“Three sentences is more like it,” sighed Arabella. “And I can’t think what the moral might be other than to gather one’s rosebuds while one may.”

Needle poised above her frame, Jane looked at her speculatively. “Precisely which rosebuds are you planning to gather?”

“Only the very lowest-hanging and most innocent blossoms. Mr. Fitzhugh has offered to take me to the frost fair at Farley Castle tomorrow. Not as a sign of partiality,” she added hastily. “His sister asked him to examine something for her and he wanted company on the drive.”

“And you said yes?”

“Rosebuds,” Arabella reminded her. “My last breath of freedom before taking up my new position.”

“And who else might be at this frost fair at Farley Castle?”

Arabella shrugged, avoiding Jane’s eyes. “I don’t know. People. The usual sort of people.”

Jane let it drop. “Mind Mr. Fitzhugh doesn’t sweep you off your feet,” she cautioned drily.

“He already did! He knocked me over in the foyer of Miss Climpson’s seminary!” Arabella’s eyes caught Jane’s over her embroidery frame, lively with amusement, and the two women dissolved into helpless laughter.

“He picked me up again,” Arabella gasped. “So the sweeping was only a temporary condition.”

“Who picked you up?” demanded Margaret, whose ears were as sharp as her tongue. “What sweeping?”

Her chair had been edging steadily closer, with a scrape and a bump, until she had finally caught some of the whispered conversation that had excited her curiosity.

Cassandra looked at them with a rueful expression, as though to say, I tried. So she had. But Margaret was Margaret, and when she wasn’t grating on Arabella’s nerves, Arabella felt more than a little bit sorry for her.

Not quite sorry enough, though.

“Mr. Tur — er, Reginald Fitzhugh,” Arabella replied, still pink with laughter. “He bumped into me earlier today. In the most literal sense.”

“Another of your London admirers, I suppose,” said Margaret acidly.

Margaret felt very strongly that she ought to have been the one taken off by Aunt Osborne, showered with expensive dresses and courted by London bucks. It was of no use for Arabella to explain that most of her dresses were her aunt’s made-over castoffs, or that the London bucks hadn’t paid her the slightest bit of attention. Margaret persisted in thinking herself ill used.

“Hardly an admirer,” Arabella demurred.

“No,” murmured Jane. “Just a low-hanging blossom. Or ought one to say a low-hanging vegetable?”

Arabella kicked her in the ankle. “But he has asked me if I might accompany him to the frost fair at Farley Castle tomorrow. By way of making amends.” She looked to her father. “May I, Papa?”

It felt very odd to be looking to her father for acquiescence, when she had been away from his authority for twelve years. Her Aunt Osborne had hardly been a disciplinarian. Arabella found herself regretting that she hadn’t taken more advantage of that while she had the opportunity.

Her father, hopeless in the face of anything not comprised between leather bindings or on the apothecary’s shelf, looked to Mrs. Austen.

“There cannot be any impropriety in a daytime excursion in an open carriage,” said Mrs. Austen soothingly. “It is an open carriage?”

“Quite open,” said Arabella.

“So you will be cold but respectable,” provided Mr. Austen, with a slight smile. “Such are the ways of the world. Better an ague than a lost reputation.”

“Mr. Fitzhugh did say there was room for another in his phaeton. He said I might take someone with me.”

Margaret sat up straighter in her chair, arranging her face along appropriate lines, carefully nonchalant, even mildly scornful, but willing to be wheedled, cajoled, and otherwise persuaded into honoring them with her company.

Lavinia was too young and Olivia indifferent. As the next oldest, it should be Margaret who came with her. Arabella had meant to ask Margaret. Arabella looked at her second sister and contemplated the prospect of a whole day at Farley Castle with her, a day of Margaret sniffing and sniping and training her eagle eye on all of Arabella’s interactions with Mr. Fitzhugh in the hopes of finding something to tattle about.

Arabella hastily turned away, so she wouldn’t see Margaret’s face as she said, “Would you come with me, Jane?”

“A long jaunt in an open carriage in frigid weather? How could I possibly say no?”

Margaret hastily masked her stricken expression with one of extreme scorn. “Farley Castle,” she said dismissively, jabbing her needle into the fabric on her embroidery frame. “It’s a poky old place.”

“How would you know?” demanded Lavinia tactlessly. “You’ve never been. Oh, I wish I were old enough to go!”

“I wish I could take you all,” said Arabella guiltily. “But there is only room for one more in the phaeton.”

