Since being brought home while en-route to Gretna Green by her sisters and Anna, Sybil hadn't slept a wink. She waited anxiously for Tom's return. As she waited, absent-mindedly staring out the window to the acres beyond, her mind drifted to their conversation last night, a loving exchange that slowly sauntered to silence moments before they were interrupted. Luckily.
"Why did you wait so long?" he had asked as he placed the blanket over her and sat down.
"I don't know," she had replied, "maybe because I was scared of my own emotions."
"You?" he questioned, "Scared? That's not the Sybil I know."
She didn't know whether it was his calming, warm, solid accent or his beautiful deep blue eyes that rendered her speechless but when she broke out of her hypnotic trance she explained:
"Even you know I can be quite reserved, I like to know things for certain and keep them buried until I do. But I don't know why it took me so long to realise – I've been in love with you since our first exchange. Since we first discussed politics,"
They had giggled and the silence encroached on them as they gazed longingly into one another's eyes. A few minutes longer and something might have happened; something that her family, especially Mary, would severely disapprove of. It would break grandmother's heart if not send it into attack first.