“What about me?” Frances asked.“The butler,” Harriet replied without even a second of hesitation.Frances’s mouth immediately opened to protest.“No, no,” Harriet said. “It’s the best role, I promise. You get to do everything.”“Except be a unicorn,” Daniel murmured.Frances tilted her head to the side with a resigned expression.“The next play,” Harriet finally gave in. “I shall find a way to include a unicorn in the one I’m working on right now.”Frances pumped both fists in the air. “Huzzah!”

“Then Elizabeth came, bearing a tray of cakes and sweets, and finally Harriet, who carried with her a small sheaf of paper—her current opus, Henry VIII and the Unicorn of Doom .“I’m not certain Frances is going to be appeased by an evil unicorn,” Anne told her.Harriet looked up with one arched brow. “She did not specify that it must be a good unicorn.”Anne grimaced. “You’re going to have a battle on your hands, that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”Harriet shrugged, then said, “I’m going to begin in act two. Act one is a complete disaster. I’ve had to rip it completely apart.”“Because of the unicorn?”“No,” Harriet said with a grimace. “I got the order of the wives wrong. It’s divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, widowed.”“How cheerful.”Harriet gave her a bit of a look, then said, “I switched one of the divorces with a beheading.”“May I give you a bit of advice?” Anne asked.Harriet looked up.“Don’t ever let anyone hear you say that out ofcontext.”

“Miss Wynter, I think you should be the evil queen,” Harriet said.“There’s an evil queen?” Daniel echoed. With obvious delight.“Of course,” Harriet replied. “Every good play has an evil queen.”Frances actually raised her hand. “And a un—”“Don’t say it,” Elizabeth growled.Frances crossed her eyes, put her knife to her forehead in an approximation of a horn, and neighed.”

“Then it’s settled,” Harriet said. “We shall work out the smaller roles later.”“What about you?” Elizabeth demanded.“Oh, I’m going to be the goddess of the sun and moon.”“The tale gets stranger and stranger,” Daniel said.“Just wait until act seven,” Miss Wynter told him.“Seven?” His head snapped up. “There are seven acts?”“Twelve,” Harriet corrected, “but don’t worry, you’re in only eleven of them. Now then, Miss Wynter, when do you propose that we begin our rehearsals? And may we do so out of doors? There is a clearing by the gazebo that would be ideal.”

“Harriet! I've never met anyone called Harriet in real life. I had a brief fantasy about her being Harriet Vane, because she'd be about the right age for that, except that Harriet Vane would be addressed as Lady Peter, and anyway she's fictional. I can tell the difference, really I can.”

“Help me. Please?”She gave him an abashed nod (but not nearly soabashed as she ought) and turned to Harriet. “I think that Lord Winstead refers to the rhyming qualities of the title.” Harriet blinked a few times. “It doesn’t rhyme.”“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Elizabeth burst out. “ Finstead Winstead?”Harriet’s gasp very nearly sucked the air from the room. “I never noticed!” she exclaimed.“Obviously,” her sister drawled.“I must have been thinking about you when I wrotethe play,” Harriet said to Daniel. From her expression, he gathered he was meant to feel flattered, so he tried to smile.”