Read Online Blossom Time by Joan Smith - Free Book Online

neckline.
    “I wish you wouldn’t stare at my bosoms,” she said curtly, and pulled her shawl together.
    “Merely admiring nature’s handiwork. Breasts are the perfect example of beauty and practicality.”
    “Spoken like a good dairy farmer. Don’t ever try to become a poet, Harry.”
    “I don’t intend to, though it’s not actually necessary for a man to be a fool to be a poet. Byron is quite sane. He gave a dandy speech in the House about the Luddite riots in Yorkshire. Pity he never followed it up with action.”
    “Sylvester is not a fool, nor, I hope, am I.”
    “I know you’re not. I didn’t see any mention of all that hackneyed twaddle about the Dark Ages and the Renaissance in your poems. They were just pretty verses about nature.”
    “Harry! You actually read them!”
    “Of course I did. I felt it a duty.”
    She just shook her head. “How like you to not even bother pretending it was a pleasure.”
    “When have I ever pretended with you? Or you with me, come to that? Between us two, your Provencal roses wear their everyday name of cabbage roses.”
    “Only you call them that!”
    “I believe in calling a spade a spade. I thought your poems were pretty. Better judges than I say they are something special. I accept their opinion and am truly happy for your success.”
    Once Dick had extended the invitation, he could find little to say to Sylvester. He led Sylvester over to join the other group. Sukey followed along, cradling Snow Drop in her arms to protect her from Sandy. Deprived of his amusement, Sandy gave a final bark of disgust and took off in pursuit of a squirrel.
    “I have just been inviting Lord Sylvester to take his mutton with us this evening,” Dick said. “I hope you will come as well, Harry.”
    “Thank you. I will be happy to.”
    “Can I come, Dick?” Sukey asked, pulling at his hand to get his attention.
    “Of course not, ninnyhammer, but I’ll have Cook send you up some plum cake if you manage not to rip your pinafore,” Dick replied.
    “I want to sit at the grown-up table!”
    “When you are a little older, child,” Sylvester said. “Children are to be seen, not heard.”
    “That’s silly. What if I want something?”
    ‘Then you ask your nanny for it.”
    “I told you, she’s gone.”
    “Surely it’s possible to find a replacement,” he said to Rosalind. “It seems a shame to waste time when a child has so much to learn. They are peculiarly amenable to instruction at an early age, you must know. The child is not too young to begin an appreciation of good literature. I had a dozen soliloquies by heart when I was her age.”
    Snow Drop squirmed in her arms and succeeded in hopping down. The tassels on Lord Sylvester’s top boots caught her attention, and she began leaping at them. Sylvester shook his foot to be rid of the kitten.
    Sukey let out a holler. “Don’t kick her! Harry, he’s kicking Snow Drop!”
    “Do stop your racket, Sukey!” Rosalind scolded. “And take that kitten away.”
    Harry picked up the kitten, tucked it into the crook of his arm, took Sukey’s hand, and led her down the path toward a bench under a lilac bush. “Come along, dumbie. I’ll teach you a Shakespearean sonnet. But first we’ll learn the alphabet.”
    “I know the alphabet, Harry. Will you teach me to curse? Roz says you’re good at it.”
    “My vocabulary is extensive to be sure, but I fear you’re a little young for advanced cursing. ‘Deuced’ is the farthest I go with minors.”
    “I already know that, and ‘tarnation’ and ‘zounds.’ I learned them at the stable. ‘Deuced’ is not cursing.”
    Something twisted in Rosalind’s breast when she saw Sukey and Harry, with the white kitten frolicking in his arm, walking hand in hand down the path, talking nonsense. The sun shone full on them as they left the garden. Harry’s dark head was inclined down toward Sukey’s tousle of curls, which shone like a golden halo. The notion of good and evil did