Page 6 of A Rare Find

“You were very loud, though.” Anne fell into step with her. “I heard everything, despite attuning my ears to the birdsong. Are you Georgie’s age? Four and twenty? I’m one and twenty, and my father wants me married by Michaelmas.”

Elfreda reached the footpath, but she felt as though she were entering a new circle of hell. A hell where Georgina’s minions popped out from behind every tree to flaunt their fine figures and accomplishments and deliver lectures on matrimonial duty.

Anne continued, “That’s why I’m running away to Italy.”

Elfreda blinked. But she didn’t let surprise get the better of her. She walked faster. “If you started in London, you’re headed in the wrong direction.”

“We did start in London,” said Anne. “We arrived the day before yesterday. Georgie, Rosalie, and myself. Well, and my chaperone, but she’s been indisposed. Bad fish pudding at the coaching inn. I don’t mind spending a fortnight in Derbyshire. Georgie wanted company, and I’m not running away until July at the soonest.”

Elfreda couldn’t begin to parse this nonsensical chatter. She latched on to the bit that mattered. “A fortnight?” Thank God. She could endure a fortnight.

“Yes, a fortnight,” agreed Anne. “Rosalie and I can’t stay longer. Poor Georgie will have to carry on without us.”

Elfreda nearly tripped. “Georgina isn’t going with you?”

“Oh no, Georgie’s here forever. Unless Major Redmayne changes his mind.”

Henry Redmayne was a major now? Shouldn’t he have been content to purchase himself a captaincy? The Redmaynes were awful, ostentatious people.

“But—” Elfreda bunched up her skirt, wadding so hard water dripped from the fabric. “What about her husband?”

“Lord Phillip?” Anne gave a little hop. “Georgie didn’t marry him! You didn’t hear? About the broken engagement? And the duel? And the curricle crash? It was a terrible scandal.” She laughed at Elfreda’s blank expression. “What do people talk about in this neighborhood? Livestock? The sheep are remarkably fluffy. I’ve never understood counting them to lull oneself to sleep, but now I can imagine napping on one, in an orchard, perhaps. All that warm, clean, fluffy fleece, and leafy shade, and the smell of apples.”

“I gave up the search.” Georgina overtook them at a lope, slightly breathless, hair in raffish disarray. “It’s difficult when you don’t know what you’re searching for.”

The path wasn’t wide enough for three to walk abreast. Georgina insinuated herself right in the middle. Elfreda didn’t budge an inch, which meant Anne was bumped to the side and had to stumble over roots and through brambles.

“Ow,” said the girl, good-naturedly.

“I found a flask.” Georgina held it up, a slim vessel of heavily tarnished silver, streaked with mud. “But it’s not yours. Unless one of your interesting activities is drunken swimming by the moonlight, but I think that’s too similar to one of mine. Also, there’s a monogram. H. J. R. I wonder if Harry has missed it.” She gave the flask a shake. “Full. But of whiskey or pond water is the question. Shall we investigate?”

Elfreda couldn’t walk any faster. Her feet were sliding in her slimy boots. But the woodland had thinned, and just ahead, she could see Holywell Rock. She swerved from the path and plodded over to it, pressing her hands to its rough surface.

“Not another step,” she warned, twisting around as Georgina and Anne came up to her. “You’re on my land now.”

“This boulder marks the boundary of your estates?” Anne leaned forward to touch the rock with a gloved fingertip. “How deliciously medieval.”

“It is medieval,” said Elfreda. “Holywell Rock is named in the Domesday Book.”

“How do you do?” Anne curtseyed to the rock. “I’ve never met such a distinguished boulder.” She smiled at Elfreda without a trace of sarcasm. “Is your family in the Domesday Book?”

“No,” said Elfreda shortly. “My family bought the estate in the sixteenth century.”

“And they sold my family the majority of it in the final quarter of the eighteenth century.” Georgina unscrewed the lid of the flask, sniffed the contents, and made a face. “And have hated us ever since.”

“Why’s that?” Anne looked between them.

“They didn’t know us before.” Georgina tipped the flask and a pale brown liquid streamed out.

“Be serious,” said Anne. “I’m fascinated by feuds.”

“Feud overstates the case,” said Elfreda. “Our families have had little to do with each other.”

“They think we’re upstarts,” said Georgina.

“Really, we don’t,” said Elfreda. “We don’t think of you.”

“You see?” Georgina looked at Anne. “The overconscious display of superiority? They find it lowering to share a property line. Because my grandfather tied parcels to earn the money he used to pay her grandfather the money he needed after he squandered his fortune.”