"Well?" She folded the riddle and tucked it into her reticule. "Shall we stand here contemplating our misfortune, or shall we give our host the satisfaction of watching us attempt to cooperate?"
His jaw tightened. "The east fountain, you said."
"Unless you have a better interpretation." She tilted her head, watching him. "Do you?"
For a moment, he met her gaze, and she saw a flicker of something behind his gray eyes, a hint of the man who had spoken of his mother's roses with quiet grief. Then his expression closed off, and he gestured toward the garden path with stiff courtesy.
"After you, Lady Alice."
She gathered her skirts and walked, keenly aware of him falling into step beside her, of other pairs dispersing across the lawn, and of the strange certainty that something more than tokens was at stake.
The treasure hunt had begun, and despite her better judgment, anticipation tingled in Alice's chest as she looked forward to the chase.
The east fountain announced itself before they reached it. Water fell in a steady hush, the faint spray catching the light and scattering rainbows across the weathered stone. Two lion heads jutted from the central column, their mouths perpetually open, weeping into the basin below. Alice circled the structure, her eyes scanning for the promised token.
"There." She pointed to a small brass disc tucked into a crevice where one lion's mane met the stone. "Beneath the gaze of the watchful eye."
Crewe retrieved it without comment, his longfingers extracting the disc and the folded paper attached. He passed the riddle to her without being asked, a small concession that piqued her interest.
Through verdant walls that twist and turn,
Where patience fails and tempers burn,
The center holds what seekers crave,
For those who follow rather than save.
"The hedge maze." Alice began walking before she finished speaking. "Central pavilion. Come along."
"You might consider," Crewe said, falling into step beside her with evident reluctance, "conferencing before you charge ahead."
"I might." She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "But then we would lose precious seconds to deliberation, and I prefer winning."
The hedge maze loomed before them, eight feet of meticulously trimmed boxwood arranged to frustrate and disorient. Alice had explored it two days prior—ostensibly for exercise, really to escape a conversation about lace with the baroness. The memory served her now.
"Left at the first fork," she said, plunging into the green corridor. "Then right, then left twice more."
"You know the way?" Crewe sounded suspicious.
"I know everything, Lord Crewe. It is one of my more irritating qualities.”
“I imagine it is more of a side effect of your close relationship with Lady Oakford.”
“Touché,” Alice giggled.
They moved through the maze in near silence, their footsteps muffled by soft earth. The hedges blocked the breeze, creating a still, private world where sound carried strangely and the afternoon sun filtered through gaps in the foliage. Alice was aware of Crewe behind her. His presence, his breathing, the measured tread of his boots.
The central pavilion appeared around the final corner, a small octagonal structure of white-painted wood, with a second brass token lying in plain sight on one of its benches.
Alice unfolded the next riddle with efficiency.
Where lovers walked in crimson shade,
And morning confessions were carefully made,
The keeper of petals guards a prize,
For those with steady hands and observant eyes.
