarrassment to the family
Lily forced the lump in her throat away. There was no use dwelling on the painful recollections of the past. Old hurts might not heal, but they eventually faded. She had to believe that.
She settled back against the deeply padded leather seat and listened to Edward’s voice. She could listen to him all day. Only Rose and Mama had ever taken the trouble to read books aloud to Lily.
Besides, she wanted to hear what happened to this Anne Elliot, whose father so unkindly disdained her.
• • •
“I’ll take it, Burton.” Emm took the tray containing her husband’s breakfast and quietly closed the door. It was almost noon. Cal would be furious. He’d asked to be woken at dawn, but he’d been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep the moment he hit the bed, and she couldn’t bring herself to wake him. Until now.
She drew back the curtains and light flooded their bedchamber. Cal stirred, pried open bleary eyes, stared at the weak spring sunshine and sat bolt upright. “What time is it?”
“Nearly noon. The coffee’s hot, so don’t spill it,” she said calmly, and placed the tray on his lap, effectively preventing him from leaping out of bed, at least not without spilling hot coffee everywhere. Wifely tactics.
“Noon? I left instructions to be woken at dawn!”
“I
