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“Have you ever had fleas?” asked Agnes.

“I fear Agnes has had too much wine.” Elf whispered it in their ear. They examined Agnes more closely. She was sliding down the sofa, like a spill of syrup, slowly heading for the floor.

A quarter hour later, Georgie and Elf had climbed into the gig, and Phipps was lifting Agnes onto Elf’s lap. She wrapped an arm around Elf’s neck, waving goodbye to Phipps with the other.

“Adieu, my lord!” she cried. “Adieu!”

As the gig rolled down the drive, she kept swinging that arm, pointing out imaginary sights, and twice knocking the reins from Georgie’s hands. At least she was a happy drunk.

“Behold the shapely knolls!” she exclaimed. And then: “At last, Lake Windermere!”

Georgie could hardly drive for laughing.

“Will you wait?” asked Elf, when all three had stumbled into the entrance hall. She was holding Agnes around the waist. “I’ll see her to her room, and then…” She bit her lip, and her gaze seemed unaccountably shy. “Will you wait?”

They waited. They waited in the dark entrance hall a surprisingly long time.

“Everything all right?” they asked, as Elf finally approached, holding a lantern, its glow sliding through her hair. She’d taken it down, her hair, all of it, long locks flowing over her shoulders, framing the milky skin above her gown’s low neckline, which they’d done their best to ignore all evening and absolutely couldn’t now.

She stopped in front of them, and when they moved in to kiss her, she stepped back, a smile tilting her lips. It wasn’t no. It was not yet.

Excitement laced through their veins as she led them along black corridors, up the winding tower stair. When she reached the top, she crossed the room to a door Georgie hadn’t noticed on their prior visit. A narrow door, between tapestries.

At Elf’s touch, it swung open.

25

Elfreda stepped outside and felt breathless.

Georgie came up and stood beside her, silent. By day, the tower roof afforded giddy views of the countryside. She used to dare herself to go up on her tiptoes at the parapet, to lean out, stare straight down, and imagine leaping into space, not because she wanted to fall, because she wanted to fly.

She hadn’t thought of that little ritual for years and years.

By night, the countryside was invisible. The black, black sky swept out in all directions, pierced by the pinpoints of the stars. The moon was thinner than a sickle.

None of that robbed her breath.

It was the thought of Georgie seeing the makeshift bed she’d created, a pile of quilts and pillows, lanterns on either side.

“Elf.” There was amazement in their voice. “What is this?”

“Vauxhall.” She swallowed. “Only, Marsden Hall. It’s silly but—”

They grasped her arm, spun her toward them, and kissed her. She almost stumbled, but they caught her, laughing against her mouth.

“There’s no rope dancer,” she breathed, when they broke the kiss. “But I thought…”

She looked up.

“I thought the stars might do.” She looked back at Georgie.

“Do for what?” The light from the lantern played over their eyes, the blue bright and strange, noon in the dead of night.

“Fireworks.”

Those eyes turned back to the pallet. “This is for stargazing?”

She was suddenly too tense to answer directly.