Gwen turned her head to blink at her, and the familiar frown line between her brows broke the spell. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you ask permission for anything before,” she murmured. Which wasn’t technically an invitation—but as she said it, she moved along the balcony, making a space beside her.

“First time for everything?” Isobelle suggested, easing up beside Gwen as though she were a spooked horse, keeping her movements small and slow. She curled her hands around the balcony railing beside Gwen’s and gazed down at them.

Gwen’s hands were not those of a lady, and even Olivia’s best manicure couldn’t hide the calluses. A few freckles dotted the backs of her hands, matching the ones that Isobelle so admired across her nose and cheeks. There were a few tiny white spots that must be old burn marks, long since healed.

As Isobelle absorbed all these small details, she realized that although she’d trotted all over the castle, she hadn’t taken any of that time to come up with proper opening remarks. “I’m sorry, Gwen. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Gwen shook her head, then clearly thought better of it, grimacing. “You didn’t,” she replied, and then amended the statement. “I mean, not really. It just caught me off guard, and . . . and it didn’t occur to me that you’d all have . . .” She too gazed down at their hands where they rested side by side. “Just for practice,” she concluded, with a note of bitterness in her voice that Isobelle couldn’t identify.

Isobelle made a genuine effort to parse this. “It—it bothers you to think of kissing another girl?” she asked carefully, doing her damnedest not to examine the tangle of confusion that accompanied that particular question. It was, she decided, simply that she couldn’t imagine Gwen, of all people, being so easily shocked by a harmless game.

Gwen huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “Of course not.”

“So . . . what exactly is the problem, then?”

Isobelle felt Gwen’s eyes on her and made herself lift her head. There they were, the forest-green eyes with those hints of oak, waiting to catch her as firmly as any snare. This time, though, they were unguarded. And in their slow blink, in the tilt of the strong brows framing them, they showed her something . . . something worryingly close to hurt.

Gwen’s lips parted. “All these things you’ve been teaching me about how to be a lady—it all keeps coming back to context. The same gesture at a feast might mean something completely different at a picnic. The promise of a dance at the midsummer ball is worlds away from an impromptu waltz when someone plays the harp after dinner—even though they’re both just meals, both just dances. That’s what you keep saying—everything is context.”