They all laughed.
“My lord?” Marjorie looked brightly at the viscount. “Is there any chance that you are planning to revive the tradition this summer? There really was nothing to match the Esdale picnics.”
“I had better not whisper to Mama that you asked that, Marjie,” her brother said. “She would scold for a week.”
“Then we will all agree that it was my idea,” Lord Whitley said. “And I cannot think of anything I would enjoy more. Shall we say next week? That should give me enough time to send out the invitations and dust off the boats, and it should give my cook time to plan the feast.”
“Oh, wonderful!” Marjorie said, clapping her hands like the child she tried not to be. “What a splendid idea, my lord. What put it into your mind?”
“The sight of the lake,” he said, “and the knowledge that it is July, though it does not quite feel like it. And present company.”
They set off down the hill toward the lake in the same order as before. Much as she tried not to, Constance was remembering that last picnic again and its disastrous ending. She wished Marjorie had not suggested its revival. And yet it had always been the pinnacle of summer fun.
“I wish Sidney was coming sooner than he is,” she said with a sigh. “I wish he could be here for the picnic. He will be disappointed to know that he has missed it.”
“Yes, I daresay,” he said. “You are missing him, are you, Constance? He has always been here during the summers, has he not?”
“I will have to be patient,” she said. “Three weeks will pass soon enough. I have already waited through a whole winter and spring.” She should not have added those final words, she thought. No one knew of the ties that bound her and Sidney.
“You live up to your name,” he said with a smile. “But what if he does not come? What if his friends persuade him to stay in Brighton all summer? That is where the Regent spends his summers, you know. There is a great deal of social life there.”
“Oh,” she said, raising her voice above the increasing roar of the cascades as they gathered momentum beside the path, “he will be here. Nothing would keep him away on my birthday. We have all sorts of plans. You do not know.”
He merely looked at her, his gray eyes steady on hers, and she could feel herself flushing.
“You do know, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
She bit her lip and felt annoyance with Sidney. There had been so many occasions when she had been bursting to tell someone—sometimes Mama, sometimes Georgina. But she had kept the promise of secrecy.
“Well, then,” she said, “you know that he will come.”
“And what are your plans?” he asked. “Apart from the one I already know of?”
The other two couples had walked across the bridge without stopping and were strolling along the bank of the lake. But the viscount and Constance came to a halt at the high center of the bridge and gazed back up at the cascades and down to the water foaming under the bridge. There was a weeping willow just beside the waterfall, trailing its branches down into the water, that Constance had always considered especially picturesque.
“There is to be a treasure hunt,” she said. “A long one. It will take at least an hour and perhaps two. I have spent weeks thinking up clues. It will take a long time to set up, but Sidney is going to help me. It will be great fun. And there is to be dancing in the evening. The drawing room is small but we will all squeeze in there. Mama is to play the harpsichord. Sidney has already reserved the opening set with me. At a country dance!” She laughed.
“And what is the treasure to be?” he asked.
She flushed and laughed. “That is the part I have not decided upon yet,” she said. “Nothing of any great value, I suppose. The pleasure of the hunt is to be its own reward. At least, I hope so. If it rains, everything will be ruined.”
“What will you do if it rains?” he asked.
She pulled a face. “Play charades and cards, I suppose,” she said. “The usual things. I want my birthday to be special.”
“It will be,” he said. “It will not rain, I promise.”
She looked up at him and smiled.
“Am I invited?” he asked.
“Of course.” She felt herself flush anew. “I should have sent you an invitation yesterday or today. I thought perhaps you would consider the whole thing childish or tedious.”
“Neither,” he said. “I shall hunt with energy and determination and find your treasure, whatever it turns out to be.”
He was standing with his arms draped over the rail of the bridge, one foot resting on the lowest rail. He was looking back over his shoulder at her and smiling. For some reason Constance felt breathless. But no, she would not give in to such nonsense. She was a grown woman now, not a girl in need of a hero. Besides, she loved Sidney. Jonathan was to be her brother-in-law.
