Page 24

By eight that evening, the waiter had served the chops, and Georgie was well on their way to letting Elf down.

Thus far, the Barrow Prince had ignored them.

He sat by Mr. Marsden, chewing gristly mouthfuls of meat with expressionless resolve.

The princely chap, on the other hand, kept up an amiable stream of chatter.

His name was, ridiculously, Nicholas Fluff, and he seemed a very good sort.

The other fellow, Simon Sykes, seemed less so.

He was recently back from Egypt and his talk was all mummies, dozens of which he’d brought to London.

“Visit, and I’ll unwrap one for you,” he said to Georgie, a loathsome proposition uttered in a tone so unsavory, and so salacious, it put them off their meal.

Elf sat between her father and Sir Graham with downcast eyes, moving peas around her plate. The dining room was loud and crowded, a mix of holidaymakers and villagers. A dog barked incessantly. Should they start yelling about the Great Heathen Army?

“Bloody dogs everywhere!” Sykes thumped back his chair, scowling. “Under the table, even.”

Fluff bent over and looked.

“They just want affection,” he said, placidly, as he straightened. “And sweets.”

Sykes harrumphed and seized his pewter tankard of ale. While he drank, Fluff reached into his pocket, slipped out a licorice, and passed it under the table. He grinned at Georgie and handed off another.

Not dogs, then. Wolves. They were supposed to be in bed, not crawling around the filthy stone floor.

Georgie didn’t look. They didn’t want to draw attention to this latest fiasco. The Barrow Prince was at the other end of the table, looking as personable as granite, and they needed to figure out an approach.

Suddenly, he leaned forward and spoke. His gravelly voice carried surprisingly well.

“Miss Marsden,” he said. “You are left-handed.”

Elf stopped moving her fork.

“So am I.” The Barrow Prince raised his left hand.

His palm had a yellow cast and looked hard as horn.

“When I make diagrams of a tumulus’s interments, I draw the skeletons facing right more readily, and faithfully, than the skeletons facing left.

I noticed the same pattern in your father’s Two Dissertations on the Saxon Grave Hills of the Peak District . ”

Mr. Marsden was holding his wineglass in his right hand and lowered it with a clink.

“Did you make those diagrams?” asked the Barrow Prince, black eyes fixed on Elf.

She went rigid. Sir Graham was looking at her too, and Fluff, and Sykes, and Georgie, and her father. He wore a disgruntled expression.

“She assisted,” he said. “She is the eldest, and happily, the least silly of my daughters. You met the youngest, so least silly may seem faint praise. But I do believe she will, someday, under my guidance, develop into that rarity, a truly rational dame.”

The Barrow Prince’s smile was a crooked slash.

“Miss Marsden?” he repeated.

How wonderful. The Barrow Prince wanted to hear directly from Elf. He’d identified her work and demanded its acknowledgment. How wonderful. How terrible.

Elf was staring into space, cheeks pale, mouth tense. Georgie tried to catch her eye, to nod encouragement. Yes. All she had to say was yes , to start. Yes, I made the diagrams. She had, hadn’t she? She must have. If Mr. Marsden was willing to admit she’d assisted , she’d done it all.

One word to start. Less than a word. A sound.

“Are you humming?” Fluff turned to Georgie.

“Lovely,” murmured Sykes, his gaze hot.

“No.” Georgie shook their head. “I wasn’t.”

“You were humming, and it did sound lovely.” Fluff turned gallant. “You have the voice of an angel.”

Sykes leered. “You must give us a song.”

“What’s this?” Sir Graham glanced over. “A song?”

“I can’t sing at the table,” protested Georgie.

“There’s a pianoforte.” Fluff rose excitedly. “I adore music, and I’ve been a week listening to that.” He pulled a face at the Barrow Prince. “You’ve heard how he rasps. My ears are rubbed raw. The balm of melody is required.”

Georgie stood. Now all eyes were on them. Could Elf speak to the Barrow Prince if the table were distracted?

They walked with Fluff to the pianoforte, drawing more eyes as they passed by the bar.

A music book lay open on the stand, and they took their seat, turning over a few pages before flipping the book closed.

They’d already decided on a song their mother used to sing, in Welsh, simple and sweet and sad, about a sailor’s lost love.

At the first stroke of the keys, the roar of conversation gentled.

