Completion of the ballroom sent Harriet’s grandfather into a frenzy of planning for his grand ball. He wanted everything done at once and made no allowances for timing in invitations. He seemed to think he could summon the entire neighborhood for one week hence and have them all fall into line. Irritatingly, he appeared to be right. Acceptances flowed in, lured perhaps by the promise of a duke and duchess in attendance. Her grandfather reveled in what he deemed his social success and harried the servants at Winstead Hall from task to task, contributing more to disorganization than to accomplishments, in Harriet’s opinion. He didn’t seem to know Ferrington was away, and no one mentioned it to him. It was not as if he cared to hear anyone’s voice but his own.
Whenever she could get away, Harriet took to walking in the woods alone. It was a relief to be away from her grandfather’s manic gloating and her friends’ constant concern. There was peace among the trees, though each turn of the path reminded her of happier days here with Jack the Rogue. Where had he gone?
As she returned to Winstead Hall on the third day of Ferrington’s absence, Charlotte and Sarah pounced on Harriet in the garden. “There you are!” said Charlotte.
“We’ve been looking everywhere,” said Sarah. “Where were you?”
“Walking. Is something wrong?” She had thought her friends were sitting with her mother, who had sensed Harriet’s turmoil and reacted to it. “What is Mama doing?”
“Sorting her embroidery silks,” replied Sarah. “She told us to go and enjoy ourselves.”
Mama had found solace in her workbasket many times over the years. So this was welcome news. But her mother’s restored equilibrium had come at the price of so many new problems that Harriet had not foreseen. Was life to be like this? Did the actions one took to mend matters inevitably cause more trouble?
“How are you feeling?” asked Sarah.
Tired of being asked this question, Harriet thought but did not say. Her friends were wonderful. She was grateful for their support. But she really wanted to take all her roiling, untidy emotions, package them up, tie the container with a stout rope, and chuck it down a well.
“You went walking alone again?” asked Charlotte.
“Yes. I like walking alone.”
“Really? I didn’t know you had hermitish tendencies. How could I have missed that in all these years?”
“Very funny,” said Harriet.
“Walking in a forest alone can be quite restorative,” said Sarah.
“Are you restored?” Charlotte asked Harriet. “You don’t look it.”
“I am…invigorated. I saw a fox near the Travelers camp.” Sarah could often be diverted by mentions of wildlife.
Not this time, however. “I thought you said your grandfather had posted men to keep us away from there,” Sarah replied. She had wanted to visit the group.
“Yes, but…”
“You know how to slip past them,” said Charlotte.
Harriet had to admit it.
“So we can go and see them,” said Sarah.
“Yes. All right. We will.”
“When?”
A muted roar came through the window of Harriet’s grandfather’s study, followed by the rise and fall of one of his temper tantrums. They couldn’t hear the details, but the outrage was familiar.
“What about now?” suggested Charlotte.
“Good idea,” said Sarah.
Harriet’s mother emerged from a side door like a cork popping from a champagne bottle. Seeing them, she rushed over. “Fresh air,” she said breathlessly. “Join you for a turn about the garden.” Grasping Harriet’s arm, she urged her toward the shelter of the shrubbery.
“We’re going to visit the Travelers’ camp,” said Sarah with the air of one offering a treat.
This was a problem, after all her grandfather’s railing. Harriet waited for a flurry of fears and objections. But her mother merely nodded and walked faster. “I will come with you,” she said.
“You will?” Where were the warnings, the anxieties? Harriet wondered.
“They seemed…interesting,” was the surprising reply. “Lord Ferrington likes them.”
Harriet stared at her as they passed into the shrubbery and out of sight of the house. “How do you know that?”
“Oh, well. I met him there the other day.”
“You did?” Her mother had said nothing of this.
“We had a lovely chat. He is such a kind gentleman, isn’t he?”
“What did you chat about?” asked Charlotte, relieving Harriet of the necessity.
“This and that.” Harriet’s mother made an airy gesture. “My embroidery.”
“Your…” Harriet tried to picture it.
“What does Lord Ferrington know about fancywork?” asked Charlotte.
“He appreciates skill,” answered Harriet’s mother with quiet dignity.
One of the gardeners ran past the entry of the shrubbery carrying a palm tree in a pot. Its fronds were brown and curling at the ends.
“We should go,” said Harriet’s mother. “Papa has discovered the plants sent from London for the ball are not suitable. He’s…disappointed.”
“And his disappointment is so very loud,” said Charlotte.
This earned her an anxious glance. As one, they headed for the far edge of the garden.
Harriet led them along the path that avoided her grandfather’s lax sentries, who were thoroughly weary of their useless jobs by this time. They entered the camp from the woodland, and she noticed some things had been packed up in preparation for moving on. Harriet greeted those they passed, heading toward Mistress Elena’s caravan. It was proper to present visitors to her first.
