Turnip wasn’t quite sure why buying her lemonades was meant to be a privilege, but Sally clearly viewed it as such, so there was no point in arguing.

“Didn’t the mater and pater make other arrangements for you?” he asked suspiciously.

Sally wrinkled her nose. “Yes, to travel with Miss Climpson! But she’s a regular antidote. It will be deadly.”

“A fate worse than death!” chimed in Agnes Wooliston, loyally rushing to her friend’s support.

“Doing it a bit too brown there,” said Turnip frankly. “Death is death and there’s no getting around that.”

“That,” said Lizzy Reid, “is because you haven’t yet met Miss Climpson. If you had, you would understand. She’s ghastly.”

Turnip rubbed his ear. What was it about young ladies and italics? It was deuced hard on the hearing, having all those words pounded into his head like so many stakes into the ground.

“Ghastly and deadly,” he said weakly. “Sounds like quite the character.”

“Yes, but would you want to spend four days in a covered conveyance with her?” demanded Sally. “You couldn’t possibly wish that on anyone.”

Agnes Wooliston assumed a thoughtful expression. “What about Bonaparte?”

“Well, possibly Bonaparte,” allowed Sally, making an exception for the odd Corsican dictator. Her blue eyes, so very much like Turnip’s, only far more shrewd (or so she liked to claim), narrowed. “Or maybe Catherine Carruthers.”

“Really liked those ribbons, did you?” commented Turnip, and regretted it as three sets of female eyes turned back to him. “Never mind that. I’ll think about it. It’s only the beginning of the month now. Plenty of time to come to an agreement.”

His little sister favored him with an approving smile. “Excellent! I’ll expect you the morning of the twentieth, then. Do try to be on time this year.”