“Archie! Oh, Archie, you dropped your handkerchief!” A young gentleman in a beautifully felted bowler hat ran after her with a flutter of pink clutched in his outstretched hand.

“Now, Aaron,” she said, archly but in low enough tones that they would not be overheard. “You know full well that is not my ’andkerchief. I did see one just like it for sale in the general store, though.” Aaron flushed, and he smoothed his downy moustache with a nervous forefinger. Archie stepped with him into the entrance of an alleyway, where they could be away from prying eyes.

“Well, Archie—that is, Miss Archambault—that is—I just supposed that I might—”

Archie reached out her hand and took the handkerchief. “Aaron, mon amour—you know we mustn’t let anyone see us together like this. Why, think how they’d talk.” Her fingers rested on his for a moment as she took the little scrap of pink from him.

He leaned toward her. “Archie, I have to talk to you about our plan. I think my parents suspect something, and I won’t be able to get away tonight after all.”

His father, the stern patriarch of the wealthiest family in New Orleans, certainly did suspect something—he suspected quite a bit, if he’d read the anonymous letter Archie had sent him. She pressed the pink handkerchief to her lips and summoned tears to her eyes—just enough to brim prettily. “Oh, mon ciel étoilé, but I must go first thing tomorrow! And you must come with me, and we must buy the tickets this evening! I suppose—you’ll just have to give the money for the train tickets to me and I’ll buy them, and I’ll—I’ll ’ide one in the knot in our tree for you to collect when you can join me. You will join me, won’t you, mon amour? You . . . you remember the tree I’m talking about?” She dabbed delicately at her eyes with the handkerchief and fluttered her lashes at him.

“Oh, yes, Archie, I—I remember. How could I forget where we—” If he had been any pinker he’d have been a petunia. He pulled an envelope from his vest pocket and pressed it into her hands, looking over both of his shoulders as he did so. “Here’s the money for the train, and . . . I’ll see you at the station, then?”

Archie pressed the handkerchief to her eyes again, so he wouldn’t see her roll them at his ham-fisted attempt at stealth. “A kiss, Aaron. For luck.” She kissed him hard—a better kiss than the boy would likely ever get again in his life. She kissed him thoroughly enough that he wouldn’t notice her fingers dancing through his pockets.

“I’ll see you at the train station in two days, my love.”