“What a wonderful tribute to our mother and Wynter’s brother.” Summer watched Autumn from the corner of her eye as she spoke. For a moment, she thought the youngest Season was going to start in on her again, but Spring gave a quick shake of her head and Autumn subsided back into her chair with a pout.
The name of Dilys Merimydion did not come up again.
All morning long, Summer saw butterflies. They were everywhere, flapping their gorgeous wings with lazy grace. Reminding Summer constantly of the exotic sea prince who’d sent them.
Autumn was wrong. Dilys wasn’t groveling. Despite the hundreds of cards pleading for forgiveness, these extravagant gestures weren’t apologies. They were planned attacks meant to weaken her defenses.
Ever since that day in the grotto, Dilys Merimydion had made himself both scarce and omnipresent. Never approaching her, keeping his distance, but making sure she remained wholly and completely aware of him every minute of the day. Parading around in the brightest ofshumasclearly meant to draw her eye, his body oiled and gleaming in the sunlight. Stripping down to the very, very tiny linen undergarment all the Calbernans apparently wore beneath theirshumaand swimming in the fjord beneath her bedroom balcony each morning and evening. (And, gods forgive her, she’d actually begun to look forward to those times.) Invading every part of her life—including her dreams, for Halla’s sake!—until she couldn’t go five minutes without thinking about him.
Groveling. Ha!
The day that man truly groveled would be the day fire reined in Rorjak’s dominion of ice.
But... all right... the butterflies were beautiful. And romantic. And just about the loveliest gift she could ever imagine.
She walked down a hall that led past a row of wide, arching palladium windows overlooking the gardens. The windows were open to let in the summer breeze, and a gorgeous, rare blue lacewing butterfly was perched on the sill, airing its magnificent wings. Those wings were bursting with vibrant colors: royal blue, turquoise, periwinkle, teal, and countless shades in between, all interspersed with delicate tracings of purest black and bright, glimmering whispers of sunshine yellow. The wings fluttered open and shut, so fragile, almost ephemeral, their undersides dusted with pink and silver along the scalloped edges. The butterfly was impossibly beautiful.
Entranced against her will, she watched it sit there on the sill, basking in the sun, until the sound of childish laughter and familiar masculine voices yanked her back to her senses.
“Dilys! Dilys! Dilys!”
Dilys and his cousins and a dozen or so children were playing a game of kickball on the grass. She’d seen Dilys surrounded by children many times. They gravitated to him wherever he went. Probably because of the easy, wholehearted way he gave them both his time, attention, and affection.
He would make an exceptional father.
Outside, a young boy had stepped up to the kickball home plate. Dilys, who was acting as bowler, rolled the inflated leather ball towards home plate. The child gave the ball a mighty kick, sending it careening left, past Dilys and between second and third bases. The opposing team, which included Ari and Ryll, cheered as their players raced around the bases. In the outfield, two young boys on Dilys’s team went chasing after the ball, but before they even reached it, the kicker had rounded third base and was heading home.
As Dilys turned to congratulate the kicker, he glanced over in Gabriella’s direction. Their gazes locked, and they both froze. The laughter on Dilys’s face faded to something warmer, deeper. Something entrancing and impossibly beautiful.
“Dilys! Heads up!” someone called a warning a split second before the leather kickball bonked Dilys on the head, sending him staggering sideways. The young outfielder who’d thrown the ball called, “Sorry, Dilys!” then ruined the apology by doubling over with laughter.
Instead of getting mad, Dilys let out a mock roar, snatched up the ball, and went chasing after the child, who squealed and started running.
Freed from the dangerous enchantment of Dilys’s gaze, Summer drew back into the shadows of the palladium arches and watched the kickball game devolve into a laughing game of tag and tickle. When she realized she was laughing softly at Dilys’s antics, she straightened up quick and gave herself a hard shake.
“Summer, you are an idiot. An easily manipulated idiot!” She scowled at the blue lacewing perched on the sill. “Shoo!” she said. She flicked her fingers at it. “Shoo!”
The butterfly just kept fanning its wings.
Summer could have lunged at it and scared it away, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. With a sigh and for her own weakness, she tucked her chin down and turned away.
The basket was waiting for her that evening when she returned to her room to dress for dinner.
A big basket, woven of thin brown reeds, covered with a red-and-white checked cloth, perched in the center of her bed.
Telling herself she’d just have a look at the basket’s contents before calling Amaryllis to take it away, Summer walked over to the bed. As she drew near, a sharp little bark broke the silence of her room, only slightly muffled by the checkered cloth.
Summer froze.
Another bark. Then another. The basket rocked as what lay within jumped from side to side beneath the cover.
Summer’s heart slammed against her chest. Her fingers curled tight. No. No, he hadn’t given her a...
“Arf! Arf! Arf!”
She whipped the checkered cloth off the basket and stared at the floppy-eared, golden-furred bundle of mischief leaping enthusiastically about inside the basket on four little paws.
Dilys Merimydion had given her a puppy!
