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Don’t worry about it. Now, get some sleep. We’ve so much to do tomorrow.” Smiling, she left Julianne to her muddled thoughts.
     
    An hour later, Julianne sat upright in her bed. She felt cross and ill used, thinking of what she could have and should have said to Sophie. Her dignity was bruised. She was being used and had no way to protest, except with her feet. She should go straight back home.
    But she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. Mostly she was angry with herself for being naive and needy enough to believe she’d been wanted for herself. She wished she’d been told why she’d been invited before she’d left home. She wouldn’t have come…
    No, she admitted, she would have. Her curiosity would have guaranteed it. It goaded her now.
    Christian Sauvage.
    She hadn’t wanted to remember him. She supposed it was because memories of those days hurt too much, and so she’d buried them deep. But now they streamed back, and she realized that time had dimmed the pain. Remembering those long-ago days actually made her happy now.
    They’d been good years, filled with long summer afternoons romping in meadows, gathering flowers while the boys flew their kites. Or catching minnows in a jar while they fished for fat lake perch. Or pretending to be a lady fair as they dueled with branches for her honor.
    She remembered golden autumn hours spent riding her rugged little pony, trying to keep up with the boys as they went on their adventures, gathering nuts while they explored the deeper forests. There were rainy afternoons lying before the fire, listening to them dreamaloud or watching them play chess, or sometimes, if she were very good, they’d include her in a game of jackstraws or charades.
    And she remembered wailing, in any season, whenever her mama wouldn’t let her go with them, or called her from play with them, so she could have her lessons and learn to be a lady. She only wanted to be one of them.
    She’d been allowed to roam with them because, whatever mischief they got into, they always took good care of her. They read her stories and told her tall tales just to see if she believed them, and made her giggle by tickling her with straws or words, just to see how breathless they could make her with laughter.
    Christian Sauvage had been Jonathan’s best friend, but they hadn’t been much alike, except in their love of mischief. Christian had been a quieter lad, more likely to slip a fish off the hook and watch it swim back into the stream than to stuff it in a creel. He’d been the one to memorize famous speeches to give their acting games more excitement, and the one who’d bring a book the next day to prove a point he’d made. And he’d been the one to caution Jonathan about danger. Yet he always participated in Jonathan’s wilder pranks. In fact, it was his imagination that made them wilder.
    His hands—she remembered his hands, she suddenly saw them holding a fishing pole, showing her how to use it—those thin hands were usually chafed and reddened from the cold, but skilled, and patient. And his eyes—crystalline, filled with light, blue and dazzling. Eyes too lovely for a boy to have, Mama hadsaid. And his hair, thick, lighter than Jonathan’s…she began to remember even more.
    Jonathan had missed his friend badly when their family had inherited the farm and moved away, and had been making plans to invite Christian for a visit when the shocking news had come to them.
    Christian’s father had stolen a silver snuffbox from a client whose books he was working on. And Christian, with him that day, had taken a silver candlestick.
    The goods had been found, the pawnbroker betrayed them, and the pair was thrown into Newgate. It was a hanging offense for both. Christian was only ten, but boys of seven were taken to the gallows for less, and it wouldn’t have been the first time the rope claimed father and son together. But it turned out that the Sauvages were distantly related to the Earl of