Page 15 of The Sea Siren of Broadwater Bottom
But no one bought season tickets to see Snowdrop. They paid the fare precisely once, peered over the fence, muttered, “I’ll be demmed,” and forgot all about Snowdrop by supper.
Elissa could not afford to become a curiosity, a mere flash in the pan. She needed to establish a successful career as a translator. She was the youngest of four sisters, and her father’s health was failing. He was seventeen years her mother’s senior, and the heart palpitations he had suffered for years had recently grown worse. Why, he had even collapsed twice in the last two months! What little there was of her father’s estate was entailed and would one day be inherited by his detested younger brother, who had given them no reason to hope he would support his brother’s widow and daughters.
As the last girl, the one who had dashed all of her father’s hopes by failing to be a boy, Elissa had always felt a personal responsibility to provide for her mother and sisters once their father was gone.
So when Mr. Findley wrote suggesting she unveil herself as the anonymous translator, Elissa had forcefully declined.
A flurry of letters ensued. Mr. Findley could not imagine that the world would hold being a woman against Elissa. But Mr. Findley was a rare sort. His mother, whom he described as the most intelligent person he had ever known, had run the editorial side of his family’s press for years, and Elissa was convinced this was the reason he had been unperturbed upon learning that theE. inE. St. Cyrstood for Elissa. She wrote back explaining that the seven other publishers who had suddenly noticed a myriad of flaws in what they had previously described as abrilliantmanuscript were, in her experience, more typical.
Mr. Findley had countered that, if seven of his rivals were aware of Elissa’s identity, the secret was bound to come out sooner or later, and it would be better to make the announcement on her own terms.
He had a point there, and the compromise they had settled upon was the contest. It appealed to Mr. Findley’s sense of the theatrical; indeed, it was already drawing significant press. And he had agreed that they would only reveal Elissa’s identity if she won.
There would always be some who would read her work in a different light upon learning that she was a woman. But if she could win, the contest also had the potential to serve as a credential. Elissa would never earn a university degree, much less any of the medals and honors Edward Astley had won. Oxford and Cambridge didn’t even allow women to enroll.
But if she could beat the same men who had won those medals, then no one could dismiss her as a mere curiosity.
That was why Elissa had to win this contest. Shehad to. She couldn’t settle for one successful book; she needed a successful career. Her ability to feed and shelter her mother and sisters was dependent upon it.
And that was the other reason she needed to stop dreaming about Edward Astley. He was entering the contest, too. If life had taught her one thing, it was that men could notstandto be bested by a woman. And Elissa was going to have to whip him like a French chef making a meringue.
After she defeated him, any fond feelings he might harbor for her would be gone. Forever.
Yes, the sooner she accustomed herself to the idea that Edward Astley would come to feel nothing for her but scorn, the better.
No matter how much she might wish otherwise.
* * *
The following morning,a groom arrived from the Earl of Cheltenham’s seat, Harrington Hall. In the back of his cart was one of the Earl’s famous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, accompanied by a note from Lord Fauconbridge begging Mr. St. Cyr to accept it in thanks for the gracious hospitality he had received the previous evening.
The receipt of three hundred pounds of pork and bacon went a way toward quieting her mother, who had been grumbling nonstop about their having been forced to serve the Sunday roast two days early (which, of course, was all Elissa’s fault).
Elissa had expected a gesture of this sort, given Edward’s impeccable manners.
What surprised her was the delivery that arrived just before supper.
Amelia came and fetched Elissa, as her father was out. At the bottom of the stairs, she found a footman in the mint green and bronze Cheltenham livery bearing a paper-wrapped parcel.
“If you wouldn’t mind, miss,” he said, handing the package to her, “take a look and make sure I got the right one. I gave them his lordship’s note at the shop, but I can’t read those letters.”
Elissa unwrapped the package to discover a brand-new copy of Plutarch’sLife of Theseus.Like the copy she had ruined by dropping it into the pond, this one was in the original Greek.
She felt tears forming. “It’s the right one,” she said, swatting at her cheek as one escaped. She gave the groom a crooked smile. “Which shop in Cheltenham stocks Plutarch in the original Greek?”
He laughed. “None, miss. His lordship sent me to Oxford for it first thing this morning.”
She sighed. Of course he had.
While Amelia took the footman back to the kitchen for some refreshment, Elissa dashed off a note to Edward, thanking him sincerely for his kindness. She found a slip of paper tucked between the pages of the book. It was only the instructions for the groom with the title and a list of bookshops to check. But it was written in his precise, confident hand.
She took the note upstairs and tucked it inside her copy ofPrometheus Unbound.She knew she was being foolish.
But it was all she would ever have of him.
CHAPTER7
Three days later, Edward was about to head down to breakfast when he found himself pulling Elissa’s letter from his desk drawer and reading it for what must have been the hundredth time. It was a half-page note thanking him for the volume of Plutarch, remarkable perhaps in its sincerity, but otherwise unexceptional.
