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She noticed that the skin around Georgina’s eyes tightened and that her irises seemed frostier. Had her remark partaken of that superiority Georgina loathed? She hadn’t meant to imply that Georgina’s mother was beneath mention. She’d simply stated the truth.

Bother.

“They spoke.” Georgina’s voice was also frosty. “Often. When they met riding.”

That sparked a memory, and Elfreda responded without thinking.

“Your mother rode like the goddess of horses! I used to watch for her from the tower. She wore that red habit.”

“Horses have a goddess?” Georgina scrunched her brow.

“Epona,” Elfreda muttered. She felt silly, but Georgina had tipped her head thoughtfully, the silver frost in her eyes melting into richer blue.

Perhaps she was also picturing her mother on horseback.

Margaret Redmayne had died young, swept into the North Sea.

A tragedy that everyone in the neighborhood had discussed in horrified tones.

Unlike her own mother’s death, which happened in such slow stages, no one seemed to register the final event.

“They’d ride together,” said Georgina, “but only in the woods, where no one would see. And they never spoke elsewhere. A Marsden and a Redmayne. They couldn’t call on each other.”

Georgina’s wry smile summoned her own. A Marsden call on a Redmayne. A Redmayne call on a Marsden. Unthinkable.

The discord between their families had never seemed funny. Sharing this bizarrely conspiratorial grin with Georgina suddenly made her want to laugh at all of it.

“My mother always said that the best knowledge is to know yourself.” Georgina’s eyes became unfathomable. “And she said something similar about your grandmother. That she knew herself.”

“Oh.” Elfreda lowered her gaze as a lump formed in her throat.

She was moved by the fact of Georgina’s mother’s regard, by the reverberations of her grandmother’s presence.

A moment later, she shook her head. Georgina’s mother had overlooked what made Grandmama so extraordinary, just like everyone else.

“Grandmama knew many other things as well.”

Georgina shrugged and bent to pull on her stockings, the motions frank and shameless.

“Knowing yourself doesn’t exclude knowing other things.” She sounded nonchalant. “But if you don’t know yourself, the other things you know aren’t likely to do you or anyone else any good.”

This seemed pointed, aimed at her, or maybe Papa, and rather than begin a fresh argument, Elfreda took a deep breath.

“Will you let me onto your land or not?”

“You’re already here.” Georgina unbent. “And yes, I will.”

Well, that was easy. Shockingly easy.

Georgina continued. “On one condition.”

Of course. Elfreda tried to look calm.

“You must fritter.” Georgina said it with relish.

“That’s your term. I prefer live . You must live , live like it’s 1818.

Ideally, this would involve a velocipede, or a hot-air balloon, but given the scarcity of velocipedes and hot-air balloons in this godforsaken parish, I will have to come up with something else. ”

“Anything,” she said at once, incautious, caught up in the excitement of winning her objective.

“A theatrical.”

“Anything but a theatrical.”

Georgina smirked. “About this truce. Am I permitted onto your land? May I indulge freely in your mummified apples?”

“My land is Papa’s land. So the answer is no.” She flushed to the tops of her ears. “And the Major’s appearance would be particularly unwelcome.”

“I’m sure I can win your father over as Miss Georgina Redmayne.” Georgina raised her arms and twirled. She was still barefoot and stumbled on the moss, bumping into Elfreda, then catching her by the elbow to keep herself steady.

“Because I can’t marry you,” murmured Georgina. The pressure of her hand was firm, and Elfreda’s elbow was tender, and the sweet pain of it nearly pressed a moan from her lips. She was unsteady enough herself to curl her fingers in the muslin at Georgina’s waist.

They stood like that, holding on to each other, long after the danger of falling had passed. So long that the danger returned.

Elfreda detached herself.

“We have an agreement, then,” she said, studiously avoiding Georgina’s eyes, afraid to see in them acknowledgment that something significant had just occurred. Or maybe afraid of the opposite. No acknowledgment at all.

Because she wasn’t sure what else to do, she gave a nod, then an awkward wave, and started walking through the trees.

Georgina caught up, her shoes in her hands. “I should go too. Mrs. Herridge isn’t my chaperone, but if I misstep, she’ll pack Anne straight off to Halifax. She’d almost recovered from her dyspepsia when she got a glimpse of me in breeches and suffered a fit of apoplexy. Hence my return to muslin.”

Elfreda glanced over. Georgina walked with a supple stride, the very picture of grace, even gripping dirty shoes.

Her brain revolved the conversation in the pergola and snagged on a tiny bit of language.

“Miss Poskitt used they when referring to you. It’s a small thing, but…”

“You can’t ignore bad grammar.” Georgina’s brows had a rueful slant. “I know.”

