Elisabeth Fairchild Read Online Free

heels. She would make it fly again. She was ready for adventure, ready for the reuniting of their threesome—no more caged feelings, no more waiting for things to happen.
    “And have our initials survived the years?”
    “As if it were yesterday,” he said evenly.
    She smiled, pleased. “Too many years since I have climbed our benevolent old oak.”
    “Do you think you could still manage it?”
    Was it skepticism that glittered in his eyes? It was difficult to tell behind the mask.
    She drew the domino demurely about her and dipped a formal curtsy. “Now that I am the hoyden no more?”
    His brows rose. His mouth took a displeased downward turn. “Surely hoyden is too strong a term? I would have said now that you are so much the lady.”
    She laughed, unwilling to be serious this evening, this wonderful, forbidden evening. “Fooled you, have I? I shall tell Mama you said as much. She values your opinion.” She slid a mischievous glance his way. “As for the tree, I am sure I could scramble into it, given a boost.”
    He laughed aloud, a true laugh, not the anemic chuckle he had given before. This heartfelt noise made her laugh as well. It was not often she could make Richard laugh. He had always been harder to amuse than Pip, who laughed at everything. The whole world seemed made for no more reason than to amuse Pip.
    “I should be happy to oblige,” Richard said as he handed several shillings to the gatekeeper and pocketed their tickets. She might have thought he was flirting with her most outrageously had he been any other young man, but this was Richard—staid, reliable Richard. He would never say anything the least bit suggestive or off-color.
    They stepped through the portal into a vista of broad walkways and trees, the walkways crowded with gaily dressed visitors. And along the walkway, through the tree branches, ran strings of lamps that, even as she watched, sprang to glowing life all at once, twinkling like a thousand fairies, wings aflutter, illuminating a curving row of painted dinner boxes to their left, a stilted pavilion to their right further illuminated by oil lamps on posts.
    An orchestra sat in staggered rows above the mill of the crowd, white wigged and black coated, tricornered hats perched amidst carefully powdered curls. Brass horns caught the light, sounding a fanfare. Chins were propped upon gleaming wood; dark elbows took pointed position, jerking in unison as the violinists drew plaintive wails by dip and saw of the bow.
    Music swept toward them, sweet and lively. It made her long to dance, and as she was not one to deny herself, especially standing in a place she ought not to have come to, wearing a mask that hid her identity from all who might disapprove, she caught up both Richard’s hands and whirled him about in time with the music, the red domino belling about both of them.
    “Patience,” he chided gently. “You make a spectacle of yourself.”
    “Yes,” she agreed. “But as I am masked, no one knows except you.” She pinched his cheek, hoping to provoke a smile, and when he did not soften threw her head back to take it all in, mouth falling open on a sigh. “This is splendid!”
    Richard took her hand and pulled her out of the way of a loud group of revelers who followed them through the gate. “Actually, it is rather tawdry, but I am glad if it makes you happy.” He gave her fingers a brotherly squeeze.
    “Deliriously so.” She beamed at him, and knew this night was to be all and more than she had imagined.
    Someone bumped her elbow as they passed. She clutched Richard’s fingers a little tighter and leaned into his arm, remembering his warning of pickpockets.
    “I am pleased to hear you say so,” he said earnestly, and gave the corner of her mask a tweak. “You have seemed a trifle despondent these past few weeks.”
    She could not tell him it was all Pip’s fault, that she had fallen into a bit of a pet because he made no effort to call on her. Pip, whom she