The Courtship of Henrietta Pink and the Viscount du Pac

From Her Lady's journals:

I cannot tell precisely when it was that we met. Undoubtedly at some crowded event--I was always surrounded by people in those days. Surely we crossed paths at more than one party. We must have danced, though I don't recall it.

But the parties changed to lunches and the lunches to morning walks--strange that the early hours of the day are the most intimate. Perhaps it was the quiet, for we rarely talked unless it was to the birds. He would say something, laugh, and turn to confer with the long-lived crows that watched the grounds. Eventually I learned enough of their language to hear bits, but I've never taken to twittering on my own.

He was shy but dressed himself in yellows. Large, but graceful. His hands were stained the color of cherries, and he whistled faultlessly, if tunelessly. He smelled of dirt and water and of days in the sun and his skin was waxen in the way of very fat men. But if his waistcoats were wide, so were his orchards, and we married after a year. I wore a pink bow in my hair that day and ever after.

And after two years of marriage, I found the hedgemaze.