#*meme responses

Something about the atmosphere of the girls' bunks had lent itself to sharing secrets in the dark, where one could be less easily identified, and therefore speak far more freely. Whispered confessions had been tossed out into the darkness for several long minutes now, ranging from silly things to true confessionals. Kate was barely paying attention, in truth; she'd had a bit too much to drink at dinner, and a bit too little food, and was feeling the rocking of the moored ship as thoroughly as if she was still out to sea.

She was rather sure it had been Miss Vane who had been the one to ask if she was alright, but it could have been anyone, really, and it was that thought –– a nameless, faceless, beautiful woman in the dark, listening to her confessional like a Catholic Saint –– that truly loosened her tongue.

Under the cut

It had started with a walk, a simple turn around the grove before their evening meal, to get their bodies acclimated back to solid ground and for Kate to –– well, there was a multitude of reasons. It had been a few days since she'd seen Will at the market. Part of her wanted to know what his mother had thought of the bouquet she'd helped him with. A smaller, softer part of her wanted to tell him that she'd pressed the delicate petals of the hydrangea he'd given her into her sketchbook, and that it lived within those pages even now. But the last thing she wanted to do was make her friend uncomfortable by calling attention to his actions. For all that he was kind, for all that he listened, for all that he heard and understood, she knew that if she were to call attention to his gift, he'd pull away and she'd see neither hide nor hair of him for a fortnight, if not longer.

Will had sent her that flower precisely because he would not (or could not) articulate those words to her. She would never torture him by trying to force him into speech when he had no words.

And so she –– wound as tight as a spring and full of tension from the events on her boat –– saw Will standing near the tables laden with food, and felt her muscles begin to relax. Mere moments later, they were walking through the grove in companionable quiet, and Kate had the distinct feeling they were both soaking in the silence, allowing it to ease the events of the day like hot bathwater running over their skin. Or maybe she was just projecting. Either way, she, at least, was grateful to have seen him.

They'd had no chance at all to speak of what had happened on the ship, as they'd docked and disembarked in such a rapid swirl of movement that it had all felt rather like being caught in the swell of a wave. Interestingly –– he'd held onto her hand through most of it, letting go only once she'd made it safely off of the ship and back onto solid ground. And then he'd disappeared, gone so quickly and efficiently that she wondered, for a moment, if she'd imagined the whole thing. Then she caught a glimpse of Lady Fitzroy's upturned nose and lifted chin, and she'd stormed off in search of a very stiff drink to ease the rising flush in her cheeks and the tops of her ears.

She'd meant to find him after dinner, meant to apologize; after all, she'd put him in a deeply awkward and uncomfortable position, not to mention had assumed a great deal in her actions, and she was overthinking and rethinking all of her decisions so much that she nearly missed it entirely; some time during the evening meal, she realized that Lord Thorne was stealing glances at her just as often as she was stealing them at him, and when they finally managed to overlap with one another, he tilted his head minutely towards one of the willow trees near the shore, raised an eyebrow, and then promptly excused himself.

Her heart thundering so hard that she felt like she could hear her own blood roaring in her ears, she counted silently to twenty and then stood up as well, making her own excuses about fresh air. After reassuring her cousin that she was fine, she merely needed a walk to aid in her digestion, she quickly made her own way to the willow tree that he'd disappeared behind a few moments before. By the time she felt the first few branches sweep over her shoulders, her heart had managed to worm itself all the way up to her throat. It was stuck there, thick and solid and cutting off all power of speech until she saw him, leaning against the tree, and all the air seemed to leave her in a rush.

"It's easy, I promise!" Kate laughed, looking to her cousin-in-law for reassurance. Instead, Lucy dropped the armful of sticks onto the ground with great flourish, and Kate burst into giggles. "Alright, well, that's how the game is started," she laughed, crouching down with only the smallest amount of grace. She wobbled for a moment, forward, and then back, only to have Lucy steady her shoulder. The other woman was laughing too, but keeping a far better control of her facial expression than Kate was, and the blonde took a deep breath, trying to steady her breathing and laughing enough to continue explaining. "So now I just –– I just grab a stick," she explained, delicately picking at one of the tangled up sticks, beginning to edge it out of the pile. "And I pull it out of the pile, and if I knock over any of the other sticks, then I have to end my turn, but if I get it out without disturbing them," she pulled the stick out nimbly, waiting with baited breath for a second to make sure that nothing fell over before continuing, "then I get to go again! And at the end, the one with the most sticks wins! Easy!"

Lucy chimed in then, pointing out that the blue sticks were worth more than the yellow ones, and the red were worth the most, but Kate frowned. "No, it's the other way 'round," she said, "blue is worth the most, then yellow, then red."

smol squad smol squad smol squad