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“They can,” Eloise said, with confidence. “I read it in a book about the circus.”

“Sit back from the window,” Adam said, and his little daughter sat back approximately four inches.

He caught Juliet’s eye across the carriage. She looked at the ceiling.

They made it eight steps from the carriage before Eloise stopped entirely. Two performers in red and gold stood on a platform at the far end of the fair; one balanced on a pole held by the other, his arms wide and perfectly still against the clear sky.

Eloise went very quiet. “Papa.” Her voice was barely above a breath, so that he could picture the look of awe on her face without even seeing it firsthand. “There are acrobats.”

“So there are,” he said.

Juliet came up beside him, the press of people around the fair’s entrance forcing them closer than they might otherwise have stood, her shoulder briefly against his arm. She held out her hand to Eloise. “They’re at the far end, which means we have something to walk toward. Gingerbread first?”

Eloise took her hand without thinking about it. “And a spinning top. And ribbons for Miss Green.”

“All very possible,” Juliet said, and they moved into the fair, Adam falling into step alongside them.

The gingerbread stall was run by a woman with copper-bright cheeks who had a strong opinion about every choice her customers made and no difficulty sharing it. She sold Eloise a piece cut in the shape of a running horse, declared it the finest selection of the morning, and charged them without apology.

Eloise bit off one of the horse’s forelegs before they had taken three steps.

“That is not how one eats gingerbread,” Adam said.

“It is how I eat it,” said Eloise, entirely satisfied.

He looked at Juliet. Juliet read a broadsheet pinned to a nearby post with great focus.

“You could say something,” he said.

“I am reading a very interesting notice about a play.” She turned her head to a different section. “I’m not certain what you mean.”

“You were counting acrobat mentions in the carriage.”

“I was reading. And walking. And minding my own affairs entirely.”

She looked at him. Her eyes were bright. He held her gaze for a second longer than was necessary, and she held it back. The vendor behind the nearest stall cleared his throat.

The toy stall came a few paces on, its shelves holding carved wooden animals, spinning tops in painted colors, and a collection of cloth dolls with embroidered faces. Eloise moved along the display with her hands clasped behind her back and her chin tilted up, not reaching, not touching. She stopped at a cloth doll with dark hair, a green dress, and a smile painted across most of its small face. She stood in front of it for a long time.

“That one,” she said.

“You’re certain?” Adam said.

She looked at the doll, then at him. “She has eyes like Juliet,” she said. “The hair isn’t right. But the eyes.”

He looked at the doll. He looked at Juliet, across the stall, examining a row of painted wooden animals, her back to them both. He gave the vendor two shillings, pocketed the doll, and said nothing.

They found the ribbon stall three canopies further along, and Eloise discovered a bolt of yellow ribbon within seconds and declared it Miss Green’s with absolute certainty. Juliet held it up to the light.

“She does love yellow,” Juliet said.

“She says it forces cheerfulness even when you haven’t got any,” Eloise confirmed. “She says that is the point of it.”

“That is genuinely wise advice.”

Juliet reached for her reticule. Adam reached for his coat at the same moment. Their hands closed on nothing, each having expected the other to yield. She looked at him.

He looked at her. “I have it,” he said.