I smiled.“Grand idea.”
“If someone should have something to tell us, you’ll need topay for this, milady,” he warned.
“That won’t be a problem,” I lied, because we were rich assin, Mom had a ton of money in Ansley’s safe, but everything was done onaccount.
If we had a coffee in a café, they sent word to Carling topay for it.
If we bought a roll of ribbon to send to Madame Toussaint toadd to a gown, same.
And so it went.
I didn’t have any money myself.
But I’d figure it out.
And anyway, Mom was always generous with my allowance, evenwhen we didn’t have much.
I might not let her in on what was going on, but she’d floatme some cash.
No problem.
“Let us go to the study for a piece of stationery, returnand write this note, Carling.”
His lips curved up and he replied, “Yes, milady.Let’s.”
ChapterTwenty
Le Cirque Magique
Satrine
A block up from our house, around the corner, andjust a block further, there were milliners, dressmakers, jewelers, cobblers,bauble shops, tailors, teahouses and candy stores.
A block down from our house, and three blocks in the otherdirection, there was a large art museum, cafés, restaurants, bookstores, flowershops and sophisticated drinking establishments.
The streets in between were lined with tall, leafy trees(though now, these leaves were turning to wondrous fall colors) and statelyblack lampposts.
All the buildings were made of a soft gray that was onlyperhaps three shades deeper than white.They were clean, and there wassomething in the stone that made it faintly glitter.
Flowers were as they seemed to be everywhere in my limitedexperience of this world, placed at a priority.Window boxes abounded.Massiveurns burst with blooms in front of houses.Beds were filled in the parks.Hanging baskets fell from lampposts.I even saw a few rooftop gardens thatappeared especially verdant.
In between these areas, in a way that reminded me ofSavannah, but here it was more prolific, there were parks, some large, like theone opposite our house (and, I’d learned, another one opposite Ansley andLoren’s) that took up an entire city block.Some smallerthatjust offered some greenspace between townhomes.
I loved the area, and Mom, Maxie and I had spent a greatdeal of time enjoying it.
It was wondrous, as this world seemed wont to be.
But it made me sad that in my old world, the people in powerput profit over peace.Building things and selling things and making everythingabout money, in doing so, covering up all the green.
Make no mistake, even in our area of Newton, one that wasclearly clean and upper class, we were in a city and there was hustle andbustle.People going places, striding down the sidewalks.Horses and carriageson the cobbled streets.
But with the trees and the flowers and the green spaces,even with the bustle, there was beauty.There was a sense of serenity.An offerfrom nature to slow down and witness her abundance and be thankful.
That was my experience in our, perhaps, eight-block radius.
Outside of the ride to the constabulary, I hadn’t seen muchof the city.
Until I sat next to Loren on the way toLe CirqueMagique.
