A few minutes later, wearing rumpled clothes and a rare smile, Ransom followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen just off the great hall.
She stoked the fire and began pulling bowls and spoons from the cupboard. “So, how did you guess the truth?”
“How did I know, do you mean? I’ve had my suspicions for some time now. You describe sunsets as dying warriors, you read in voices, and you write me silly lines of dialogue. Once I finally heard the stories, it was obvious. I knew because I know you. Izzy, you shouldn’t deny or pretend any longer.”
Very well. She wouldn’t pretend any longer. Not with him.
The rest of the world could never know the truth, but she couldn’t deny how much it meant to know this one man had discerned it. He’d looked beyond the expectations and the public perceptions, and he’d seen her. The real Izzy.
“You truly liked them?” she asked. It was the silliest question, and he chided her for it accordingly.
He tugged on her hair. “ ‘Liked’ isn’t the word.”
But what is the word? she wondered.
Admired? Adored? Cherished?
Loved?
She didn’t need him to say that word, she told herself. But secretly, she couldn’t help wishing he would.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “For that matter, why don’t you tell the world? If I’d written England’s most popular book, I’d never stop crowing about it.”
Was he mad? “Of course I could never tell anyone. Not without ruining everyone’s enjoyment and making my father out to be a fraud.”
“Your father was a fraud. He was a cowardly, shameless fraud, taking all the glory for your hard work.”
She shook her head, reaching into the cupboard for eggs. “At the outset, he was the one protecting me. I was so young. The publishers wouldn’t have even looked at the Tales if they thought I’d written them. I didn’t want the attention, the admirers. The public adoration made my father happy. It was the writing that gave me joy.”
“Until he died, and you lost everything. Don’t you miss it now?”
“Of course I miss it. Terribly.” Even now, more than a year later, she carried a sense of aching loss that never quite went away. “But how could I continue? If I tried to pass the work off as my father’s, it would legally belong to Martin. If I sent it under my own name, the publisher would only send it back. Unread, most likely. ”
“How will you know if you don’t try?”
“You don’t understand this, Ransom. You can’t see.”
His head jerked in affront. “I don’t know what my blindness has to do with it.”
“Everything.” She sighed.
His blindness had everything to do with it.
No man had ever—ever—treated her the way he did. She was small and plain and insignificant. But on the page, her words could be so much more. They could be influential, admired. Even powerful.
But only if they weren’t hers.
She’d come to accept that this was how it would always be. She was at her best when she was invisible. That’s why she’d written herself with emerald green eyes and sleek amber hair. The real Izzy wasn’t good enough.
Until now. The real Izzy was good enough for Ransom. He would never know how much that meant. But she would endeavor to show him.
She squeezed his arm. “Let me make your pancake.”
He looked on as she gathered eggs and began cracking them in a bowl.
“Who taught you to make pancakes?” he asked. “Your family’s cook?”