She couldn’t help but smile when she approached the stile and saw the grin on Brice’s face. It was always nice to be greeted with happiness, something which only happened around this boy. Well, to be fair, her future in-laws tended to be delighted to see her, but she was pretty sure that was more for her social poise and child-bearing hips than because they actually liked her. Dahlia didn’t think Brice’s pleasure at seeing her had anything to do with social graces or her hips… well, maybe her hips. Still, she smiled at him in return and tried to steer him toward the river as quickly as possible, but he seemed to have other plans. He always seemed to have other plans, which was annoying and endearing all at the same time. She was about to tell him to come on, already when he presented her with an orange and yellow flower that she recognized before he made his next statement.

“It’s a dahlia for Dahlia.”

Her fingers reached out for the flower, grasping the stem above his hand, her skin brushing against his as she tried to receive her present. She looked up through her eyelashes at him, and she was about to tell him how silly he was, but he was suddenly trying to pull the flower away from her, and to prevent breaking it, she let it go.

“Merlin, that sounded so stupid. It sounded better in my head… Forget it...it was dumb.”

“Brice, it was fine—” she tried to say, but he was already entering full on sulk-mode, and she took the opportunity to drag him along, which had been her agenda all along. She wanted to get him out of sight of the house, of either house, and the sooner that happened, the better. There was still a chance that someone could see them, and while they were just visiting (so far), if her mother spotted them out of the window, they’d probably be fetched back to a more suitable location, like the garden–where Dahlia could practice playing hostess, instead of running wild like her sister. She glanced sideways at his little frown and furrowed brow, and she was trying to think of something encouraging to say, but then he stopped her.

“I tried to find the prettiest dahlia in the garden…but she’s already on my arm.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, plucking the flower from his hand before he could take it away again. Squeezing his arm, she pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “You are extremely silly, but I like it. Come on.” With the flower clutched tightly in one hand, she pulled him along with the other and ran and ran until she got to the river and their boat. The fact that her legs were on display did not cross her mind, and she had no idea it was giving Brice guilty thoughts. If she had, she might have flaunted them more. That Brice would have lusty thoughts had not really occurred to her, and she would have been extremely interested to know something like that. Of course, actually letting him act on those lusty thoughts was not going to happen… probably. Maybe. If he kept kissing her like that, she might be inclined to negotiate. This was like an idyllic little bubble of paradise, where they were the only two people in the world, but as much as she would like to stay with him like this forever, she was not a girl who could ignore reality.

She regretted saying anything, though, when he pulled back and looked at her like that; she had only meant that she wished they didn’t have to go to school and deal with anyone else. Her eyes locked with his for a moment, and she twisted her fingers through the curls on the nape of his neck. If things were different, she could have told him she loved him and that it would be all right and not to worry, darling. But she couldn’t do that, and he couldn’t say those things either. There was some sense of relief when he pulled away and helped her in the boat, and she took a moment to compose herself as she arranged her skirts over her knees and crossed her ankles delicately beneath the bench. She held onto the flower with one hand and the side of the boat with the other, as his method of boarding the boat was a barely controlled leap that shook the little wooden craft. “Oh, Brice,” she said, somewhat alarmed, but he recovered and was able to seat himself and take up the oars.

“Where too, Beautiful? … Want me to take you to the sea? I bet we could get halfway to the continent before anyone noticed I stole you away, if I rowed hard enough.”

Dahlia smiled at him. “Darling, I don’t think that would be a good idea. I don’t want to tire you out too soon. We have all afternoon. Just wherever the current takes us,” she commanded airily. Bringing the flower up to her nose, she inhaled the faint scent. Then, she looked over at Brice with a smile. “Do you remember,” she began, “when we first moved here, and you used to come to our tea parties? You always picked flowers for me, and I put them in your hair.” She supposed he was too old for flowers in his hair now, so she reached up and twisted the orange bloom into her own hair. “I was very jealous of your hair. Mine only curled because my mother always made me sleep with it all tied up in curling strips.” Even now, she had to spend a long time getting it to curl just right; she was used to it now, but sometimes it would be nice to have curly hair without so much effort. Stretching out one leg, she rested her bare ankle against his trouser cuff.

“Brice, I have to tell you something.”