Free Like a Flower in Bloom by Siri Mitchell Page A

everything, soit shouldn’t take long. Until then, however, it’s necessary to continue pretending that marriage is in fact my intention. That should make my absence even more dire.”
    “That’s brilliant, Miss Withersby! You’ve such lovely hair to go with those brown eyes of yours. And such pretty ears—I daresay you’ve the ankles to match? With your fashionable figure, you could attract even the most confirmed of bachelors. Do let me help!”
    I wondered . . . should I tell her about the flowers on her dress? Would it be considered impolite? My uncle had said that I must treat others as I would like to be treated, and I would certainly wish to know that the embroidery on my dress was a gross misrepresentation of nature.
    She looked at me with a keen-eyed gaze. “You miss your rambles, don’t you.”
    “I do. I cannot lie.”
    She linked an arm through mine. “Then we should go on a ramble ourselves, you and I.”
    “Perhaps we could go tomorrow.” I eyed her dress again. Really, the mistake was quite glaring.
    “Tomorrow!” She seemed rather startled with the idea, even though it had been her own. But then she smiled again. “I would look forward to it if it weren’t Sunday.”
    “I don’t see why it should matter. I could meet you at half-past five, I should think. Depending upon where you live and how long it will take me to walk there, of course.”
    “Half past five? I’m quite a lazy creature, Miss Withersby—you can ask anyone who knows me—but isn’t that rather late for a ramble?”
    “I suppose I could meet you a bit earlier, at four, perhaps, but with the sun not rising until six, I don’t quite know what we’ll be able to accomplish.”
    “You meant in the morning ? Oh!” Her laughter rang through the room. “To have the pleasure of my company, on most days you’ll have to wait until at least ten. I’m really quite decadent, I must warn you.”
    “Ten . . . ?” By ten I would normally be investigating the specimens I’d collected, but nothing was as it normally had been, and I wasn’t to be working. I was supposed to be engaged in finding a husband. “I suppose ten would be fine. On Monday, then?”
    “I’ll feel ever so industrious! But not on Monday. I’ll need a day to contemplate this and work up to the endeavor. Shall we say Tuesday?”
    I agreed. “I wonder, Miss Templeton, may I tell you something?”
    Her brows peaked. “Please do.”
    “Do you know that the flowers on your dress haven’t got the right number of petals?”
    She glanced down at it. “I had no idea.”
    “Some of them have five petals and some have six, and although that’s possible considering that different varieties of the strawberry have different numbers of petals, I would assume that your dress is meant to depict just one variety, wouldn’t you?”
    “Why, I’d never given it a thought!”
    “I wouldn’t have mentioned it, except that I thought you might want to be made aware of it.”
    She grasped my hand. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t told me, but now that I know, I can’t think that I’ll be able to wear this again with a clear conscience.” She paused and glanced about the room. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper. “Do you think anyone else has noticed?”
    I didn’t see how they could have failed to, the omission was rather glaring, but if she hadn’t noticed, then maybe . . . “Has anyone else mentioned it?”
    “No . . . no, they have not.”
    “Then perhaps they haven’t. You can hope so in any case.”
    “I do hope you’re right. I am certain that, if Mrs. Bickwith has seen the fault, she would have found some way to tell me by now. She’s really quite spiteful.”
    She’d been nice to me. She’d even given me a compliment. “The man my father took on in my place is like that. He never ceases to tell me of the mistakes I’ve made. Or those I’m about to make.”
    “Is he one of those pompous sorts, with a loud