“I did?” Charlotte looks from me to Jamie.

He nods. “Absolutely.”

Before they stare each other’s eyes dry, I pipe up, “We’d better get moving before someone steals our seats.”

Jamie and Strudel pad off in one direction, Charlotte and I in the other. We find Mr. Stewart’s deck chair empty, and fortunately, so are the ones next to it. But after ten minutes of making small talk, the man still hasn’t shown.

Charlotte watches me glance around for the dozenth time. “Maybe he’s drawing up a contract right now. Or maybe he’s sending a telegram to Ringling Brothers and telling them the good news.”

I brighten at the prospect, but then my mind switches directions. Perhaps he’s trying to avoid Mrs. Sloane. Maybe he enjoyed the act, but it wasn’t up to snuff. Where would that leave Jamie and me? My bones sink more heavily into the chair. Without a way into America, Jamie will continue on to Cuba. I will have no choice but to return to England. A band of sweat collects around my forehead, and I stop myself from tearing off my hat and fanning myself with it.

Jamie appears a hundred feet away with Strudel tugging him forward. I shake my head at him, and he continues back the way he came.

Charlotte watches him leave. “If the news is good, is there any”—she licks her lips—“possibility that Jamie would go with you to America?”

I cannot see her face, but perhaps she doesn’t want me to read it. “That’s my hope, though he has other plans.”

She points her delicate chin at me, and her soft eyes press for more.

The sea coughs up mist, and with it, a rainbow shimmers in the air, stirring a memory in me. “Jamie and I always wanted a pet. One day, during a break in the rain, we saw a rainbow, and that meant it was a lucky day. So, we decided to sneak a baby heron out of the London Zoo.”

Charlotte gasps. “Oh, my!”

“We got halfway home before Mum discovered it in Jamie’s jacket and made us give it back. You know how she punished us?”

“How?”

“She kept us apart—it was the worst thing she could do. We were as miserable as a pair of trousers torn in half.” I draw up my knees and lace my hands over them. “We used to be inseparable. But now he wants to shovel coal.” I lean my head against the back of the chair, grateful once again for the veil. “When your family falls apart, it’s a knife twisted in slowly.”

Charlotte nods, fiddling absently with one of the buttons that trail down her front like glittery ants. Her hands are as smooth as magnolia petals and don’t bear a single freckle. I hide my own hands, suddenly feeling like the imposter that I am.