“In these orchards, near the boundary between our properties, I used to watch you. You and your father would walk here sometimes and it was one of my favorite places to play. And sometimes I would see you two and spy. I was curious what this great man would say to his son.”
He couldn’t speak.
It sounded like the beginning of one of her fairy tales, like the kind of myths she was so dedicated to committing to paper.
“I remember that once you complained to him that the cook had struck you for stealing a pie from the kitchen.”
He stopped and looked at her, pitching the apple core to the ground.
“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t—”
“No, please, continue. What did my father say?”
“He said to you, ‘Son, you aren’t entitled to any pie that you can’t steal clean.’ I remember it because it made me laugh.”
John laughed, too. He remembered that moment now. It rang some ancient bell at the back of his brain. On the ride home from Edington after his father’s death, he had wondered about those long conversations that they had had in the orchards. He couldn’t remember what had been said. He had thought that that piece of his childhood was gone forever. Now she had restored it. She had given it back to him.
He drew her towards him again.
“Should I not have told you that?”
“I am so glad you did. I had forgotten. And I used to watch you, too. You were this little fairy girl with your hair full of light and these strange blue-black eyes. I would watch you play when you couldn’t see me. You looked like you were hunting for treasures. I was always working up the courage to talk to you. I never did. And now I wish I had. Because then we would have known each other.”
“I don’t,” she said, leaning in and kissing him, “because then we might not be here.”
He heard Henrietta’s yell of delight and turned to see his friends trudging back over the hill. He released Catherine. Just in time, too, because Henrietta came wheeling towards them a second later.
“John!” she yelled, coming up to him, followed by her three assistants. “Tremberley said we are going to a ball! That you are going to take me to Lady Langley’s ball!”
He had meant to surprise Henrietta and Catherine, but of course his friends had spoilt it.
“Sorry, brother,” Tremberley said, looking genuinely contrite. “I was just mentioning to Leith that we would be attending…and Lady Henrietta overheard.”
“Is it true, John? Is it true?” Henrietta jumped in front of him, from one foot to another, looking more like a cottager of ten than a supposedly well-bred girl of seventeen.
“Very well. It is.”
Henrietta let out a peal of delight.
“My first ball!” she said, grabbing Catherine’s hands. “Oh, Miss Aster, we are going to aball.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Later that night,in bed, Catherine tried to convince John that the ball was a terrible idea.
“It’s a masquerade,” he countered. “No one will see your face and hence you will be impossible to recognize.”
“But Henrietta isn’t out yet,” she tried, hoping that John would see that his sister was too young to go to a masquerade. “It’s improper.”
“It’s a country ball.” John shrugged. Catherine knew he was right. Younger girlsdidgo to events all the time to experience society before they actually entered it, particularly in their home parishes. “We’ll chaperone her the whole time. She certainly won’t stand up to dance.”
“And I’m Henrietta’s tutor. Such people don’t go to balls.”
“You’ll be there as her chaperone, which is entirely proper. No one will know the difference between tutor and chaperone. And all the more reason you should be with us. It’s actually more appropriate than her attending with just her brother and his three friends. And you can explain the whole environment to Henrietta.”
“It’s too risky.”
“Trust me. Furthermore, Leith, Tremberley, Montaigne, and I will attract all of the attention.”
