I leaned into him and laughed.
We moved west down the Steine toward the Pavilion’s expansive front lawn, where various guards stood at attention as we approached. Blue shutters framed the windows on either side of the Pavilion’s dome-roofed centerpiece, rounded with pillars at the entrance. Another, newer, building stood just beside it.
“Now that you’ve found such success, perhaps there aremany people who would not mind your focus shifting,” I mused. “Less of the day-to-day toward more of ... forever.”
“Oh?” Graham stared straight ahead, his features betraying nothing. He led me down a footpath lined with flowers, and we rounded a tall hedgerow. “People such as ... ?”
“Look at that.” I breathed in the sight as our steps hit the grassy lawn and the scene changed. Bushes of brightly colored flowers marched along dirt footpaths leading around the house. Where Brighton itself fell into disarray, the Pavilion’s lawns were primly manicured. Trees stood in stately rows, and I wanted to linger under their shade and rest.
I spotted some unusual orange flowers to our right, and I tugged Graham along the footpath. He slowed our pace, and though I did not want to release his arm, I crouched low, bringing a bloom to my nose. So sweet and smooth and absolutely beautiful.
“Look at this!” I called to Graham. “Is it not the most interesting flower you’ve ever seen?”
“We’ve only just started,” he said. “There is much more to see. Huge bushes of roses are just down the path.”
“Posh, roses. Look atthese. I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“Are roses not your favorite flower? Your house is always littered with them.”
“A testament, I should think, to the lack of originality among your sex.” I inhaled another sweet bloom.
“No one knows your favorite flower?” The idea seemed to befuddle him beyond reason.
“No one has ever asked.”
I shouldn’t have said it, because Graham spent theentirety of the Marine Pavilion’s west lawns trying to unriddle me.
“Is it a daisy?”
“No. Heavens no.” I tried losing him down a trail of rounded bushes, but he followed me.
“A lily?”
I laughed at his persistence, then reached a hand inside a cluster of tall grass to uncover a hidden blossom, blue with yellow stripes. “No.”
He waited until I popped back up to say, “Tulip, then?”
“Graham.” We were rounding the house, eyed by guards standing at the ready, and I tried to look like I belonged. I could spend all day wandering the footpaths and admiring the flowers.
Graham stole around me, stopping me in place. “Put me out of my misery. Please.”
I cast him a weary glance. “Red as roses, black at the heart.”
His brow knitted together. “Carnations?”
“Poppies,” I said with exasperation.
He scrunched his nose. “Aren’t those a weed?”
“They are not!” I tried, despite my humor, to be appalled. “And I thought you’d promised to be nice!”
He laughed, hands raised in defense. “I am nice. But poppies are so easy to grow. They are ... common.”
“They are perfect. They make a simple field beautiful. They can paint a whole scene red.”
He considered my words. Then, as though to be certain, he said, “Field poppies?”
I nodded once. “Poppies.”
