Page 8 of The Sea Siren of Broadwater Bottom
“Take all the time you need,” she muttered.
Four clumps later, he declared victory. “I believe that is all of it.”
“Thank you,” she said in a clipped voice, not meeting his eye.
Edward nudged Bucephalus forward and cast about for a topic that might restore her composure. “Your father mentioned that you have continued your studies.”
“I have,” she said, staring at the ground.
“May I ask what you’ve been working on?”
She gave a bleak laugh. “Why, just this afternoon, I have conceived an idea for an original ode.”
“Ah, what is to be the subject?”
She muttered something quickly in Greek, almost under her breath.
Almost.But not quite.
“What?” Edward cried, reining Bucephalus to a halt.
Elissa froze, then slowly swung her gaze up to meet his. Her eyes were wide, her mouth ajar, her face a portrait of dawning horror. “Oh, dear,” she whispered.
Oh, dear, indeed.
Because unless he was very much mistaken, her forthcoming ode was to be entitledPrince Charming and the Sea Hag of Broadwater Bottom.
CHAPTER4
Whyhad she said that out loud?
Elissa partly blamed the cold, which had numbed her brain every bit as much as her arms and legs. Then there was the sudden and disorientating turn her afternoon had taken.
One minute, she had been riding along in the arms of Prince Charming himself, when, of all possible topics, he began speaking aboutOn the Sublime.
Edward was right about one thing—the mystery translator was from the area, and far closer than he realized.
She was, in fact, sitting on his lap.
She had been a bit terrified to ask what he thought of her work. There was no one whose talent she admired more than Edward Astley’s. No one. His translation ofPrometheus Unbound, the one he had completed in his final year at Cambridge, was exquisite in every particular. Her copy was dog-eared, she had read it so many times, and she probably had more of it memorized than not. She was startled to realize there was no one whose good opinion mattered to her more, not even her father’s.
She had given up trying to earn her father’s good opinion years ago.
But then he had begun praising her, and it had felt sovalidating. To be sure, the critical acclaim, the fact that her book was in its third printing just two months after publication, and the request from the Prince of Wales for a signed copy had all been wonderful.
But she rather had the feeling that if all the world had loved it save for Edward Astley, those other accolades would have tasted not of wine, but of vinegar.
She had been on the cusp of telling him it was her. The only person who knew, other than the publishers she had queried, was her sister Cassandra. And she knew that telling her deepest, darkest secret to a man whom she had not seen in ten years, a man she scarcely knew, would be foolhardy.
But this afternoon had a whiff of fate about it, and she had felt the words rising to her lips, against her better judgment.
That was when he had said it—my enemy.Thathad startled her into silence.
And then it turned out that the largest water beetle Edward Astley had ever seen had beenliving in her hair, to say nothing of the fact that she had been riding along all this time, thinking this the most romantic moment of her life, while, unbeknownst to her, she had seven pounds of pondweed on top of her head.
This turn of events would have been disorienting for any girl, and so her momentary lapse was perhaps understandable.
No less humiliating, however.
