Cash. She hadn't even thought about Cash, and—should she have been thinking about Cash? Like her other friends Frida had centered her daydreaming on handsome, charming, unrelated strangers, but then none of her friends were from the type of families who regularly married their cousins. Maybe she should consider Cash—or if not him, one of her other unmarried male cousins. How many did she have, anyways? She didn't think there were that many...

But she was getting off-focus. Smoothed her hair back over her head and gave herself one last cursory glance before turning around to look at Gretchen. It was much easier to hold a conversation face-to-face, or so she'd thought. "No, of course not," she said, a redness rising up her neck at the mere thought of harboring some secret beau. She wasn't bold enough to exchange letters with some gentleman; not only would she have failed to hide her reactions while reading them, but she also had no idea what she'd even write! She wasn't a Gretchen. "I only thought... you might... have... someone... in mind." Her words did not come out as smoothly as intended. She stumbled through them as if she realized halfway through she was letting onto something she knew, only to try and recover when she realized her words weren't as damning as she'd thought. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and she tried not to look as guilty as she felt.

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