Page 58 of Duke of Sapphire

He was in his room with the soldier, not playing, not reading. Just sitting.

“The back garden,” Charlotte said, from the doorway, “has a wall.”

Ian looked up.

“It looks,” she said, “extremely climbable. I intend to investigate.”

He was on his feet before she had finished the sentence.

The wall was not, on closer inspection, as cooperative as it looked from the garden path. It was old brick, the mortar worn away in places, but the handholds were shallow and the base was too smooth. Ian circled it for five minutes with mounting dissatisfaction.

“There aren’t enough cracks,” he announced.

Charlotte studied the wall. “The left side looks more promising.”

“I tried the left side. It’s worse.” He pressed his palm flat to the surface. “There’s nothing to hold. You’d need to be a very thin cat.”

“We are not thin cats.”

“No.” He stepped back and looked at it with his hands on his hips, which was an expression Charlotte was fairly certain he had borrowed from Henry. “This wall is very bad at being climbable.”

“I’ll grant you that,” Charlotte said. “We may need to bring equipment.”

“What kind of equipment?”

“I’m not entirely sure yet. I’m working through it.”

Ian looked at her. Then he looked back at the wall. “We could try the elm. The one at the far end.”

“We could,” Charlotte said. “Though I suspect your guardian might have⁠—”

She stopped.

Henry was standing at the garden entrance.

“What…” He stepped forward. “…are you doing to my wall?”

Ian turned. “We’re investigating it.”

“Investigating it.”

“For climbing.” Ian gestured at the brickwork with the authority of a surveyor delivering an unfavorable report. “It’s bad. There arenae enough cracks.”

Henry looked at the wall. Then he looked at Charlotte.

She smiled at him. Pleasantly. With a great deal of innocence.

“It is excellent exercise,” she said. “For the boy.”

“For the—” He looked back at Ian. Then at Charlotte. “You were proposing to climb my garden wall.”

“I was proposing to investigate the feasibility of climbing your garden wall. There is a distinction.”

“The distinction is academic. You are standing at the base of it.”

“And finding it wanting,” Charlotte said. “Which is, in fact, the responsible conclusion.”

Henry opened his mouth. Then he closed it. He looked at the wall again, and Charlotte had the very distinct impression that he was deciding between three different responses and that none of them were winning outright.