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“Not in the gardens, no. But it has every other thing a lemon might become.” Juliet watched the girl’s face. “Have you ever been to London?”

“No.” She said it without complaint or self-pity, as a plain fact.

“Not once?”

“Papa goes for his meetings. I stay with Miss Green.” She walked on, and Juliet fell into step beside her. After a moment, Eloise said, very carefully, “Do you think he would ever take us? You and me, I mean.”

The us landed between them. Juliet looked at the girl’s profile and said, “I think it is worth asking him.”

After supper, Juliet found Adam in his study with a quarterly ledger and the day’s post spread across his desk.

He looked up when she came in. He did not put down his pen. She had stopped taking this personally after the first week.

“Eloise,” she said, settling into the chair across from him. “Has she ever been to London?”

The pen went down. “No.”

“Has she been anywhere at all, beyond this village and Ravenlocke?”

“To Exeter. Twice. For a physician.” He sat back, his expression stern, but Juliet found that she didn’t mind, as long as his gaze was on her once more. “She is seven years old.”

“She is seven, and this village is the entirety of her world.” Juliet kept her voice level. “When she enters the marriage mart, she will be shown the smallest amount of novelty by the first man who bothers, and she will have no means to be discerning about it. She will have nothing to compare it to.”

He glanced down at the ledger.

“She asked me today,” Juliet said, “if you would ever take us to London.” She let that rest there.

He was quiet for a moment. His thumb moved once against the desk’s edge. “How long?”

“A week. Less, if she tires of it.”

“We leave Thursday.” He picked up his pen. “I thought to take her to Hyde Park first.”

“I had intended to take her there myself,” Juliet said.

“I know.” He did not look up even as he agreed. “I’ll come.”

She looked at the top of his bent head, at the neat dark of his hair in the lamplight.

“Then… I suppose that is all right,” she said because there was nothing else she could say, really.

And like that, the days passed until they headed to London. Hyde Park on a clear Friday afternoon was very nearly what Eloise had imagined, and also considerably more.

She went silent when the carriage passed through the gates, her face against the window glass, and stayed silent the full length of the Broadwalk. When the coachman stopped and opened the door, she stepped down, stood on the gravel path, and turned her head slowly from left to right.

Then she let out a wondrous sound. “Oh.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Juliet said, smiling wider at the young girl’s enthusiastic nods.

Adam stepped down behind her, and she felt the shift of warmth at her shoulder before she heard him.

“Stay in sight,” he said.

Eloise threw her arms wide. “I will, Papa.”

She was getting cheekier by the day.

They walked the west path. Eloise crouched at the first oak to examine the bark, straightened, and bolted ahead when the Serpentine glittered through the trees, stopping at the bank with her arms spread.