Samia came running up as they approached, her face bright with curiosity. “You haven’t been here for ages,” she said to Harriet.
“It has been a while.” Harriet introduced her friends to the little girl. “We were going to say hello to Mistress Elena,” she added.
“She’s busy with Meric,” was the reply. “Making plans. Do you want to come and see the horses?” Samia asked the others.
She proceeded to lead them around the camp, offering a running commentary on its activities. “We are going north soon,” she said at one point. “I will see my cousins, and there will be a festival.”
“When do you go?” asked Harriet.
“Soon, I think. That is what they’re planning.”
“I will miss you.”
Samia’s smile was brilliant. “Me, too. But we may see each other again. We might come here next year. We like this place.”
Harriet tried to picture herself in a year’s time. Where would she be?
“I’ll read your palm and see,” added Samia as if answering her inner query.
“You did that already,” Harriet pointed out.
“But I didn’t finish. Come.” Samia led them to a space off to the side of the camp. There was a bench made of twining branches and several log rounds turned up to serve as seats. “You sit here with me,” Samia told Harriet. The little girl hopped onto the bench and patted the seat beside her with a presence beyond her years.
Charlotte and Sarah each took a log and gazed at Harriet as if she’d become the day’s entertainment. After a moment, Harriet’s mother sat as well. Predictably, she looked uneasy.
“Come,” said Samia again.
Harriet sank down beside her and let the girl take her hand.
“So, I told you before, this is your Life line.” She traced the crease that ran diagonally down Harriet’s hand. “And this is your Heart line.” She indicated the more horizontal mark and put a small fingertip on one spot. “And there is the big change we saw.”
It hadn’t been exactly we. But it was true about the change with her father’s death. Did Samia remember these things? Or were experiences actually recorded in her hand?
“Your Heart line is very strong,” said Samia. “And here, farther along, is another crossing. With the line of your head, your mind. It is a choice to be made. Soon, I think.”
“What sort of choice?” Harriet couldn’t help but ask.
“I cannot tell. Only that it will be very important for you.”
This was nonsense, Harriet knew. But Samia sounded so authoritative. “If you can’t tell me anything about this choice, what’s the use?”
“You can know it is coming and be ready.”
Harriet had to shrug.
“You will have a long life.”
“Do you always say that?”
“If I see a long life,” Samia responded seriously. “If I do not, I am silent.”
“I suppose people won’t pay to hear they’ll die young,” Harriet quipped.
“I did not ask you for payment,” answered Samia, letting go of her hand.
“I’m sorry, Samia. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
The little girl looked away, more like a disgruntled adult than a child.
“Please forgive me,” Harriet continued. “It was a silly thing to say.”
“Very well.” Samia looked back at her. “Not all is for money.”
Harriet nodded solemnly to show she understood. Samia had offered a gift, and she had not valued it sufficiently.
“Do me,” said Sarah, leaning forward on her log.
“Perhaps it is enough,” the little girl replied. She was not completely mollified.
“Oh, please,” said Sarah. “I so want to hear what you see.”
After a pause, Samia bowed her head in agreement.
Harriet and Sarah switched places.
“We will find a story together, engraved in the hand,” said Samia. It was the same thing Mistress Elena had said, Harriet remembered. The little girl had learned her elder’s confident tone as well.
“That’s a wonderful description,” said Sarah. She held out her hand.
Samia took it and bent over the palm. “The line of your mind is very strong,” she said after a while.
“All those books you’ve read,” said Charlotte in a satirical tone.
“Or vice versa,” Sarah replied.
“What?”
“Perhaps I read because I was always destined to.”
“Trust you to concoct a fantastical explanation.” Charlotte and Sarah made faces at each other.
“Hmm,” said Samia.
“What?” Sarah looked down at her hand in the child’s fingers.
“There is something.” She traced a line. “Health and success and fate cross together here. That is not common. It means some great thing coming to you, I think. You must take care.”
“An adventure?” asked Sarah, thrilled.
“There might be danger,” Samia replied, frowning earnestly over her task. “You should be watchful.”
“We’ll never hear the end of this,” Charlotte said to Harriet. “Sarah will be waiting for her adventure when she is a querulous old lady.”
“It will be sooner than that,” said Samia. Harriet couldn’t tell whether she understood Charlotte’s ironic tone.
Sarah’s eyes gleamed. “Your turn next, Charlotte,” she said.
“No, thank you.”
“I will try it,” said Harriet’s mother, surprising her.
They shifted seats again and waited while Samia examined the older woman’s palm. “You have had many trials,” she said after a bit.
