But she didn’t.
Instead, she called, “You’ll have an easier time if you use the lowest branch as a step. Like this.” She demonstrated, bracing her foot against the trunk and miming the motion.
Cassie’s eyes widened. “You know how to climb trees?”
“I was raised in the country,” Augusta said. “We climbed everything. Trees, haystacks, the vicar’s fence.” She paused, then added, “Once, I climbed onto the roof of the stables and got stuck for half a day. The whole village came to watch the rescue.”
Cassie laughed, the sound brighter than the sun. “Were you in trouble?”
“Terrible trouble. But it was worth it.”
Cassie considered this, then redoubled her efforts. With Augusta’s advice, she managed to scramble onto the lowest branch, where she sat, grinning down like a triumphant pirate.
“If my brother sees me, he’ll have kittens,” she confided.
Augusta looked up, shielding her eyes. “Shall we make sure he doesn’t, then?”
Cassie nodded solemnly. “Pippin, you’re on lookout.”
The dog responded with a dignified snort.
They spent the next quarter hour devising ever more elaborate schemes of espionage and tree-based subterfuge. Augusta recounted her own exploits—cherry-picking gone awry, the time she fell into the pigsty—and Cassie listened, rapt. They plotted an imaginary escape from a fortress, which was the tree, planned a rescue mission with Pippin as the faithful steed, and even invented a secret code for future operations.
Eventually, Cassie’s arms tired, and she clambered down, landing on the grass with a thump that left her skirts smeared with mud. She looked at Augusta, expectation in her eyes.
“I won’t tell,” Augusta promised, anticipating the question.
Cassie’s relief was so palpable it made Augusta’s chest ache. “You’re not like the others,” she said. “You’re not afraid of me.”
“Should I be?”
Cassie shook her head. “You just let me—” She seemed to struggle with words. “You let me be.”
Augusta thought of all the rules and boundaries, the tight-lipped disapproval that had followed Cassie like a cloud.
“You are a very good girl,” she said, “and a very brave one. If anyone ever tells you otherwise, you send them to me.”
Cassie beamed. “Can we lie on the grass and watch the clouds?”
“We can do whatever you like, Lady Cassandra.”
They stretched out side by side, their skirts fanned over the grass, and Pippin flopped between them. The clouds scudded across the blue, and for a long, perfect moment, there was nothing but the warmth of the sun and the safe, happy thump of the dog’s tail.
They lay there until the cold began to seep through their clothes, and when they stood, their backs and skirts were streaked with green and brown.
Cassie looked down at her dress and then at Augusta, horror flashing across her face. “We’re a mess,” she whispered.
“We are,” Augusta agreed.
“If my brother sees, he’ll?—”
“He won’t,” Augusta assured her. “We’ll sneak in through the servants’ corridor. I know the way.”
Cassie grabbed her hand, their fingers fitting together like two pieces of the same puzzle, and together they made for the side door, Pippin bounding ahead.
Cassie laughed, and Augusta did too, neither of them caring that their laughter would carry all the way to the house.
Cassie clung to Augusta’s hand as they entered, their skirts trailing muddy evidence of their adventure. They slipped past the laundry, past the pantry, and had almost reached the rear staircase when the door ahead swung open without warning.
