“Miss Wynter.”
“Oh, no, I wasn’t saying the line. I was just finding it.” She cleared her throat and waved her stick in the air, giving Elizabeth wide berth. “Thou shalt never smite my daughter!”
How she managed that without laughing she would never know.
“I don’t want to smite her,” Lord Winstead said, with enough drama to make a Drury Lane audience weep. “I want to marry her.”
“Never.”
“No, no, no, Miss Wynter!” Harriet exclaimed. “You don’t sound upset at all.”
“Well, I’m not,” Anne admitted. “The daughter is a bit of a ninny. I should think the evil queen would be glad to get her off her hands.”
Harriet sighed the sigh of the very-long-suffering. “Be that as it may, the evil queen doesn’t think her daughter is a ninny.”
“I think she’s a ninny,” Elizabeth chimed in.
“But you are the daughter,” Harriet said.
“I know! I’ve been reading her lines all day. She’s an idiot.”
As they bickered, Lord Winstead moved closer to Anne and said, “I do feel a bit of a lecherous old man, trying to marry Elizabeth.”
She chuckled.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider swapping roles.”
“With you?”
He scowled. “With Elizabeth.”
“After you said I made a perfect evil queen? I think not.”
He leaned a little closer. “Not to split hairs, but I believe I said you made a perfectly evil queen.”
“Oh, yes. That is so much better.” Anne frowned. “Have you seen Frances?”
He tilted his head to the right. “I believe she’s off rooting about in the bushes.”
Anne followed his gaze uneasily. “Rooting?”
“She told me she was practicing for the next play.”
Anne blinked at him, not following.
“For when she gets to be a unicorn.”
“Oh, of course.” She chuckled. “She is rather tenacious, that one.”
Lord Winstead grinned, and Anne’s stomach did a little flip. He had such a lovely smile. Wickedly mischievous, but with . . . oh, Anne had no idea how to describe it except that he was good man, an honorable man who knew right from wrong, and no matter how naughty his grins . . .
She knew he would not hurt her.
Even her own father had not proved so dependable.
“You look very serious of a sudden,” Lord Winstead said.
Anne blinked herself out of her reverie. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said quickly, hoping she wasn’t blushing. Sometimes she had to remind herself that he could not peer straight into her thoughts. She looked over at Harriet and Elizabeth, who were still arguing, although by now they had moved off the topic of the intelligence （or lack thereof） of the beautiful princess and had started in on—
Good Lord, were they discussing wild boars?
“I think we need to take a break,” she said.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Lord Winstead said. “I am not playing the boar.”
“I don’t think you need to worry on that score,” Anne said. “Frances will certainly snatch that one up.”
He looked at her. She looked at him. And together they burst out laughing, so hard that even Harriet and Elizabeth stopped their sniping.
“What’s so funny?” Harriet asked, followed by Elizabeth’s extremely suspicious “Are you laughing at me?”
“We’re laughing at everyone,” Lord Winstead said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Even ourselves.”
“I’m hungry,” Frances announced, emerging from the bushes. There were a few leaves stuck to her dress and a small stick jutting out from the side of her head. Anne didn’t think it was meant to be a unicorn’s horn, but the effect was quite charming nonetheless.
“I’m hungry, too,” Harriet said with a sigh.
“Why doesn’t one of you run back to the house and ask the kitchen for a picnic hamper?” Anne suggested. “We could all use some sustenance.”
“I’ll go,” Frances offered.
“I’ll go with you,” Harriet told her. “I do some of my best thinking while I’m walking.”
Elizabeth looked at her sisters, then at the adults. “Well, I’m not going to stay here by myself,” she said, the adults apparently not counting as proper company, and the three girls took off for the house, their pace quickly moving from brisk walk to out-and-out race.