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“It’s your turn.” Rosalie jammed a ball hard into Georgie’s abdomen, which made them double over and drop their quizzing glass. “You dragged us up here for bowls, the least you can do is pretend to play.”

Georgie cradled the ball in the crook of one arm and fumbled for the quizzing glass, now dangling from its chain. They lifted it again to their eye. Elf came into focus. She was circling something in a distant field; what they couldn’t tell.

“The grass is too long,” complained Anne. “And there are too many rocks. When did your family last use this as a bowling green?”

“Never,” guessed Rosalie. “Georgie fibbed. Nothing about this spot is suitable for lawn sport. It’s the sort of place where sheep get stranded in a storm. There are literal ledges .”

“There’s quite a view, though,” said Anne, reflectively. “You can see for miles.”

Georgie lowered the quizzing glass and looked at their friends. Anne and Rosalie were physical opposites, but at that moment, they exhibited the same ratio of tiny smirk to overlarge bonnet and resembled each other.

“Yes, quite a view,” murmured Rosalie. “Of the park, the farms, the woodlands, the outlying hills.” She tapped a finger against her lips, miming thought. “What else?”

“Who else.” Anne giggled.

“Stop,” Georgie warned them.

“Give me your quizzer.” Rosalie beckoned. “I know she’s down there.”

Georgie fumbled for a better grip on the ball, took a step, and tossed it, without bothering to aim for the jack, which anyway wasn’t immediately evident, given its diminutive size and the general overgrown wildness of the terrain.

Rosalie was right that the narrow plateau at the southeast corner of the estate didn’t lend itself to lawn sport.

The ball bounced once and came to rest in the bracken.

“Your turn,” they said, turning to Anne.

“She is like us, you know,” said Anne, not for the first time that week. “I can tell about these things.”

“Can you now?” Georgie tried to sound indifferent.

“In the garden, she was shocked,” continued Anne, glancing at Rosalie, who blushed scarlet. “But it was the shock you feel when the world suddenly makes more sense, not less. I recognized it.”

Georgie opened their mouth, then closed it again, choosing instead to lift the quizzing glass. Green jumped toward them. Grass. Tree. Tree. Cow. There. Elf. She was climbing a low stone wall.

“She’s not like me,” they announced, rather too grandly. “I don’t break my word.”

“You swore you’d tattoo my name on your ankle,” Anne reminded them, “if I brought you the whole Wiltshire cheese at that garden party.”

“I received no whole Wiltshire cheese.”

“You received and ate the Wiltshire cheese,” said Rosalie. “It was after you rolled around in the tulips with that moppy-looking terrier and before you jumped in the fountain.”

“Hmm,” said Georgie. “I don’t break my word sober.” They followed Elf with the glass as she cut across a pasture.

“Your engagement?”

“That was a very special case.”

The long silence felt like an indictment.

“Fine, we’ll tattoo my ankle tonight.” They swung around, and Anne’s face filled their field of vision. “The fact remains that I am allowing Elf to traipse around my property, in exchange for a bit of fun. Yet four funless days have passed!”

“Funless,” murmured Anne.

“Funless,” repeated Georgie, in an ominous voice. Anne took a hint and sealed her rosy lips.

“Oh, look at you. You’re having plenty of fun spying.”

That was Rosalie, so Georgie turned their magnified gaze.

“Irrelevant. I can’t let her disregard our agreement. She must join in the fun. So far, she has avoided us whenever possible. And refused croquet, shuttlecock and battledore, vingt-et-un, levitation, and now bowls.”

Rosalie’s long lashes swept up and down. “Who were we going to levitate?”

“Bagshaw. The butler. He’s heaviest.” Georgie stopped blinking, hypnotized by the dark facets of her iris, and let the quizzing glass slip from their fingers. Rosalie’s eyes shrank back down to normal.

“You can’t understand.” Georgie began to circle Rosalie and Anne.

“The two of you are returning to London. And I’ll be left behind.

I’ll probably start keeping a diary where I meditate on my digestion.

Oh God.” They stopped short, one hand on their stomach, the other on their mouth.

“That truly might happen. I’ll start voicing opinions on poultry breeding.

And waking at the cock’s crow.” They shuddered.

“It is unimaginable,” said Rosalie. “Burning every bridge in town then getting sent to one’s very own estate to cool one’s heels.” Rosalie smiled, not a nice smile.

The atmosphere was suddenly icy.

Georgie blinked. A moment later, they got the point.

“I’m rather fortunate, I see that,” they said. “How do matters stand with your father’s restaurant? You had that letter the other day, and I meant to ask.”

“Not now,” said Rosalie. “You’re making it so much worse.”

“Inestimably worse,” said Anne, moving closer to Rosalie with a head toss that set her ribbons fluttering.

The look Rosalie shot her was noticeably unappreciative.

“I’m going to be left behind too,” she said to Georgie. “Just as soon as Anne absconds to Tuscany.”

Anne gasped. “What? How can you even think it? You’re coming with me!”

“I’ve told you a hundred times that I’m not.”

“Because we haven’t finished working out the details.”

“Because I’m not.”

This fight was ever present, usually at a low smolder, but when it flared it caught on with wildfire swiftness. Georgie was recalled to themself. They often put their foot in it, but they did have a knack for restoring the mood. They swooped to the picnic basket and extracted two bottles.

“Lemonade won’t help.” Anne was ashen faced, hugging herself. Her desolate expression paired well with the vast, hazy backdrop of checkered countryside and windswept clouds.

“It’s champagne.” Georgie hefted the bottles higher. “I emptied out the lemonade.”

Anne contemplated the bottles. “Champagne might help. I hope you weren’t obvious about it. Mrs. Herridge has a suspicious mind.”

“Her suspicions are always correct, though. Doesn’t that make her mind…something else? Formidable? Accurate?”

This musing was obviously not restorative, so Georgie desisted.

“Well,” they said, “she suspected nothing. I worked a perfect sleight of hand with these bottles. And I presented this outing to her in the most unobjectionably wholesome terms, while emphasizing the grueling, character-building length of the walk. We’re unchaperoned thanks to my magical fingers and silver tongue. ”

“Lots of girls thank your magical fingers and silver tongue.” Anne wrinkled her nose. “I won’t add to the number. As much as I appreciate walking about without having to worry if I slouch or perspire or take off my gloves.”

“You won’t have to worry in Italy either,” muttered Rosalie. “No one will be there to dictate your behavior. I hope it’s worth it.”

Anne faced off with her. “Freedom is always worth it.”

“Freedom without love?” Rosalie was staring at Anne so intensely that Georgie had to glance away.

“There’s no love without freedom.” Anne’s voice trembled. “Georgie agrees. That’s why they broke things off with Phipps. The compromise was too great.”

Georgie felt the weight of two pairs of eyes. The wind was cool on the plateau but sweat formed on their brow as the expectancy thickened.

“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.