Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(30)

“Oh, there’s no doubt of that,” Daisy replied. “I think she felt quite sorry for me. She gave me some pins for it, and said something under her breath about poor bumbling American girls who have no practical skills whatsoever.” Using the edge of her nail, she pried the pins out of the leather ball and gave them over.

Setting down her own basket, Annabelle held a pin between her thumb and forefinger, and closed her eyes. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, she always made the same wish…to marry a peer. Strangely, however, a new thought entered her head, just as she cast the pin into the well.

I wish I could fall in love.

Surprised by the wilful, wayward notion, Annabelle wondered how it was that she could have wasted a wish on something that was obviously so ill-advised.

Opening her eyes, Annabelle saw that the other wallflowers were staring into the well with great solemnity. “I made the wrong wish,” she said fretfully. “Can I have another?”

“No,” Lillian said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Once you’ve thrown in your pin, it’s done.”

“But I didn’t mean to make that particular wish,” Annabelle protested. “Something just popped into my head, and it wasn’t at all what I had planned.”

“Don’t argue, Annabelle,” Evie advised. “You ddon’t want to annoy the well spirit.”

“The what?”

Evie smiled at her perplexed expression. “The resident spirit of the well. He’s the one to whom y-you make a petition. But if you annoy him, he may decide to demand a terrible price for granting your wish. Or he may drag you into the well with him, to live there forever as his c-consort.”

Annabelle stared into the brown water. She cupped her hands around the sides of her mouth to help direct her voice. “You don’t have to grant my rotten wish,” she told the unseen spirit loudly. “I take it back!”

“Don’t taunt him, Annabelle,” Daisy exclaimed. “And for heaven’s sake, step back from the edge of that well!”

“Are you superstitious?” Annabelle asked with a grin.

Daisy glowered at her. “There’s a reason for superstitions, you know. At some point in time, something bad happened to someone who was standing right next to a well, just as you are.” Closing her eyes, she concentrated intently, then tossed her own pin into the water. “There. I’ve made a wish for your benefit—so there’s no need for you to complain about having wasted one.”

“But how do you know what I wanted?”

“The wish I made is for your own good,” Daisy informed her.

Annabelle groaned theatrically. “I hate things that are for my own good.”

A good-natured squabble followed, in which each girl made suggestions as to what would be best for the other, until finally Lillian commanded them to stop, as they were interfering with her concentration. They fell silent just long enough to allow Lillian and Evie to make their wishes, then they made their way across the meadow and through the forest. Soon they reached a lovely dry meadow, grassy and sun-drenched, with shade extending from a grove of oak at one side. The air was balmy and rarefied, and so fresh that Annabelle sighed blissfully. “This air has no substance to it,” she said in mock-complaint. “No coal smoke or street dust whatsoever. Much too thin for a Londoner. I can’t even feel it in my lungs.”

“It’s not that thin,” Lillian replied. “Every now and then the breeze carries a distinct hint of eau de sheep.”

“Really?” Annabelle sniffed experimentally. “I can’t smell a thing.”

“That’s because you don’t have a nose,” Lillian replied.

“I beg your pardon?” Annabelle asked with a quizzical grin.

“Oh, you have a regular sort of nose,” Lillian explained, “but I have a nose. I’m unusually sensitive to smell. Give me any perfume, and I can separate it into all its parts. Rather like listening to a musical chord and divining all its notes. Before we left New York, I even helped to develop a formula for scented soap, for my father’s factory.”

“Could you create a perfume, do you think?” Annabelle asked in fascination.

“I daresay I could create an excellent perfume,” Lillian said confidently. “However, anyone in the industry would disdain it, as the phrase ‘American perfume’ is considered to be an oxymoron—and I’m a woman, besides, which throws the caliber of my nose very much into question.”

“You mean, men have better noses than women?”

“They certainly think so,” Lillian said darkly, and whipped a picnic blanket out of her basket with a flourish. “Enough about men and their protuberances. Shall we sit in the sun for a little while?”

“We’ll get brown,” Daisy predicted, flopping onto a corner of the blanket with a pleasured sigh. “And then Mama will have conniptions.”

“What are conniptions?” Annabelle asked, entertained by the American word. She dropped to the space beside Daisy. “Do send for me if she has them— I’m curious to see what they look like.”

“Mama has them all the time,” Daisy assured her. “Never fear, you’ll be well acquainted with conniptions before we all leave Hampshire.”

“We shouldn’t eat before we play,” Lillian said, watching as Annabelle lifted the lid of a picnic basket.