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Father would be smoking his pipe in the front sitting room, as he did every evening when he came home. Then he would encourage her not to read all day, as he did every evening, too. His advice always went in one of Livvy’s ears and out the other, though. Reading was like eating for her soul. Avoiding that conversation would be best for them both.

Sure enough, as she listened, she heard the sucking in of his pipe and the creaking of wood as he adjusted in his chair in the sitting room.

It was now or never. Treating this circumstance as if she was Mr. Crusoe fleeing from pirates, she drew a deep breath, focused on being as light and quick as a swallow, then darted past the doorway.

“Liv? Be that ye?”

Her footsteps stopped just before she reached the stairs. Blast. She’d been so close.

She walked back to the sitting room, poking her head around the door frame but keeping her basket of books and goods out of sight. “Evenin’, Father,” she said with an innocent smile.

“What ’ave ye been doin’?” His words were muffled as he kept the pipe in his mouth, sucking in a deep breath.

Livvy lowered her basket to the floor out of sight in the corridor, then ventured into the sitting room. “I decided to take advantage o’ the warm weather and walk to Marazion.”

Truth.

“Lovely,” Father murmured.

He blew out a puff of smoke, the white clouds pluming about the small room before disappearing. The walls were bare and wooden, just like the furnishings—two small chairs, a waist-height bookshelf, and a round table with a simple lace cloth over the top of it. Beside Father, a small fire crackled in the hearth.

“Did ye enjoy yourself?” he asked.

“I did, thank ye.”

Half-truth.

Her boots clicked across the wooden flooring as she stepped toward the window. Peering beyond the warped glass, she viewed the harbor—empty at low tide—that was visible just past the small road and footpath in front of their home.

“And ’ow be your readin’?”

Her heart dropped. “I wasn’t readin’.”

Far-fetched, absurd, outright lie.

And Father would know it was, too.

CHAPTER FIVE

“It is never too late to be wise.”

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

Livvy sighed, turning to see, sure enough, a knowing smile on Father’s face. “Very well. I was readin’.”

He nodded. “As if I could e’er believe ye were out conversin’ with people ’stead o’ readin’.”

Ah, now there he was wrong. She had been conversing with people. Just not a conversation she’d tell Father about. He somehow still maintained a preposterous hope that his daughter would one day be seen as normal. If today had taught her one thing, it was that she was proving to be anything but.

“Did ye start your new book?” came his next question.

She smiled, somewhat relieved she didn’t have to hide any longer. The most difficult issue that came with reading was the necessity of discussing with others what she had read. When one had friends, such a task was not difficult. For Livvy, that was another story. Father did not have the attention span to listen to all she had to say about her books.

“I did,” she said. “I be enjoyin’ it so far.”

“I be glad to ’ear it,” Father responded, staring into the fire as he puffed out more smoke.

He had never been overly fond of Livvy’s reading habits, but she was grateful to no end that he allowed her to read as much—or nearly as much—as she wished to. He often borrowed new books for her from his friends or purchased inexpensive, secondhand copies of her favorites.