Good heavens. She’d very nearly forgotten they were in company with other people. Not only Lord Mannering and his party, but the countless strangers who, like them, were making their way to the exhibition grounds.

It was precisely the problem. Effie’s fascination with Gabriel Royce was clouding her judgment. So long as her head and her heart were caught up with him, she would never be able to think clearly enough for the task at hand. And Effie’s future—and Franc’s—depended on her thinking clearly.

She removed her hand from Gabriel’s arm. “I shall stay close to you, my lord,” she called back to Lord Mannering. “Have no fear.”

Gabriel dropped a brooding look to his sleeve, where her gloved fingers had rested only seconds before. After a taut moment, he returned his attention to the gathering crowd ahead.

Hundreds of people had already congregated on the lawn in anticipation of Mr. Galezzo’s performance. Gasps emerged from Miss Compton and several of the others walking nearby as the high wire came into view. Startlingly thin, the wire cable twinkled silver in the torchlit sky, stretching from a stand of old elm trees, beneath which a wooden platform had been erected, all the way to the top of the building opposite. Six hundred feet altogether, or so Lord Mannering had claimed.

Effie’s stomach jolted on an expected roil of trepidation. She didn’t see how it was possible for anyone to traverse a wire so fine, even a celebrated Italian ascensionist. Not unless the man weighed less than a sparrow.

“Most everyone else will be standing,” Lord Mannering told them as they approached the front. “It will be better if we do as well, else we risk the chance of being unable to see.”

“Mr. Galezzo will be fifty feet above us,” Ruth pointed out. “We can hardly miss him.”

People pressed in on them on every side as new arrivals joined the crowd on the lawn.

“It’s so loud.” Miss Compton wrinkled her nose at a humbly dressed party of ladies and gentlemen on their left. “And what is that appalling odor?”

Lord Mannering patted her hand in reflexive consolation. “I’ve procured a table for us at the restaurant afterward. You’ll feel brighter when you’ve had some lobster salad and champagne. We can dine at our leisure until the fireworks begin at eleven.”

Gabriel drew closer to Effie, wordlessly staking out his place amid the chaos.

Effie felt his presence beside her, less reassuring than simmering with unspoken promise. She chanced a fleeting look at him in the colored light. He wasn’t interested in the high wire, nor in the prospect of lobster salad and champagne. His attention was entirely fixed on her.

“I’m not finished with you,” he informed her darkly.

Effie’s heart pounded an erratic rhythm. “Nor I with you,” she retorted, sounding braver than she felt.