Slowly, Marcus released her and took a step back.
“Can I come with you?” she asked.
“No!” Daniel practically howled.
And the truth was, Marcus didn’t really want her company, either. She was six. And a girl. “We’re going to be very busy,” he said, but he lacked Daniel’s indignation.
“Please?”
Marcus groaned. She looked so forlorn, standing there with tear-stained cheeks. Her light-brown hair, parted on the side and pulled back with some kind of clip, hung rather straight and limp, ending in straggle just below her shoulders. And her eyes—almost the exact shade of Daniel’s, an arrestingly unique shade of light purplish-blue; they were huge, and wet, and—
“I told you not to make eye contact,” Daniel said.
Marcus groaned. “Maybe just this once.”
“Oh, goody!” She leapt straight up into the air, bringing to mind a surprised cat, then gave Marcus an impulsive （but thankfully quick） hug. “Oh, thank you, Marcus! Thank you! You are the absolute best! The best of the best!” She narrowed her eyes and shot a look over at Daniel that was frighteningly adult. “Unlike you.”
His expression was equally malevolent. “I take pride in being the absolute worst.”
“I don’t care,” she announced. She grabbed Marcus’s hand. “Shall we go?”
He looked down at her hand in his. It was an utterly foreign sensation, and a strange and somewhat unpleasant feeling began to flutter in his chest that he belatedly realized was panic. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held his hand. His nurse, maybe? No, she had liked to grab his wrist. She got a better grip that way, he once heard her tell the housekeeper.
Had his father? His mother, sometime before she had died?
His heart pounded, and he felt Honoria’s little hand grow slick in his. He must be sweating, or she was, although he was fairly certain it was he.
He looked down at her. She was beaming up at him.
He dropped her hand. “Er, we have to go now,” he said awkwardly, “while the light is good.”
Both Smythe-Smiths looked at him curiously. “It’s barely noon,” Daniel said. “How long did you want to go fishing?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said defensively. “It might take a while.”
Daniel shook his head. “Father just stocked the lake. You could probably swing a boot through the water and catch a fish.”
Honoria gasped with glee.
Daniel turned on her in an instant. “Don’t even think about it.”
“But—”
“If my boots end up anywhere near the water I swear I will have you drawn and quartered.”
She pouted and looked down, muttering, “I was thinking about my boots.”
Marcus felt a little laugh bubble over his lips. Honoria immediately looked back up, regarding him with an expression of utter betrayal.
“It would have to be a very small fish,” he said quickly.
This did not seem to satisfy her.
“You can’t eat them when they’re that small,” he tried. “They’re mostly bones.”
“Let’s go,” Daniel muttered. And they did, tramping off through the woods, Honoria’s little legs pumping at double speed, just to keep up.
“I’m not fond of fish, actually,” she said, keeping up a steady stream of chatter. “They smell horrid. And they taste fishy . . .”
And then, on the way back—
“。 . . I still think that pink one looked big enough to eat. If you liked fish, which I don’t. But if you did like fish . . .”
“Do not ever invite her to come with us again,” Daniel said to Marcus.
“。 . . which I don’t. But I think Mother likes fish. And I am sure she would like a pink fish . . .”
“I won’t,” Marcus assured him. It seemed the height of rudeness to criticize a little girl, but she was exhausting.
“。 . . although Charlotte wouldn’t. Charlotte hates pink. She won’t wear it. She says it makes her look gaunt. I don’t know what gaunt means, but it sounds unpleasant. I like lavender, myself.”
The two boys let out identical sighs and would have kept walking except that Honoria jumped in front of them and grinned. “It matches my eyes,” she said.
“The fish?” Marcus asked, glancing down at the bucket in his hand. There were three nice-sized trout bumping up against the sides. There would have been more, except that Honoria had accidentally kicked the bucket, sending Marcus’s first two prizes back into the lake.