Chapter 7: Petra's First Deliberate Miracle

The morning that Society chose to admire the Thames was, by common consensus, the finest the capital had produced in a fortnight: clear-skied, with a river breeze that carried the smell of tidal mud and November apples and the particular cold freshness that Londoners, who lived predominantly indoors, could appreciate in principle without being required to endure in practice. Mrs. Alderton, who had organized the expedition with the systematic enthusiasm she brought to any scheme that could be described as improving, had arranged for a company of fourteen to assemble at Waterloo Bridge by half past ten, admire the view from a respectable elevation, descend to the embankment for light refreshment, and disperse before the afternoon chill made the enterprise anything other than charming.

She had not arranged for Lord Riverton's boat.

Petra arrived at the bridge with her mother, who had spent the carriage ride establishing that fourteen was an excellent number for a party of this kind—sufficient variety for useful circulations, insufficient size to lose track of Lord Stormcroft's position—and Mr. Fennwick, who had spent it rereading his own marginal annotations about riparian divine precedent in a small volume he had, characteristically, brought in his coat pocket.