That might be true of any older person, Harriet thought. And yet she was being drawn into this process. Samia sounded so certain.
“But things grow better now,” the little girl continued. “See the lines smoothing out down here? A happier time is coming for you and going right on to the end.”
Mama looked pleased. Harriet imagined she was thinking of her marriage to the earl and their new home at Ferrington Hall. Which could hardly be inscribed in the stars or whatever the proper phrase was in palm reading.
Samia released her mother’s hand. “Charlotte, you must give it a try,” said Sarah.
Charlotte shook her head.
“But we all did.”
“Some people are scared to look into the future,” commented Samia. Harriet glanced at the girl in surprise. Had her tone held a brush of mockery? And how could she have known Charlotte hated to be accused of cowardice?
“I am not frightened,” declared Charlotte. “I simply think it’s a pack of nonsense.”
“Then what harm can it do?” asked Sarah.
“Oh, very well.” Charlotte came over to sit on the bench. “I don’t believe a word of any of this,” she said to Samia.
The little girl nodded, undaunted. She took up Charlotte’s right hand. Then she frowned and traded it for the left. “Ah, you use this one,” she said.
Charlotte looked startled.
“Our teachers at school tried to make her change, but she wouldn’t,” said Sarah.
“Don’t give her hints!” said Charlotte. “That is how they fool people. They tease out information and watch for reactions.”
Much as Mistress Elena had said, Harriet acknowledged. Perhaps Samia had seen Charlotte using her left hand? But she didn’t think so. There’d been no opportunity.
Samia bent over Charlotte’s hand. As she gazed, her expression slowly shifted to a frown. She looked some more, then straightened. “It is enough for today, I think.”
“But you haven’t told Charlotte anything,” said Sarah.
“I am tired.”
Charlotte’s dark eyes narrowed. “You’re trying to coax me. Make me beg you.”
“No.”
“Then you’ve run out of guff to peddle. Can’t think of anything new.”
Harriet raised a hand. Samia was just a little girl.
Samia’s dark eyes flashed. “I don’t lie.”
“Right.” Charlotte pulled her hand away. “This is ridiculous. Enough of children’s silly games.”
“It is not a game.”
Charlotte gave her a patronizing look. “You like to perform and be the center of attention, don’t you? I understand. But we are finished now.”
“I see misfortune coming to you,” Samia replied.
“Indeed? And when is this dire thing to befall me?” Charlotte drawled.
“Soon, perhaps. I can’t say.”
“Of course you can’t. Because it does not exist. But if I tripped and fell, say, you could point and declare, there it is, the misfortune. Just as I predicted.”
“Charlotte,” said Harriet and Sarah at the same time.
Samia stood up. Harriet expected her to be hurt or offended, but she showed no signs of that. “I will say goodbye to you, Miss Finch. And your friends. We may be gone the next time you come here.”
“I’ll try to see you again,” replied Harriet.
“Thank you for the reading,” said Sarah.
“You are welcome.” With a regal bow of her head, Samia walked away.
Sarah turned on Charlotte. “How could you be so mean to a child?”
“I have no patience with that sort of gibberish.”
“She’s probably six years old!”
Charlotte looked guilty. “When she talked, she seemed older.”
Harriet started toward the path through the woods. The rest followed. As they passed under the first trees, Charlotte added, “She didn’t like me, so she gave me an ominous prediction.”
“Just be careful not to trip and fall,” replied Sarah caustically.
Charlotte sighed. “All right, I was too sharp with her. Shall I go back and apologize?”
“I don’t think Samia cared too much,” said Harriet.
“She is a very self-possessed child,” agreed her mother.
They took the shortest way back, there being no need to evade the watchers in this direction. The man on duty was startled to see them emerge from the woods and watched them pass by as if they might be apparitions.
“I suppose Papa has been looking for us to complain about the plants,” said her mother as they reached the Winstead Hall garden. “He put in the order himself.”
“And I’m sure he solved the problem on his own,” answered Harriet. “He always does. He never wishes to hear anyone else’s opinion.”
Her mother gave her a nervous glance and said her farewells. Harriet watched her slip off to look for a way to sneak into her supposed home.
She had passed out of sight when Cecelia, Duchess of Tereford, appeared from behind a bush that obscured a bend in the garden path. “There you are,” she said. “I called to see you, and you couldn’t be found. I was just heading back.”
She’d been lonely when they first came here, Harriet thought. Now Winstead Hall was as busy as an inn yard when the mail coach was due. She wished new arrivals would announce themselves with a blast from a yard of tin.
“We were visiting the Travelers’ camp,” replied Sarah. “So interesting. A little girl, Samia, read our palms.”
Cecelia looked amused. “I hope she saw good fortune.”
