to the partner of their choice." It was clear from the glint in his eye that he knew that could open some mischievous pathways.
"I think the ladies should go in first," he said. "Who will volunteer?"
Clyta stepped forward. "I will. But what if we can't find our way out?"
"Someone will rescue you before dark, I promise."
With a flitting, teasing look at the duke, Clyta slipped through the gap and moved out of sight. Rowanford made as if to follow, but Lord Templemore stopped him.
"On to the next entrance," he said and led the way. It was some distance to the corner, and then Amy could see the dimensions more clearly. "This is enormous," she said.
"Yes,"agreed Lord Templemore. "Are you game to go next?"
There seemed no point in refusing, so Amy slipped between the trimmed box and into the maze. The outer path went forward the length of the maze, cut by a number of gaps leading inward. Amy listened, but it was quiet now. She couldn't even hear the voices of the others. It was as if she were alone in the narrow green world, and she poked her head back out to assure herself that the real world was still there.
Then she stiffened her nerve and took the next gap.
Sometimes the paths became dead ends, sometimes they went in circles. She tried to carry some plan of where she had been but found it impossible. She encountered no one, and a fear that she was stuck in the maze began to grow in her. She imagined the others back at the house having tea and laughing at the joke they had played to trap her here.
She began to hurry, then run, plunging always through the first gap she came to. She heard a noise through the hedge. "Hello!" she cried. "Who's there?"
"Miss de Lacy?" It was Lucy Frogmorton. "Oh, this is horrible. How can I get to your side?"
Amy came to her senses. She wouldn't be as much of a ninny as Lucy. "I don't know," she called. "Don't worry. Just wander around. You'll either get out, or to the middle sooner or later."
"I want to get out now!" Lucy demanded.
"Scream then," recommended Amy and headed away from the voice. She didn't hear any screaming, so Lucy must have decided not to make a fool of herself. Amy took her own advice and wandered. If she began to feel trapped, she looked up at the blue sky. Whenever she heard a sound she called out, and she made contact with Clyta and Chart that way, though she never saw them.
She was amused to find small grottoes here and there in dead ends. They were furnished with benches and a certain amount of screening. In view of her host's rakish reputation she could imagine their purpose.
She found her mind dwelling on the kind of parties that had doubtless been held here in his bachelor days, with ladies and gentlemen finding and losing each other in these dark green passageways, feeling alone together here, apart from the world and all the burdens of responsibility and correct behavior.
She wondered if Lord Templemore wandered here with his wife to stop and share kisses in a secret corner. She could imagine it. It was perhaps improper to dwell on such things but she couldn't help it. She could imagine Lord Randal and Sophie enjoying the same pleasure.
There would be none of that for her. No teasing romps, no romantic trysts. Amy allowed her mind in a direction she had never permitted it before. She knew, in general terms, what marriage involved. She imagined her marriage bed when Sir Cedric joined her. He would kiss her, and then do what he had to do. She supposed he would enjoy it, for men apparently did, but it was hard to imagine any enjoyment for herself. It was equally hard to imagine Sir Cedric looking at her with the hunger she had seen in other eyes today.
Having opened her mind to these thoughts, they could not be shut out. She saw new dimensions to the world around her. She had thought Lord Templmore's gaze at his wife heated, but now she recognized hunger. It was decently controlled by maturity, civilization, and, she supposed, the expectation of satisfaction, but it was hunger all the same. She remembered the way Sophie had said, "Married life is so exhausting," and the gleam in her husband's eye. Hunger again.
And maybe there had been just a little hunger in Rowanford's eyes when