Page 110 of A Rare Find

“I can’t play in Thornton. Mrs. Roberts will invite the neighborhood. It’s worse than Drury Lane when it comes to discretion.”

She didn’t move. They didn’t move either, but they felt their heart teeter, waiting for something, unsure what it was.

“But that’s easily resolved,” she said, and now she sounded confused, perhaps even disappointed, that they’d let themself be stopped by such a trifle. “You could start after Thornton, couldn’t you?”

They swallowed. “Maybe.” They’d thought of that. They could at least inquire. They’d thought, too, of the letter they’d write to Harry. It would say that Anne had invited them to Halifax for a long visit. And meanwhile, they’d tour north, a strolling player, acting the parts they’d dreamed of acting, in locales where no one would know who they really were. Their first real opportunity. Was that what gave them pause? They preferred fantasy to reality? Preferred to leave potential unrealized, keeping every door open, passing through none?

“You think I should go,” they said, fingers drinking in the feel of her skin. Their very fingertips thirsted. “Why?”

Delicate muscles tensed as she swallowed. “Because you want to go.”

They were glad she couldn’t see their smile, its ugly edge. Elf had never doubted her purpose in life, only the best method for attaining her goals. But they had no goals as such. They were uncommitted even to their frittering, always chasing new interests and pleasures like will-o’-the-wisps.

I’m madly in love with you. They could say it to her now. But wouldn’t it seem no more than their latest diversion? And what if it was?

Elf was braver than they were. And truer. And responsible already for so much. They couldn’t ask her to take responsibility for their decisions on top of everything else.

They asked anyway. “Tell me what to do.”

“Georgie!” There was a world beyond the willow, and Sally Linley was calling. “Where have you gone? You haven’t left us?”

“We’ll get the worst rooms if we go back to the inn now.” That was Charlotte. “May we stay the night with you? Just the three of us. And Roscoe, but he won’t mind sleeping in your stables.”

“I’m fagged to death,” said Louisa. “I could sleep right here.”

“I have to…” Georgie began, and Elf nodded, not meaning, probably, to shake off their fingers, but that was the result.

They spread the fronds. “You’re all welcome to stay the night.” They turned back to Elf. “Will you come too?” they asked in a softer voice.

When she nodded, they released their breath.

It was an odd procession up to the manor, Georgie driving slowly in the gig, with Elf at their side, Phipps and the players trailing after, in Roman habits, looking both silly and solemn. The present in the garb of the past always looked silly and solemn. And the future? Georgie didn’t have the least idea what the future looked like, but they drove on regardless.

29

Elfreda had never been in Georgie’s bedchamber. It was like every other room in the house, colorful and plush, hung with brightly patterned wallpapers. Only the fencing foil on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, and a periodical—The Farmers’ Magazine—carelessly splayed on the elbow chair, announced anything about the individual occupant.

Georgie had been away for years, after all, and was poised to go away again. Their personality hadn’t seeped into the décor.

“The King Georgie.” She spotted the model ship on the mantel and went to it, gathering up the excess fabric of her borrowed nightgown, one of Georgie’s, much too long.

“I brought it with me from London.”

Something in their voice cautioned against questions. She bit her tongue instead of asking about the letter—if they’d brought it too. They hadn’t answered her the first time, except to close the subject. Why would they answer now, at two in the morning, as the bond they’d formed across these weeks unraveled? Georgie flying off, and she…staying right where she was, stuck.

The ship had gunports fitted with tiny gold cannons. Her eyes got lost as she tried to trace the threads of the elaborate rigging. Many of the sails were set, as though drawing wind. Square topgallant and topsail. Larger triangular sails fore and aft. Georgie’s mother’s letter had been hidden among those spans of cloth.

Her eyes fell to the painted name on the stern.

The i in Georgie had been added clumsily, and obviously. She could picture them painting it, could summon an image of that headstrong child, eyes too blue, brazen red hair not yet mellowed to auburn. Provoking in every way.

Her heart skipped a beat. Georgie had been under her skin from the beginning, jangling her nerves, rankling her mind, stinging her pride, and she’d shied away from the intensity of her reaction. Tried not to look at it too hard, to recognize it as infatuation. And now she understood the wisdom of that ignorance.

She couldn’t return to her old life. She’d been kissed in starlight, kissed by starlight. She knew how it felt. Everything was different.

She hovered her pointer finger over the i. “Your father really didn’t notice?” The disfigurement of an object in his collection was the only sort of thing her father ever did notice.

“If so, he didn’t let on.”