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“If I was in possession of a good fortune,” said Rosalie, “I assure you I would have a different relationship to compromise.”
Georgie didn’t have a hand free to raise the quizzing glass, so they twisted to the north and squinted.
“Let’s join Elf,” they suggested. “If she won’t join us.” Neither Rosalie nor Anne made an immediate reply, so they brandished the bottles in the air. “Tallyho!” Without further ado, they bounded toward the slope.
—
Georgie hadn’t misrepresented the grueling nature of the circuitous, two-mile walk from the manor up to the plateau. The way back—with its detour through the clustered farmsteads in pursuit of Elf—included more downhill, but also, just more. Rosalie had hooked the picnic basket over her right arm and listed to the side with every step. Anne lugged the bowls box like a stevedore, which turned her gait crab-like. Georgie’s load was far lighter, only the two bottles. Unburdened, they ranged ahead. Scouting proved necessary, because Georgie’s sense of direction was abysmal, and the map they’d tried to fix in their mind as they gazed down from the heights dissolved into the welter of eye-level details on the descent.
They felt like the leader of a raiding party as they crept around barns and reconnoitered fields and footpaths. Rosalie and Anne didn’t play along. They moved slowly, argued loudly, and paused at every conspicuous crossing. The sun, too, conspired against stealth, coming out from behind the clouds and lighting the vivid colors of their gowns, Rosalie in eye-catching amethyst, Anne in aggressively bright yellow.
“To the left,” said Georgie, sotto voce, slinking back to them after breaking down and begging the help of a bare-chested youth mowing by a pair of cottages. The youth had seen a dark-haired young lady go past and pointed the way with his scythe.
“The other left,” said Georgie.
Anne and Rosalie changed course again without pausing their conversation.
“Then tell your parents the truth,” Anne was saying. “I could never with mine, but yours are different. They’ll be happy for you.”
“Happy?” Rosalie laughed. “They’ll be happy if I turn my back on the family, inviting social censure and moral horror in the process?”
“They’ll be happy if you follow your heart,” said Anne. “After all, they followed their hearts.”
“Follow me over this wall,” whispered Georgie, demonstrating. Bunch the skirt. Swing the leg. Straddle the stone.
“Pretend you’re mounting a horse,” they advised. “And dismounting off the other side.”
They touched down gracefully.
No one observed the landing.
“I’m tired of explaining myself.” Rosalie set her basket on the wall. “What I do reflects on my parents twofold, because of who they are. Because they followed their hearts. It’s important that my siblings and I appear respectable.”
Anne heaved the bowls box over the wall and hoisted herself up. She flopped forward onto the stone, kicked her legs, and wiggled, then slid down into the grass headfirst.
Really not how you’d mount a horse.
“Your parents let you associate with Georgie,” she said, wobbling upright, molding her crushed bonnet into shape. “Georgie’s not respectable. They’re infamous. A walking scandal.”
“I’m right here.” Georgie frowned. “Let’s not get carried away.”
Rosalie tried to crawl over the wall, but her knee pinned her dress. The sharp tug of the fabric propelled her into open space with a wild cry. Anne sprang forward, half catching her, half dragging her until her feet hit the ground. The two clung to each other in a controlled stagger, almost like dancers, before separating, both of them pink and breathless.
“Georgie is infamous, but Georgie is also coming into a fortune.” Rosalie was panting, but she picked up where Anne had left off, resolutely. “Georgie may have made a cake of themself in front of the entire ton, but—”
“Right. Here.” Georgie waved a bottle back and forth.
“But their rung of the social ladder remains higher than my rung,” continued Rosalie. “My parents assume I’ll meet someone eligible by association. It’s that simple.”
“And you plan to do so. Meet someone eligible.” Anne’s eyes shone with tears.
“Eventually. I can draw it out.”
“That’s not a solution.”
“There isn’t a solution. But if you don’t go to Italy, we can stay ineligibly in each other’s lives, and that’s something.” Rosalie hooked her basket back over her arm and turned to Georgie. “Which way?”
The three of them crossed the field in silence. The next stone wall they encountered was crumbling, so they hopped easily over the rubble.
