As she always did on any really important day, Penelope Hayes wore red.

She was trying to sound tough and impatient, but she knew that vulnerable desire to be wooed was still brimming in her tone.

Already she could feel the stunning weight of a lifetime of regret for letting him go, and she knew that it was enought to bury her alive.

Among her other talents were forgetting what she did not like and ignoring what she preferred not to see.

Henry was thinking of the younger Holland sister of the way she could go from being an impetuous girl to a knowing woman in a few seconds and never lose the stars in her eyes.

She considered herself unconventional.

As she always did on any really important day, Penelope Hayes wore red.