‘Oh, la, you’re so stuffy! And I thought you were looking for adventure? Such a shame – I really didn’t want to tell your aunt and uncle about your little Assembly Room escapade, but it seems you leave me no choice!’
She spun abruptly and started walking back across the glade.
‘Tell my relatives anything, and I will have no choice but to divulge yoursituation,’ Phoebe threw, beginning to regret her willingness to accompany Aurelia anywhere.
Aurelia turned back.
‘Bravo!’ she smirked. ‘I was beginning to doubt you had it in you! But you see, we really aren’t that different, after all.’
‘I beg to differ,’ Phoebe snapped. ‘I would happily give up marriage and all it entails, for one true adventure – whereas you will use marriage and all it entails to have a thousand!’
‘Well, the moral high ground does have its price,’ she sighed, ‘but if you’re prepared to help me – ifMrs Mary Smithis prepared to help me – then I can promise an adventurein return…’
Phoebe glared silently, the viscount’s mockery still infuriating her. She didn’t want to help Aurelia at all, but his snobbish arrogance felt like everything she despised most. What right did he have to judge her family in any way? They’d come to Bath with one purpose in mind, and social disaster or not, she had no intention of becomingincurious. Now, or ever.
She reached out and took a small pinch of snuff, eyeing Aurelia warily.
‘No private rooms or parlour games!’ She scowled.
And then she inhaled before she could change her mind.
Instantly, the glade whirled like a carousel, while a delicious rise of feeling coursed through her veins. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, except perhaps at the Midsummer Fair, when she and Sophie had consumed so much candy they challenged the Bilch brothers to a three-legged race, and even so, this was different. This made her feelso deliriouslyhappy!
Slowly, she spread her arms and turned on the spot, watching the way shafts of light from the hanging lanterns glistened with magic, or fairies, or possibly both. Briefly, she wished her sisters were there to see them.
‘Come on!’ Aurelia called from the far side of the clearing.
She laughed then, but to Phoebe’s surprise it no longer sounded irritating, just highly infectious, and within seconds she too was laughing so hard, she felt sure she might actually pop her corset.
‘It’s just a little further, so long as you’re not afraid of the dark?’ Aurelia called, disappearing down another narrow path.
Phoebe couldn’t recall ever being afraid of the dark – and was far too mesmerised by the fairies to concern herself now.
She hurried after Aurelia into the next glade, wondering if she might have misjudged her, after all.
‘In truth, it’s because of mysituation,’ Aurelia began as Phoebe joined her beneath a maple tree ‘and my marriage to the viscount on my twenty-first birthday, that I find I’m in need of a little assistance.’
‘Yes … well … as we’ve already ascertained, I know nothing on the matter that will assist you,’ Phoebe returned doubtfully, willing the glade to stop spinning. ‘But perhaps if you tell the viscount, he will?—’
‘Tell the viscount?’ Aurelia scorned. ‘He must know nothing, you little goose! Why else do you think I’m asking foryourhelp?’
‘Well, bring the date forward, then,’ Phoebe tried again. ‘And no one need know anything at all.’
Aurelia threw her eyes skywards.
‘And why would I want to tie myself down evensoonerthan my parents planned?’
Phoebe frowned. It was one thing disliking the viscount, vehemently, quite another being complicit in deceiving him.
‘The truth is, there is someone who can help me, but she’s an actress, and not company I can easily keep. However, the widowed cousin of a famed actress?’ A slow smile spread across Aurelia’s face. ‘She can go wherever she pleases. All you need to do – allMrs Mary Smithneeds to do – is slip backstage at the theatre and collect a package for me. What could be easier than that?’
‘That’s all?’ Phoebe asked, willing the fairies to disappear now.
Aurelia nodded.
‘And I thought a girl seeking adventure – such as yourself – might enjoy it. Have you ever been backstage at arealtheatre?’
Phoebe shook her head, and then regretted it; she’d always wanted so much to experience a real theatre.
