I squeezed Lucy’s hand back. “Yes. I cannot wait. Thank you, Uncle, for such a thoughtful gift. It will be wonderful.”

Smiles bloomed on every face. Aunt Nora patted her husband’s hand.

I looked through the window and slowly let out my breath.

Swimming.

How I dreaded it.

Half an hour later, we stood on the shores of the North River as Uncle Henry and Charlotte’s father, Mr. Winters, spoke with the proprietor of the bathing machines, ensuring that our modesty would be preserved and that an attendant would not leave our sides. For sixteen years, no one had cared where I went. Now, my every move was closely considered and chaperoned. Women were held to modesty as men were held to honor.

Six bathing machines were lined up along the river’s edge. They looked like little white huts built atop wagons. We had traveled well outside the city, to where there was nothing but farmsteads and grassy fields alive with butterflies and croaking frogs. In the distance, where the river bent, I could see Mr. Harrison’s brewhouse, a lone country establishment. The adults would wait there while we bathed.

“How quaint,” Charlotte said, observing the bathing machines. She fanned herself, the ostrich feather in her hat fluttering. She’d dressed in her scarlet sack gown and pink pearls for the outing—what I’d wear to a fine assembly. “They’re just as my cousin described in her letters from Wales. That woman there will probably be our dipper—that’s what the attendants are called. She will help us undress and be in the water while we swim.”

Charlotte Winters was almost nineteen, like me. Unlike me, she thought she knew everything.

“Are we in danger here?” Lucy studied the shoreline, a tiny crease of worry forming between her eyebrows. “I didn’t expect them to be in such an exposed location.” All three of her brothers had died in the French and Indian War, and conflict of any kind unnerved her.

“We’re fine, Lucy,” Charlotte said. “This is hardly the front line.”

Perhaps not, but danger was still a possibility. Skirmishes often broke out near Manhattan, as it was the British headquarters for the war. My eyes fell to a powder horn hidden in the tall grass a few feet away. The war was never very far. I moved so Lucy wouldn’t see it.

“I wish there was a front line,” Lucy said. “Or a barrier of some kind that no rebel could ever cross.”

My heart had begun to thud. I’d found a life where I fit, but when the subject turned to politics it no longer felt that way.

Satisfied that we were in good hands, Uncle Henry gave me three tickets. “You are to see Maude. She will take care of anything you need. Enjoy yourself, dear Emmie.”