Harriet and Elizabeth both looked as if they might argue, but Miss Wynter interceded, saying, “I think that’s more than fair. You can hardly stop her from talking about them entirely.”
“Then it’s settled,” Harriet said. “We shall work out the smaller roles later.”
“What about you?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Oh, I’m going to be the goddess of the sun and moon.”
“The tale gets stranger and stranger,” Daniel said.
“Just wait until act seven,” Miss Wynter told him.
“Seven?” His head snapped up. “There are seven acts?”
“Twelve,” Harriet corrected, “but don’t worry, you’re in only eleven of them. Now then, Miss Wynter, when do you propose that we begin our rehearsals? And may we do so out of doors? There is a clearing by the gazebo that would be ideal.”
Miss Wynter turned to Daniel for confirmation. He just shrugged and said, “Harriet is the playwright.”
She nodded and turned back to the girls. “I was going to say that we may start after the rest of our lessons, but given that there are twelve acts to get through, I am granting a one-day holiday from geography and maths.”
There was a rousing cheer from the girls, and even Daniel felt swept along in the general joy. “Well,” he said to Miss Wynter, “it’s not every day one gets to be strange and sad.”
“Or evil.”
He chuckled. “Or evil.” Then he got a thought. A strange, sad thought. “I don’t die at the end, do I?”
She shook her head.
“That’s a relief, I must say. I make a terrible corpse.”
She laughed at that, or rather, she held her lips together firmly while she tried not to laugh. The girls were chattering madly as they took their final bites of breakfast and fled the room, and then he was left sitting next to Miss Wynter, just the two of them and their plates of breakfast, the warm morning sun filtering upon them through the windows.
“I wonder,” he said aloud, “do we get to be wicked?”
Her fork clattered against her plate. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sad, strange, and evil are all very well and good, but I’d like to be wicked. Wouldn’t you?”
Her lips parted, and he heard the tiny airy rush of her gasp. The sound tickled his skin, made him want to kiss her.
But everything seemed to make him want to kiss her. He felt like a young man again, perpetually randy, except that this was far more specific. Back at university he’d flirted with every woman he’d met, stealing kisses or, more to the point, accepting them when they’d been offered freely.
This was different. He didn’t want a woman. He wanted her. And he supposed that if he had to spend the afternoon being strange, sad, and disfigured just to be in her company, it would be well worth it.
Then he remembered the wart.
He turned to Miss Wynter and said firmly, “I am not getting a wart.”
Really, a man had to draw the line somewhere.
Chapter Eleven
Six hours later, as Anne adjusted the black sash that was meant to denote her as the evil queen, she had to admit that she could not recall a more enjoyable afternoon.
Ludicrous, yes; completely without academic value, absolutely. But still, completely and utterly enjoyable.
She had had fun.
Fun. She couldn’t remember the last time.
They had been rehearsing all day （not that they planned to actually perform The Strange, Sad Tragedy of the Lord Who Was Not Finstead in front of an audience）， and she could not begin to count the number of times she had had to stop, doubled over with laughter.
“Thou shalt never smite my daughter!” she intoned, waving a stick through the air.
Elizabeth ducked.
“Oh!” Anne winced. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Elizabeth assured her. “I—”
“Miss Wynter, you’re breaking character again!” Harriet bemoaned.
“I almost hit Elizabeth,” Anne explained.
“I don’t care.”
Elizabeth exhaled in a puff of indignation. “I care.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t use a stick,” Frances said.
Harriet spared her sister a disdainful glance before turning back to the rest of them. “May we return to the script?” she said in a voice so prim it spun right into sarcasm.
“Of course,” Anne said, looking down at her script. “Where were we? Oh, yes, don’t smite my daughter and all that.”