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It started out as a joke more than anything.
Lady Alice Kirkland - the youngest omega daughter of Count James Kirkland - had been on a pleasant evening stroll with her definitely-not-suitor, Amelia Jones, when the young alpha Lord had dipped down, plucked some bright violet wildflowers from the side of the road and presented them to her with an overly-flourished bow. Alice had scowled at them, then at Amelia when the other woman laughed that she should’ve known Alice wasn’t enough of a ‘sappy romantic’ to appreciate flowers. Alice had scoffed at her comment and pressed the flowers between the pages of the book in her hands to stubbornly prove the alpha wrong.
From then on, Alice kept at least one flower from the bouquets Amelia gifted her. Perfect white daisies, violet columbines, pale blue harebells, bright yellow and red poppies. The longer she was courted by her now-definitely suitor, the more her collection grew. The colorful array of wildflowers was tucked away in her favorite book, the very same one that she’d been carrying that day, which sat on the lowest shelf of her bookcase, ready to read at a moment's notice.
She couldn’t bring herself to get rid of them. The small cluster of those bright, flattened flowers was a testament to their relationship, told their story in an abstract sort of way. A picnic in the rolling fields of Alice’s father’s estate underneath the warm summer sun capped with a bouquet of purple-tipped Field scabious. An exhilarating ride through the woods ended with a bundle of blue bluebells. A garden escape from a terribly droll social event closed with a handful of delicate, pink foxglove.
Amelia was wrong, in the end. At least partially. Alice may not have been the sappy, drooling, eyes-for-no-one-but-my-alpha type of omega, but it seemed that she was sentimental. And what had started as a running joke between the both of them had turned into an unintentional tradition that she couldn’t bring herself to admit had snuck its way into her heart.
Her soon-to-be mate, however, had no idea. And if Alice had it her way, Amelia never would. She doubted that Amelia knew just how much those little moments meant to her, or how attached she was to the kaleidoscope cluster of flowers tucked away in that book, and Alice was too proud and stubborn to confess it to her.
Of course, Amelia - loud, thoughtful, nosy , Amelia - found out anyway. It’d been an accident, according to her. The two had been packing to leave for their honeymoon and had just finished loading the carriage to the train station when Amelia had gone back to their room to get the overcoat that she’d forgotten and noticed Alice had left her favorite book on the shelf. The alpha had grabbed it, convinced her mate would miss it during their long journey, noticed the light tale-tell colors of a forget-me-not’s petals peaking from the yellowed pages, and opened it to discover her colorful hoard of wildflowers scattered amongst its pages.
Amelia had returned to Alice then, book in hand and wide, knowing smile on her face, and returned it to its rightful owner, which flustered the poor woman. Alice really didn’t want to ask, for some reason the thought of Amelia discovering her secret made nerves flutter up in her stomach, but not knowing was most certainly worse.
“What’s wrong with you?” she finally asked a couple of minutes after their carriage had left the estate. When Amelia’s cornflower eyes flickered down to the book in her hands, Alice knew .
“Nothing,” her wife answered, a hint of amusement lacing her voice. “Just…wildflowers?”
A scarlet blush warmed Alice’s cheeks as soon as she said it and she ran her finger along the book's worn edges to avoid Amelia’s gaze. “Shut up.”
There was a stretching silence, one that caused Alice to look up just as Amelia’s grin turned soft and loving. “I love you.”
Alice laced her fingers with Amelia’s and smiled. “I love you too.”