How many times had Sisse laughed with Sloane about a joke, chattered through a meal, run around in foolish games in front of Alvin, never thinking of him as anything more than Matthew? The easy years of her childhood had faded without her sparing a glance for the man who had shadowed plenty of their visits over breaks. She'd noticed him, it was impossible not to notice Sloane's handsome brothers, but she had always figured they thought of her only as a foolish young girl. And now? Now she had proven to him that she was nothing more than that. The knowledge hung between them like the mists of their breathes as they considered each other.

"I wouldn't mind the company." Sisse admitted. If she truly were a lady she ought to return inside, but it was clear that he considered her nothing more than a connection to his lost sister so where could the harm come in that? It wasn't as if he were Lester, drunk on fire whiskey, trying to voice words neither of them understood. No, she and Alivin both spoke the language of grief and that, beyond anything else, was what had tied them together since August. Nothing more. So she felt safe adding, "Would you like to join me? The gardens are so beautiful in the moonlight."

She could reconcile herself to this, reconcile herself to the fact that anything else she might have felt was merely as foolish an infatuation as it had been with Lester, and Ned, and Cam. It was not her fairy tale beginning. She could not let herself be that foolish young girl again. She was determined to be a lady and ladies didn't daydream about men who they had acted like foolish girls in front of.