Elizabeth blinked. “Where did you get those?”
Victoria grinned. “Found them in the library. Tucked in behind a stack of old French dictionaries in the locked cabinet. I thinkthey’re from the Continent. Father must have brought them back at some point.” She flipped a card. “This one’s calledThe Tower.Doesn’t look promising.”
Daphne leaned closer, frowning at the image. “It looks terrifying. Are they… dangerous?”
“They’re just cards,” Victoria said airily, though there was something fierce in the way she shuffled them. “Symbols. I like the illustrations.”
“Lady Grisham wouldn’t approve,” Daphne whispered.
“Lady Grisham doesn’t approve of breathing too loudly,” Victoria muttered, laying out another card with a flourish.
Elizabeth smiled faintly, but the ache in her chest returned when she thought of the woman in the painting. Of how much she had seen, how much she hadfelt. Her fingers itched to touch something real again, something unobserved. But the ball had been all eyes, all whispers, and the Scotsman’s voice cutting through the haze like thunder on the moors.
“What happened?” Daphne asked gently, as if sensing her silence.
Elizabeth hesitated. “I think,” she said slowly, “I saw something I wasn’t meant to see.”
Victoria immediately perked up. “A scandal?”
“No. I saw art,” Elizabeth replied. “Scandalous, perhaps. But art.”
Daphne looked bewildered. Victoria looked delighted.
“Scandalous art?” Victoria crowed then pointed dramatically at a tarot card. “The High Priestess!In the book that came with this deck, it says that it means secrets and mysteries. It’s you, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth hesitated, then bit her lip. “Some girls said unpleasant things. They laughed behind their fans and made sport of me.”
“Tell me who they are,” Victoria said at once, her voice like steel. “Point them out next time we’re at the park, and I shall see to it they regret it.”
Elizabeth managed a small smile. “It’s not worth the fuss, darling.”
“But it is,” Victoria muttered darkly. “You’re worth the fuss.”
“And then,” Elizabeth continued, cheeks warming, “I danced with a gentleman who spent most of the time staring at my… figure.”
Daphne made a face. “That’s revolting.”
“Sadly,” Victoria declared with all the certainty of a girl who had seen too much too young, “that is exactly what some men do. I’ve read about it.”
“Not all men, Vicky,” Elizabeth said gently. “Well, the second one wasn’t quite so revolting,” she added with a grimace. “He was simply obsessed with fox hunting. It was all he spoke of.”
“Didn’t Marianne’s Dominic used to hunt?” Daphne asked, frowning in thought.
“He did,” Elizabeth said. “But it wasn’t all he was. After they married, he gave it up entirely. He eats little meat now—only game, and that rarely.”
“Not entirely,” Victoria said, wriggling her brows. “He still eats pheasant when it’s roasted just right. I’ve seen him.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “Yes, but that’s by Marianne’s leave. They understand one another. They make compromises.”
“Then you wouldn’t compromise with your suitor?” Victoria asked, cocking her head, too perceptive for her age.
Elizabeth sighed. “He didn’t seem to notice that I was quiet. Or that I was trying to speak at all.”
“There, then,” Victoria declared, clapping her hands. “It wasn’t the hunting that was the problem. It was the man.”
“Vicky,” Daphne said admiringly, her face bright with pride, “you’re positively shrewd! Was there anyone else, Lizzie?” she added, eyes alight with interest.
A face came unbidden to Elizabeth’s mind. Dark green eyes, a crooked smirk, and a voice low enough to make the gallery walls echo.