Of course it wasn't the view of the lake she was after at all, but rather the privacy of being out of earshot from the rest of the festivities. She made pointless conversation as they wandered until they had reached a point where she felt assured of not being overheard, at which point Juliana stopped prattling abruptly.

"There's something I would like to discuss," she announced, though she assumed he had gathered this from her suggestion to walk around the lake and then how she'd left off mid-sentence in her discussion of the upcoming fireworks. He wasn't stupid. If she was, she wouldn't necessarily need to have this conversation... but then, if he was stupid, she wouldn't have agreed to the marriage at all. Juliana considered her fingernails and toyed her thumb over one ragged cuticle (she had never been particularly good at taking care of her hands).

"I believe a marriage ought to be founded on mutual respect and trust," she began. "That there shouldn't be secrets between us, at least not ones of any consequence. So — there's something I should tell you."

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