She herself had helped arrange the tails on the peacocks, stuffed and cooked and brought lifelike to the table. The head cook had said, “Begging the miss’s pardon, but you have a fine eye and hand for the kitchen.”

Elinore had taken that for the high praise it was, and not been insulted in the least. She loved the big kitchen, and would have spent more time there if her parents had allowed. She’d been mostly forgotten until she was too old to be mistaken for a little girl. Then, suddenly, it was time to find a husband.

If only she had gone with Bernie Woodstock last midsummer. He had asked her first, but she’d refused, and now he was married to Lucy of Aberly, and they had their first child. Bernie was heir to a fine estate, not as fine as their own, but he and Lucy seemed happy enough, though the baby cried every time she visited. As Elinore watched her father call for silence, and begin to stand, how she wished, she so wished, she had gone off with Bernie last year. Once her father announced her engagement officially, it could not be undone without causing great disgrace to her family.

Elinore rose faster than her father, with his one bad knee from the long ago war. She stood in the silence, and her father said, “Elinore, it is not necessary for you to stand.”

“I wish to make an announcement, Father, a traditional announcement for midsummer.” She spoke hurriedly, afraid her nerve would fail her.

Her father smiled indulgently at her, probably thinking she would do the traditional maiden’s toast for this time of year, for she was still a maiden in every sense of the word.