“Really?” Sarah looked as if she might cross her arms. “Then what, pray tell, is it?”

Honoria swallowed, then looked furtively about. “Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course.”

“Daniel asked him to ‘watch over me’ while he is gone.”

Sarah was unimpressed. “Why is that a secret?”

“It’s not, I suppose. Well, yes, it is. Because no one told me about it.”

“Then how do you know?”

Honoria felt her cheeks grow warm. “I might have read something I wasn’t meant to,” she muttered.

Sarah’s eyes grew wide. “Really?” she said, leaning in. “That is so unlike you.”

“It was a moment of weakness.”

“One you now regret?”

Honoria thought about that for a moment. “No,” she admitted.

“Honoria Smythe-Smith,” Sarah said, positively grinning, “I am so proud of you.”

“I would ask why,” Honoria replied warily, “but I’m not sure I want to know the answer.”

“This is probably the most improper thing you’ve ever done.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, perhaps you forgot to tell me about the time you ran naked through Hyde Park?”

“Sarah!”

Sarah chuckled. “Everybody has read something they weren’t meant to at some point in their lives. I’m just glad you have finally chosen to join the rest of humanity.”

“I’m not so stiff and proper,” Honoria protested.

“Of course not. But I wouldn’t call you adventurous.”

“I wouldn’t call you adventurous either.”

“No.” Sarah’s shoulders drooped. “I’m not.”

They stood there for a moment, a little bit sad, a little bit reflective. “Well,” Honoria said, trying to inject a note of levity back into the air, “you’re not going to run naked through Hyde Park, are you?”

“Not without you,” Sarah said slyly.

Honoria laughed at that, then impulsively put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders and gave her a little squeeze. “I love you, you know that.”

“Of course I do,” Sarah replied.

Honoria waited.

“Oh, yes, and I love you, too,” Sarah said.

Honoria smiled, and for a moment all felt right with the world. Or if not right, then at least normal. She was in London, at a ball, standing next to her favorite cousin. Nothing could have been more ordinary. She tilted her head a bit to the side, gazing out over the crowd. The minuet really was a lovely dance to watch, so stately and graceful. And maybe it was Honoria’s imagination, but it seemed as if the ladies were dressed in similar colors—shimmering across the dance floor in blues, greens, and silvers.

“It almost looks like a music box,” she murmured.

“It does,” Sarah agreed, then spoiled the moment by saying, “I hate the minuet.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know why.”