"Begging your pardon, ma'am, but we need you to move."
"Right. Of course." She looked toward three footmen who were inside the room rearranging the furniture. "Might any of you know where Lord Hawkridge is at the moment?"
"The vineyard, I believe." One of the Johns hefted a small table onto his shoulder. "Or so I heard him tell his valet before he left this morning."
"Thank you," she said and turned away—then turned back. "Um…where is the vineyard?" Hopefully it wasn't as far from the house as Griffin's. "Will I need a horse?"
"Not at all." The man set down the table. "Just walk across the west courtyard, past the icehouse and through the hornbeam arch. You cannot miss it."
It was a pleasant walk. The icehouse was brick with a domed roof, and she found the long hornbeam arch to be delightfully shady. At the far end of the leafy tunnel, she exited to find sloping land covered with rows and rows of staked vines, the spaces between them only wide enough to walk single file. Spotting Tris in the middle, speaking with another man, she hurried toward him, her skirts brushing the vines on either side.
"Excuse me," she heard him say as she came up. "I'd appreciate privacy for a moment." The man tipped his cap and walked a decent distance away, bending to tend a vine.
"A pianoforte?" Alexandra said the moment he was out of earshot. "An Erard pianoforte?"
Tris's eyes looked silver in the sunshine. She thought perhaps she saw an apology in them, mixed with excitement at surprising her. "I did say another parcel would arrive today."
"That's quite a parcel," she said, determined to forget last night. Or the last part of last night, in any case. "Thank you. Thank you ever so much."
She threw her arms around him, feeling euphoric when he wrapped his arms around her, too.
Their kiss was sweeter than the fruit ripening in the sun all around them and as heady as the wine it would become. "I hope you'll enjoy it," he said when their lips reluctantly parted.
"Oh, I will. The men delivering it made it clear I was getting in the way, but I can hardly wait to try it." The world seemed brighter this morning, as though the Queen's Bedchamber last night had been no more than a bad dream. She breathed deep of the fragrant air, reaching to touch a bunch of grapes. "How fat they look!"
"In a month, they'll be ready for harvest."
She began walking along the row, touching a plant here and there. "The vines seem so sturdy. Their trunks are so wide."
"Compared to Griffin's vines, you mean?" Sounding amused, he followed behind. "A hundred years from now, their trunks will be wide as well."
"If he can make his vineyard pay well enough to keep it."
"He can make it pay. With the duties raised during wartime to nearly twenty shillings a gallon, French wine is no longer affordable for a man of moderate income. People will be happy enough to stock their cellars with what Griffin produces."
"If it tastes as good as yours does, they will." She paused to pluck a grape and sniff it. "Is this a certain kind of grape?"
"Doubtless, although I confess I don't know the variety. In the old records they're noted only as English sweet-water grapes."
"Well, they make truly wonderful wine," she said, popping the fruit into her mouth.
"I'm glad you think so," he said and added teasingly, "as long as you drink only half a glass at a time." He shot a glance to the other man. "I'm afraid I'm not finished here."
Swallowing the sweet flesh, she nodded. "I must leave, anyway. Ernest must be waiting with our horses. We're going to visit with the final former servant. Lizzy, her name is."
"I wish you wouldn't." A hawk wheeled overhead, and a sudden breeze kicked up, making the vines rustle around them. She saw something twitch in Tris's jaw. "I sleepwalked again last night."
"I'm sorry," she said, meaning it. He looked tormented. "Have you suffered these incidents so closely together in the past?"
"Never. It's always been weeks—if not months or years—between episodes. But this morning, after locking myself in that room, I woke to find the window wide open." He sounded totally disgusted that his plan hadn't worked. "The lock kept me from sleepwalking around the house, so I sleepwalked outside instead."
"Did you wake up outside?"
"No, but that doesn't mean I didn't go out. In the past, I've often ambled around and ended up back in my bed."
"But the Queen's Bedchamber is upstairs. You would have killed yourself climbing out that window. I'm sure you simply opened it because you wanted fresh air." When she saw that he was going to argue, she put a hand on his arm. "Let me go see Lizzy. And then this might be over, and maybe you'll be able to sleep."
He just looked at her for a while. Just looked. And it made something tighten in her chest, because every time she thought they were making progress, stepping forward together, it seemed they took two steps back.
But she had to go see Lizzy. Her sisters were being ostracized already, and this was her last chance to discover information that might lead to a solution for them all. Her last chance to prove to Tris that he wasn't the dangerous man he feared.
"You may not be happy with what you learn from Lizzy," he finally said, the warning sounding bitter on his tongue. "And it's not going to change anything." Then he turned and left her, his shoulders looking tense beneath his dark blue coat as he strode toward the other man.
The hornbeam arch didn't seem nearly as delightful when she traversed it in the opposite direction. And at the other end, Vincent, Hastings, and Mrs. Oliver all stood waiting for her.
"May I help you?" she asked, puzzled.
Hastings glanced at the other two and then spoke
