"Are you having a lovely birthday, Nancy?"

Nancy glanced about her, considering Bess's polite question. Her two good friends Elizabeth Marvin and Georgina Fayne were picnicking with her on the grass on the bank of the river. After a sumptuous meal, they were finishing with strawberries and fresh whipped cream, the birthday treat Hannah had packed for her.

"I suppose," she replied. "Today was rather dull until the two of you arrived. Father will be in London nearly all day, I think. And while he's there he's to check on the dress he ordered me from Paris, but until then this one will have to do." She plucked at the folds of lace trimming the sleeves of her smart striped gown.

"The dress looks absolutely stunning on you," Bess replied. "I'm sure no French frock could compete."

"You haven't seen this dress," Nancy replied.

Georgina tossed away the stick with which she had been playing. "I'd rather hear more about the horse-statue than some old dress," she told her cousin.

"At least you don't have the breath squeezed from you every morning when your corset is laced," Bess said, fanning herself mildly. "Just one more strawberry.

"The horse-statue is a day's walk from here," Bess went on, her lips reddened by the ripe juice. "The wood is especially thick, and I heard that if one finds the statue on a full-moon night, it glows a most unearthly color."

"In which direction is the wood, from here?" Nancy asked, her china-blue eyes bright.

Bess pointed toward the sinking sun. "Not that it matters, dear, as Mr Cameron will be back before you could go investigate."

The intrigue faded from her eyes as Nancy let herself fall back onto the blanket, a pout marring her features. "I know he would find nothing pleasing about such a journey. So that is all that happens? The horse figure glows?"

Bess nodded uncertainly. "That's what my friend said. But, of course, she hasn't seen it. She thought maybe there were whispers while it glowed, that maybe the place is haunted. Smugglers used to come through that section of the river, for it's wide and deep. And spooky, I'd bet," she said, shivering.

"Would you care for a shawl, dear cousin?" Georgina asked. "For there is certainly nothing beyond this stiff breeze to make you shake so."

"If only we weren't three days past the full moon, I would go tonight," Nancy said stubbornly.

"We still could," Georgina replied. "At least we could go find the statue and make sure it exists, and draw a map so we could find it again next time there is a full moon."

Nancy brightened for a moment, then shook her head. "Not tonight, perhaps another time," she said. "I must be home to greet Father when he arrives, and were I to tell Hannah that I had gone to look at a whispering horse-statue, Father may very well send back the lovely dress from Paris."

"I have heard that Mr Cameron has a lock of your hair, so is this gown a wedding-gown?" Bess asked.

Nancy laughed gaily. "Surely not. And so many men say they have a lock of my hair, the value is practically nil; if all their stories were true I would not have a single strand of hair left upon my head."

"And such lovely hair it is too," Bess said enviously. Nancy's hair was long and wavy from the style in which she kept it, with red strands interspersed among the gold. Bess's hair was long and straw-colored, her eyes large, blue, and luminous. Georgina kept her dark hair bundled tight on her head and, she often took pleasure in telling her friends, would rather have it chopped off than spend the hours she did binding it up in the mornings. Her dark eyes were heavily fringed with long eyelashes, but she had neither her cousin's compliant disposition, nor her friend Nancy's flirtatious one, preferring instead the pleasure of a well-thought book or some form of physical exertion over the "tired social dance we are all expected to perform."

"Enough about hair, lovely or otherwise," Georgina said. "Let's go--"

"Inside?" Bess interjected, her voice pleading.

A wicked gleam shone in her cousin's eye. "I was about to say, 'to the bank of the river and take our shoes off so we can at least have cool toes.'"

Bess fanned herself for a few moments before she trusted herself to speak. "And risk that some gentleman might happen by?" she managed to squeak.

Georgina poked at the hem of Bess's gown. "Looks plenty long enough to cover your feet, ankles, toes, and all," she judged.

"And Hannah would have our heads, wet or otherwise," Nancy said ruefully, but she still cast a longing look toward the river.

--

"More peas?"

"Please," Nancy said as Effie leaned over her shoulder, serving the elusive vegetables with a gleaming silver spoon. Nancy moved to cross her ankles and froze at the slight squelching sound she heard from under the table.

"Did you see what Hannah made for you?" Carson said, pitching his voice so Nancy could hear it at the other end of the table.

"I saw the lovely raspberry tart," Nancy admitted. "She even offered me a taste, but I thought it best to wait until you were back."

"Oh, I picked up a trifle for you while I was in town," Carson said. Nancy's heart rose, but with a smile twitching the corner of his mouth, he tossed her a thick ivory envelope.

"What's this?" Nancy said.

"Open it and find out."

Nancy pulled back the flap and produced a thick card with a handwritten note inside. "Is it a ball? Oh, I love to go to a ball."

"Next week. And I do believe Miss Corning will be there. The elder, that is."

"Helen? I haven't seen Helen for ages."

"And I have a suggestion for what you might wear."

Nancy stifled a squeal of delight as her father had a long white box brought to the table.

--

A week later she was wearing an eggshell-white gown with cornflower-blue satin trimmings around the neckline, sleeves, bodice, and hem, a cameo brooch at her throat, and a stiff lace fan in her hand as she approached Helen Corning, teetering slightly in her new heeled boots.

"Nancy!" Helen was pale and slightly breathless, and Nancy had almost blamed her somewhat pinched appearance to an overzealously laced corset before Helen began clinging to the crook of her arm.

"Helen, dear, I know it has been ages but I am not yet made of steel."

"Nancy, do you remember when I wrote to you about our ward Claudette?" Helen began leading Nancy out of the French doors and onto the patio.

"Of course," Nancy replied. "'A pale, timid creature who nevertheless may bloom under my expert tutelage,' I believe you said."

"Yes, yes," Helen said impatiently. "She's gone missing."

"Gone missing?" Nancy replied. "For how long? When? How?"