“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes still scanning around. “I never go out in the evening, and it’s usually light until ten o’clock.” She looked back at the sky. “I’ve never seen this in London.”
“No. Too much light pollution,” George said. “That’s why we don’t allow artificial lights at night here.”
She tried to absorb this. “I thought it was about saving electricity.”
George’s rich laughter came from behind her. “You thought the nasty old seigneur was miserly with municipallighting?”
She couldn’t stop watching the magic overhead. “It looks like a balloon full of sequins exploded in the sky.” There were dazzling white, yellow, pink, and blue ones, glittering, achingly beautiful. “That thing there.” She pointed. “Looks like a wisp of purple fog.”
George came to stand close behind her. “We are designated a Dark Sky Island,” he said, quiet pride in his voice. “There are just ten islands in the entire world that have an IDA.”
IDA? Millie glanced back at him.
“It’s a United Nations Dark-Sky certificate.” He explained. “La Canette was the first to be awarded it.”
He took her hand in his and pointed it at different constellations.
“Hunter’s belt,” he said quietly over her shoulder. “That is the Plough,” he added, pointing. “Andromeda. Perseus. Polaris. Virgo. The Dragon—”
“What’s that red burst?”
“Aha.” His voice was almost a whisper, his other hand pressed slightly into her side. “Can you see?” He waved to draw an oval against the sky, following the curve of the constellation. “It’s shaped like a swan.”
“Yes.”
“That, Millie, is the Cygnet. It’s what we’re named after.”
She turned around to face him, trying to find the answer inhis face.
“La Canette. Didn’t you ever wonder?”he asked.
Suddenly it all fit. “It means duck, doesn’t it?”
“Actuallyduckling.”
So that’s why it was called La Canette. She remembered her first sight of the island when she sailed here, like a swan.
George tucked her hand in his elbow again, and they resumed walking while he talked. “The legend goes that sailors, on first spotting the island, thought it was a small duckling. It was supposed to grow into a beautiful swan, but Druids tied it up in an unbreakable spell.”
“Why?” Millie loved old legends.
“So it would never outgrow the channel and connect England to France and allow the Vikings access. And that spell kept our island small and Britain and Franceseparate.”
She laughed. “So this is the secret of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France? That this island never grew enough to join both countriestogether?”
“It’s a great theory, don’t you think? La Canette’s always beenneutral.”
Millie looked at him. In the starlight, his hair was very dark, rare in England. He’d ordered their dinner in French; maybe it wasn’t just a posh thing. “Does everyone here speak French?”
“Most do. At least a little.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Don’t worry. We all speak English, too.”
“Cute, very cute. I’ll have you know, I got an A-star in my French.”
“A respectable result,” he said. “Why have you forgotten it?”
“It’ll come back to me.”
“Hmm.” He sounded amused.
