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the hubbub of voices and music seemed to Rosabelle to come faintly to her ears.
     Until his last question, all their interchanges could be seen as related to his work, or Betsy’s accident, or friendly funning. To wander off with him, alone together though in the midst of crowds, would be an open acknowledgement of the attraction between them.
     “Can they spare you?” Rosabelle temporized, gesturing at the booth.
     His elated look told her she had inadvertently given away her desire for his company. “I brought three fellows today,” he said jubilantly, “expecting a crowd. They will cope between them. Come over here for a minute while I give your order, and put on my top-coat, and then, Miss Rosabelle, I shall be entirely at your service.”
     

Chapter 5
     
     Along the Grand Mall they wandered, towards Blackfriars Bridge. Rosabelle heard herself exclaim, laugh, comment on the stalls and entertainers they passed, but a moment later she could not have said what she had just seen. Her consciousness was concentrated entirely on the man at her side.
     Mr Rufus walked with an easy stride, his pace adjusted to hers. The two or three inches between their elbows seemed to Rosabelle to be filled with the tension that comes before a storm. When, inevitably in the crush of people, his sleeve brushed hers, the discharge of lightning made her head spin, her pulse race, and her knees tremble.
     At one such moment she stumbled. Instantly he steadied her.
     “The ice is slippery in places. Won’t you take my arm?”
     “Y-yes. Thank you.”
     Rosabelle slipped her hand through his arm, half expecting the contact to make her lose her balance altogether. Instead, she was enveloped in a sense of safety.
     As she relied upon his strength to save her from falling, she trusted to his honour not to take advantage of the favour she showed him. Wondering how to express these feelings, or whether they were better not put into words, she looked up at him.
     He was smiling down at her. “I shan’t presume,” he said softly. “At least, not much. I should like to buy you a fairing, something to remind you of this day. May I?”
     “I....” No, she must not tell him nothing could make her forget. Yet she could not deny him. “If you wish. Not something expensive.”
     “Nor anything as ephemeral as gingerbread! Would you like a ballad? They all seem to mention the Frost Fair every other line, so you will never mistake it for a memento of any other occasion.”
     She realized they were standing in front of one of the printing presses set up on the ice by competing booksellers. This one had hired a singer to perform his latest publication, to a tune from The Beggars’ Opera. Thus advertised, the broadsides were selling fast.
     Rosabelle listened for a minute. The words struck her as high-flown nonsense, rhyme and rhythm both stretched to the breaking-point, or beyond. They must have been hastily scribbled by a Grub-Street hack—in fact, a lean, grey-haired man was seated at a table to the rear of the press, busy at his next composition.
     Mr Rufus was also listening, and he forestalled her. “No,” he said decidedly, “such rubbish would in time make a travesty of your memories.”
     “It’s quite dreadful, isn’t it?”
     “Appalling. We shall seek further.”
     But Rosabelle noticed that the ballad-seller was also disposing of prints at a great rate to purchasers attracted by his singer. “Let’s just take a look a those pictures,” she proposed. “I was thinking yesterday how I should like to draw the scene, if only it were not too cold to sit still.”
     Though the pictures must have been created in almost as much haste as the ballads, among the mere scrawls was the lively work of a close observer and expert sketcher and engraver. Rosabelle chose one which showed fair-goers and booths against a background of London Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral.
     Mr Rufus paid for it, and a bit extra to have it