“To me, yes, but shall I assume Mother’s broached courtship with you again?”
“We had a bit of an interesting conversation about an hour or so ago. I think she’s changed tactics because instead of trying to convince me that the two of us would make the perfect couple, she spent thirty minutes reciting passages that have anything to do with courtship from every etiquette book she’s ever read.”
“And you believe she’s doing that ... why?”
“Before I get to my suspicions, I must admit that her ability to conjure up pages from books she read eons ago is quite impressive. With that said, I think she’s decided I truly am woefully deficient when it comes to romance and obviously thinks that explaining the rules of courtship to me is a great way to lend me some assistance—although, the more she recited courtship rules, the more curious the conversation turned.”
“Because ...?”
“A few of the passages she recalled from memory centered around the idea that a newly courting couple should maintaina respectful distance at all times, as well as reserve most communications through written correspondence so thoughts can be expressed in a thoughtful and controlled manner.”
“We’ve never maintained distance between us, and I know I’ve never penned you a correspondence.”
Annaliese smiled. “Louisa realized that as well, which is when she began rolling through passages in her mind before speaking them out loud. She remained mute until she found a passage that revolved around the small gifts that a couple are expected to exchange, after which a formal engagement is announced, and that can last for a few months or even longer before the marriage takes place.” Her lips began to curve. “At that point, she muttered something about needing to talk to you about gifts as you’d been incredibly deficient with that, to which I thought, in order to spare you a lecture, it would be prudent to remind her of the gifts you’ve already given me.”
“I’m not certain I’m following the gist of this conversation.”
“I wasn’t either because reminding her that you made me habitats for my bug collection, and that you’d given me a spider sac, seemed to leave her with the belief that we’ve simply been being coy with her and have actually decided to enter into a courtship without telling anyone.”
Seth blinked. “How in the world would she come to that conclusion?”
“I suppose that was a result of mentioning to Louisa, after she said she didn’t consider a spider sac very romantic, that I thought it was very romantic indeed and had actually wanted to kiss you after you gave me that.”
“You never told me you were thinking about kissing me after I gave you that spider sac.”
She smiled. “True, but that was because I was unaware you’d been thinking about kissingmeand didn’t want to place you in an uncomfortable position. But returning to your mother, now that she knows without a doubt that I’ve been consideringkissing you, and she definitely thinks you’ve been considering kissing me, I think she might turn rather relentless with having us declare some type of formal arrangement.”
Seth blew out a breath. “I’ll speak to her because, as I’ve already told Norma Jean, you and I are more than capable of deciding how we want to proceed with whatever type of relationship we want to explore in the future. And, with that said, know that even if we do think about kissing each other, there’s no need for us to rush into anything.”
A brilliant smile was Annaliese’s first response to that, something that left his mind going curiously blank, a circumstance he experienced often whenever she smiled.
Before his thoughts had a chance to return to fine working order, though, Norma Jean came barreling back into view, clutching a pair of binoculars in her hands.
“Come quick,” she called, gesturing them forward. “The captain and I just spotted smoke, which means there’s someone on that island.”
Annaliese grabbed hold of his hand and tugged him after Norma Jean, not stopping until they reached the other side of the ship, where Norma Jean promptly thrust her binoculars into Annaliese’s hands, who raised them to her eyes a second later.
“That’s definitely smoke, so unless there was a lightning strike recently, someoneison that island,” Annaliese said.
“It’s your aunt Ottilie, I just know it, even though this isn’t the island on that map I took out of your sister’s office,” Norma Jean said.
“Are you certain about that?”
“Of course.” Norma Jean took the binoculars from Annaliese and returned to perusing the island again. “I read a book on sea navigation years ago so was able to figure out the longitude and latitudes of where that island on the map is. It’s over a hundred miles from here, but we’ll know soon enoughwhy Miss Ottilie Merriweather landed here since we’ll be able to ask her.”
Soon enough turned into over an hour as the captain was forced to drop anchor when they ran across reefs that were too dangerous to move the ship through.
“Charlie and Howard didn’t mention a thing about the reefs,” Norma Jean said.
“But they did mention they used a dinghy to get onto the island,” Annaliese pointed out before she began climbing down the rope ladder that led to the dinghy they were now being forced to use, Harriet chattering nonstop from the deck, probably because Annaliese had told her that she and Pippin had to stay behind.
Pippin, unlike Harriet, hadn’t seemed bothered in the least since she’d gone and curled up in a spot of sun and was already napping.
“You have to stay here and make certain Pippin doesn’t get into the bird room,” Louisa told Harriet before she followed Annaliese down the ladder.
Harriet stopped chattering, glanced at Pippin, then scrambled off in the direction of the room they were using to keep all the birds, where she’d undoubtedly park herself until Annaliese returned, making sure Pippin didn’t decide to help herself to a bird snack since ferrets had been known to snack on small birds every once and a while.
“It’s somewhat unnerving that Harriet seems to understand us so well,” Norma Jean said before she began climbing down the ladder as well.