Charlotte snorted.
“Have you heard anything from Ferrington?” Harriet asked. Her attempt at disinterest fooled nobody, she noted.
“Not a word. I am a bit puzzled. James said he mentioned Tunbridge Wells…”
“What?” Harriet blinked. “We used to live in Tunbridge Wells. Mama and I.”
“That’s right,” said Sarah.
“James had forgotten because he despises the place,” said Cecelia. “Begging your pardon, Harriet.”
“I have no affection for it,” she answered.
“Can he have gone there?” wondered Sarah.
“Why?” asked Charlotte. “To visit the scenes of Harriet’s childhood?”
“I was eleven when we went there,” said Harriet. “And, of course, that is ridiculous, Charlotte.”
“As my tone was meant to indicate,” her friend replied.
“He can’t have gone to get a marriage license,” Cecelia said. “Tunbridge Wells would not be the correct location. I checked.”
Three sets of eyes focused on Harriet. “I can’t break it off until he returns,” she snapped.
“Are you certain that is what you want?” asked Sarah.
“There is the matter of kisses,” said Cecelia.
Harriet tried not to wince as Sarah and Charlotte gaped at Cecelia and then turned to stare at her. She failed.
“I have come upon you embracing more than once,” Cecelia added.
“Harriet,” exclaimed Sarah. “You never mentioned that.”
“Did he accost you?” asked Charlotte, clearly ready to be outraged.
“No.” Harriet decided she sounded younger than Samia at this moment.
“The embraces looked…mutually enthusiastic to me,” said the duchess. “And to James as well.”
Charlotte put her hands on her hips. “That seems a rather important bit to leave out, Harriet.”
Her face must have told them everything.
“You are in love with him!” declared Sarah.
She couldn’t deny it. Yet she couldn’t quite admit it either. “I’ve made a complete hash of things.” She waited for Charlotte’s mockery.
It did not come. “We will just have to set them right then,” Charlotte said instead.
Sarah agreed. “But we must know everything.”
Harriet sighed. These were her friends, old and new. She trusted them, and she believed they had her best interests at heart. She also knew them to be wise and kind. They would understand even if she did not come out well. Taking a deep breath, Harriet related her entire history with the rogue earl.
“That is a very romantic tale,” said Sarah when she was done.
“Indeed,” said Charlotte dryly. “A saga of bucolic chivalry.”
Harriet wrinkled her nose at her.
“I like that neither of you were vying for social advantage when you met,” said Cecelia. “There’s nothing of the marriage mart there.”
“He did lie to me,” said Harriet. But even she could hear that the anger had drained out of that accusation.
“I might have done the same if Lady Wilton was after me,” said Sarah. “She makes me quake in my boots.”
“And you hid your true motives from him when you…encouraged his offer,” said Cecelia.
“Are you suggesting that the two deceptions…cancel out?” Harriet asked her.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” intoned Sarah.
“But any number of rights can make a wrong,” put in Charlotte.
“What does that mean?”
Charlotte shook her head and shrugged. “It seemed witty, and then it…wasn’t.”
“No,” Harriet agreed.
“Well, you and Ferrington have both told the truth now,” said Sarah. “You have a clean slate.”
“So this is what a slate feels like when you have wiped every marking from it,” replied Harriet.
Their looks were sympathetic.
The comparison actually felt apt. Harriet’s mind was a blank. She also felt surrounded. Was it possible to be offered too much help? “I begin to see why some people have found us annoying.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sarah.
“We rather…leapt upon people to solve their mysteries. Whether they wished us to or not.”
“They required our help,” said Charlotte.
“You can be a bit like a bull seeing a red flag,” Harriet replied.
“What? No, I am not. I am simply determined.”
“So is the bull.”
“Oh, pish.”
“We won’t do anything you don’t like,” said Sarah, as always the bridge. “We will work together as we always have. Cecelia can take Ada’s place.”
“Which is?” The duchess looked amused.
“Organization.”
“But what does that mean in this situation?” Harriet wondered. “There is no work to be done.”
“We’ll find something,” said Charlotte.
That was what worried her.
“Nothing you don’t like,” repeated Sarah.
“Sometimes one doesn’t know what one doesn’t like until it happens,” Harriet said.
“That is quite true,” said Cecelia, looking struck by the statement.
“What’s wrong with you, Harriet?” Charlotte shook her head. “You used to be the most sensible of us all. If this is being in love, I am glad I never shall be.”
“Oh, Charlotte,” said Sarah.
“Yes,” said Harriet. “Oh, Charlotte indeed. I look forward to the day when I can remind you of those words.”
“There will be no such day.”
As they glowered at each other, Cecelia said, “I still don’t understand just what you intend to do.”
That reduced the group to silence.