When they began to sing, the room fell silent. Even the dog stopped barking.

Georgie did have the voice of an angel, thank you very much.

They pronounced the Welsh without fully understanding it, shaping their mother’s syllables, understanding them by color more than sense. They let the language and the tune wash through them, wash away everything but the present moment, one silver note, and then the next.

After the last, the hush was profound. Thunderous applause followed, and shouted requests for another, which Georgie indulged, a ballad this time, known to all.

Other voices joined in, Fluff’s included, his baritone smooth as silk.

The zeal and adoration of the crowd—it felt like a warm bath, dissolving the weariness and aches of the day’s travel and misadventure.

Until Georgie swiveled enough to glimpse their table, Elf sitting motionless, the Barrow Prince sitting…nowhere.

—

“I should have guessed he hated jollity,” said Georgie, later, in the dark. Elf lay on one side of the bed, they on the other. “That face. If he smiled, it would cause an avalanche. His nose would break off.”

Elf had changed and crawled beneath the covers with deadly quiet. Her deadly quiet persisted. In fact, it seemed deadlier.

“I didn’t expect he’d run from the room,” they continued, more apologetically. “Please believe me. I was shocked.”

“And yet,” Elf responded at last. “And yet, you kept singing.”

“Well, yes.” They cleared their throat. “Nothing else I could do at that point.”

“The point at which you were already leading the room in song.”

“Yes.” They had a sinking feeling in their chest. “Can’t stop in the middle. I’m relieved you understand.”

“Georgie.” Understanding wasn’t the word for her tone. “You promised to talk to him. Instead, you put on a performance for the whole village.”

“Not for my own sake. I was trying to—”

“You’re a show-off.” She said it with unmistakable disgust. “You were showing off. It’s what you do.”

“That Fluff fellow begged me to sing.”

“Because you started to hum!” Elf’s voice rose. “Why did you start to hum?”

“Because I was thinking of what you said.”

“What I said?” She spoke more softly now, with more than a touch of apprehension.

“What you said about becoming a hum.”

She inhaled sharply, a wounded gasp, as if from a blow.

“No. Drat. Elfreda.” They went up on an elbow.

“I wasn’t poking fun. A hum is a sound. And a sound is nearly a word.

And it occurred to me, if you hummed the hum in your head, maybe you could keep going from there.

So, I hummed, and I hoped you might hum, and we could both hum, and then you could, you know, hum at the Barrow Prince. ”

“Hum at him. You hoped I’d hum at him?”

“I hoped it would break the ice. Sometimes we hum to get going at the theater. Or vocalize nonsense syllables. It limbers the tongue and lowers the inhibitions. I really was trying to help.” They rolled onto their back, defeated. “I miscalculated. I’m sorry. I’m a twit.”

“Oh, stop,” she muttered.

“Stop being a twit? It’s not so easy.”

“Stop calling yourself a twit.”

“You disagree?” They lifted their head in hope.

“Not necessarily.” The pause lengthened. “But I don’t let people talk that way about my friends.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. When it did, they lowered their head to the pillow and grinned. “We’re still friends, then?”

Her grudging sigh was affirmation.

“I haven’t given up,” they vowed. “With the Barrow Prince.”

She sighed again. “Go to sleep.”

“Impossible.” They grunted. “Matilda is walking up my ribs.” It was true. Matilda was fast asleep but was rotating herself perpendicular, and her heels pummeled Georgie’s side.

They inched away, closer to the mattress’s edge.

Contented snores sawed the air.

“Elf,” they whispered. “Is that you?”

“That’s Hilda,” she murmured. The blanket tugged off Georgie’s body completely, a sign that she’d rolled over.

When they’d imagined sharing a bed with Elf, they hadn’t imagined snoring six-year-olds turning somersaults between them.

“You drew those diagrams,” they whispered. “Your father should have admitted it.” They listened to the bed creak, more soft snores. “I’ll tell the Barrow Prince. I’ll tell him that and everything else. I’ll rise at dawn. Depend on it.”

Rising at dawn was not their forte. But they did so. Groggily. Dependably.

Unfortunately, the Barrow Prince had risen even earlier, to walk on the moors. Georgie, Elf, and the twins were loaded into the stagecoach and rolling south in disgrace before he returned.