“I wouldn’t want to go,” said Margaret. “It’s too cold for an excursion. I can’t think what your Mr. Fitzhugh was thinking to suggest such a thing in this weather.”

Arabella caught Cassandra and Jane exchanging glances with one another over her head.

“Would anyone like more tea?” asked Cassandra.

Chapter 6

“The heroine of my story,” said Jane determinedly, “shall confine herself only to indoor events.” She rubbed enthusiastically at her nose, which had turned the color of holly berries.

“Preferably in summer,” agreed Arabella, tripping over a brick as she tried to maneuver her frozen limbs out of the phaeton. It had originally been a hot brick, but like everything else in the carriage it had cooled down considerably over the course of the ride. Farley Castle was a good deal farther than Mr. Fitzhugh had optimistically prophesied.

“Devilish sorry,” said Mr. Fitzhugh humbly, handing her down to the ground with diligent care. “Hoped we’d make better time than that.”

“There, there,” said Jane, shedding blankets as she wiggled her way off the seat. “You certainly couldn’t have anticipated the cows.”

Arabella choked on a laugh at the memory. A troupe of the creatures, all in malicious conspiracy, had strayed into the road. Deciding they liked it, they had elected to stay there, despite considerable urging, threats, and cajolery. Mr. Fitzhugh had put Drury Lane to shame in his dramatic attempts to persuade the cows to take their leisure elsewhere. The sight of him trying to reason with a large red-and-brown beast, who responded to all his entreaties with a bored “moo,” had been one of the highlights of what had been a surprisingly entertaining trip.

Mr. Fitzhugh had spared no effort or expense for their comfort. There had been hot bricks, warm broth in a flask, blankets edged in fur, pastries that smeared sugar across their gloves, and hot chocolate that had solidified into a solid mass before they had crossed into the countryside. Jane, for all her teasing about low-hanging fruit, had taken to Mr. Fitzhugh immediately.

All in all, the ride had passed in a cheerful aura of cold chocolate, squished pastries, and general mirth. Mr. Fitzhugh had regaled them with tales of his sister, while Jane contributed anecdotes from Steventon. The one topic they hadn’t broached was puddings.

Puddings and her aunt’s marriage.

With the castle before them, Arabella found herself suddenly possessed of a craven wish that the journey had been longer.

“Bingley,” Jane murmured to Arabella, as Mr. Fitzhugh handed the reins to his groom. “Quite definitely a Bingley.”

“Shall he have a role in your new story?” Arabella asked.

“That,” said Jane, “depends on you.”

Arabella gave her a look and crossed over towards Mr. Fitzhugh. “We’re here now, all in one piece. That’s all that matters.”

Mr. Fitzhugh slapped his hands together. “Jolly good. Looks rather pleasant, don’t it?”

Arabella wasn’t sure “pleasant” was quite the adjective she would have used. Opulent, extravagant, whimsical... any of those would do. The picturesque ruins of Farley Castle had been turned into a medieval fantasyland for the jaded men and women of the ton. Within the ruined castle walls, coal-burning braziers warmed the air to a temperature endurable for picnicking. Fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen quaffed steaming beverages from silver cups. Musicians in faux medieval livery had struck up their instruments. A man with a droopy mustache was crooning, “Helas, madame, celle que j’aime tante,” while his companions struck poses and the occasional chord on the lute. As they strummed, two footmen staggered past, weighted down by two huge pies.

“Mmm. Pie,” said Mr. Fitzhugh, looking longingly after them. “Meat in a pastry shell. One of the greatest inventions known to man.”

“I had always thought it was the wheel,” said Jane.

Mr. Fitzhugh looked meaningfully at Arabella, raising his eyebrows as far as they would go. “Might be an excellent place to find a spot of pudding.”

“We can always look,” she said, although she rather doubted they would find anything of the kind.

Mr. Fitzhugh raised his hand in an enthusiastic wave. “Look! There’s Vaughn.”

The man in question, sleekly dressed in a well-tailored black coat, glanced over at the sound of his name. His eyes narrowed. It might just have been the glare of the sun, but Arabella doubted it.

“He doesn’t look pleased to see us,” observed Jane in an undertone.

“Lord Vaughn never looks pleased to see anyone,” Arabella murmured back.

“That’s just his way,” said Mr. Fitzhugh cheerfully. “Can’t take it too to heart. If I had a penny for every time the chap has greeted me with, Oh, it’s you again...”