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to you, but if I had done that, then Mrs. Henry would have heard too and come bustling to one of the front windows, and all three of us would have been seen to be gawking outward and not minding our own business as genteel ladies ought.”
    “Absolutely no one would have paid us any heed,” Agnes said. “Everyone else would have been too busy gawking on their own account.”
    They both laughed and took their seats on either side of the fireplace, while Mrs. Henry carried in the tray and informed them that the guests had begun to arrive at Middlebury Park, but she expected Miss Debbins had been too engrossed in her music to notice.
    Agnes and Dora smirked at each other when she had left, and then got to their feet to see who wasapproaching along the village street this time. It was a young gentleman driving himself in a very smart curricle, with a young tiger in livery up behind him. The driver looked like another lithe and handsome man, except that a wicked scar slashing across the cheek nearest their window was horribly visible despite his hat. It gave him a ferocious, piratical appearance.
    “I quite despise myself,” Dora said. “But this really is fun.”
    “It is,” Agnes agreed. Though she wished it was not happening. She had really not wanted to see him again. Oh, yes, of course she had. No, she had not. Oh, she hated this . . . this juvenile turmoil over a man who had scarcely noticed her five months ago and had forgotten even her name since then.
    Sophia had told her about the Survivors’ Club and had explained about their annual gatherings in Cornwall, and how she had persuaded them all to come to Middlebury Park instead this year because her husband, the foolish dear—Sophia’s words—had refused to leave her so soon after her confinement. There were seven of them, including Viscount Darleigh—six men and one woman. Three of them were married, all within the past year. They were going to be here for three weeks. The whole neighborhood was agog with excitement, even though it was to be a mainly private gathering. Every one of the Survivors was titled: the least illustrious of them a baronet, the most illustrious a duke.
    Agnes had decided to keep well out of their way. It should not be difficult, she had thought, although she often went up to the house to see Sophia, especially during the last couple of months before Thomas was born, when it had been increasingly difficult for Sophia to come to see her, and during the month since his birth. She would stop going while there were houseguests. Shewould have stopped even if he was not one of the Survivors, for Sophia would be busy entertaining them all. And though Agnes often went into the park to sketch, at the express invitation of both Sophia and Lord Darleigh, she would avoid the parts of it where the guests were most likely to stroll, and she would be very careful not to be seen coming and going.
    She had been careful today—until she had lost track of time. None of the guests would be likely to arrive before the middle of the afternoon, Sophia had told her. Agnes had gone, then, to paint the daffodils, when it was still morning. She could not delay altogether for three weeks, because the daffodils would not delay. She would be home soon after noon, well before anyone could be expected to arrive, she had told Dora before she left. But then she had started to paint and had forgotten the time.
    Even then she had taken great care while walking home. She had been painting way over beyond the lake and the trees, close to the summerhouse, not even nearly within sight of the main house. The park about Middlebury was vast, after all. She did not return around the lake and across the bottom of the lawn to the drive. That would have brought her within distant sight of the house for a few minutes, and she would have been exposed along much of the length of the driveway too. No, she had walked down into the woods that grew in a thick band inside the southern