“It wasn’t bad grammar.” Elfreda frowned in concentration. “It was deliberate. Do your close friends say they instead of she when they talk about you?”

“Mostly.” Georgina was looking at Elfreda sidelong. “Not in front of Mrs. Herridge. I can’t remember who used it first. But I encouraged it. I like the fit.”

“The fit?”

“Sometimes I feel like she is a too-tight corset. He is nice for a change but chokes after a while, like a cinched cravat. They is less constricting. Comfortable even.”

“Pronouns aren’t comfortable, or uncomfortable.” Elfreda halted in her tracks. “Pronouns don’t feel like anything.”

Georgina stopped too. “I just described how they feel to me.”

“But pronouns are immaterial. They’re parts of speech.”

“That follow certain rules.” Georgina’s voice was dry. “Hence your objection. You disapprove of they used in the singular.”

“Not at all. Authors were using they in the singular back in the fourteenth century. There’s a very long precedent.”

“I thought the fourteenth century was recent by your standards.” Georgina’s lips twitched. “It’s after 1066.”

She was teasing. That was humor in her eyes, not derision. Was she making a special effort? Or had Elfreda sometimes been too quick in the past to assume the worst?

“Actually,” said Elfreda, “ they singular is quite old-fashioned. It was used to indicate a person about whom nothing was known. A stranger in the distance who might be male or female, or someone unspecified. Nowadays we are supposed to default to he in such instances. According to Fisher’s New Grammar , he is universal as well as masculine.

Like man is universal as well as masculine. ”

Georgina’s eyes gleamed. “Propaganda.”

“Propaganda.” Elfreda was incredulous. “The English language?”

“Codified by men for men.” Georgina focused on her with a sharp gaze.

“ Man is universal? All right. Imagine this. Parliament passes universal manhood suffrage. Would women be allowed to vote? Of course not. But women are hanged and transported for breaking laws that make no mention of women in particular. Man is universal then. He means she , but only when women have nothing to gain by it. For example, you can’t claim he means she to go to Oxford. ”

Elfreda responded automatically. “I don’t want to go to Oxford. Papa went and says it’s all drunken stunts and he never read so little in his life.”

Georgina laughed. “Too good for Oxford. Noted. But you take my point.”

After a moment, Elfreda laughed too. She did take Georgina’s point.

“I want to become a Fellow of the Albion Society.” She couldn’t help her stomach’s little plunge. “They don’t allow women either. But I will make such an important contribution to the field, they will have no choice.”

Georgina’s smile was cynical. “I wish you luck with that.”

Elfreda bristled. “I will.”

“It’s not your ability to contribute that I doubt. It’s the other part.”

Elfreda bit her lip, mollified and perturbed in equal measure. Everything about this interaction with Georgina had upset her assumptions. She felt halfway dazed.

“Quakers are deliberate about pronouns.” Georgina’s cynicism had vanished.

She looked contemplative. “ You once marked people as high and low. It was used in the singular only to address one’s social superiors.

Quakers didn’t like that. They insisted on thee and thou for everyone. Because we’re all equal before God.”

“You mix with Quakers?”

Georgina registered her incredulity with a faint smile.

“My mother held fundraisers in London for women campaigning against West Indian sugar consumption. More of them were Quakers than not. Quaker plain speech is a protest against class division. Why not they as a protest against the division of the sexes?” She let this linger a moment in the air, then gave a shake.

“In truth, I don’t have such lofty ambitions.

For me, it’s what I said before. The fit. ”

Elfreda nodded. She was fully dazed. For years, she’d believed that Georgina could only veer between an excess of animal spirits and self-indulgent ennui, due to an empty head and a hollow heart.

She’d underestimated her. No, she’d underestimated them .

It didn’t mean they were trustworthy. Her new understanding of their finer qualities, and their powers of fascination, only meant she could trust herself less when she was around them.

She had to stay on guard. Now more than ever.

“Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? No lapdog. Perhaps a game of whist.” Georgina gestured in the direction of Redmayne Manor with a shoe. “Have you met Rosalie? Was she with Anne?”

The pergola formed before her, its lavender drapery of wisteria a languid frame for the feverish embraces within.

Elfreda’s blush was a screaming red. “A truce is a cessation of hostilities. A temporary cessation of hostilities.” Johnson’s Dictionary to the rescue. “A truce isn’t peace, or fellowship, or…”

Kissing.

“We do not dine,” she finished.

“My mistake.” Georgina bowed. Elfreda had trouble removing her eyes from the sardonic set of their mouth.

As she hurried away, she felt fairly certain that this was her mistake. And that it was entirely too late to correct.