The Garden Visit
Frederick could not find the letter.
He had searched his study three times—the desk drawers, the correspondence tray, the locked compartment where he kept documents too sensitive for casual viewing. Nothing. The letter was gone.
He tried to remember. He had been writing late, the candles burning low, the words spilling onto the page faster than he could govern them. When he had finished, he had folded the pages and—
The top drawer.
He had put it in the top drawer. Not the bottom, where he kept the other letters—the forty-two confessions he had written and never sent, locked away where no one would find them. The top drawer, where outgoing correspondence waited for Pemberton to collect.
No. Surely not. He would not have been so careless. He would not have—
"Pemberton." His voice emerged sharper than he intended. "A word."
His secretary appeared in the doorway, ledger in hand. "Your Grace?"
"The correspondence you sent out yesterday. What was included?"
"The usual items, Your Grace. The horse report for Miss Ashbourne, the Dowager's note to Lady Ashworth, Lady Penelope's letter regarding the wedding breakfast—" Pemberton paused, consulting his mental inventory.
"And a personal letter. Addressed to Miss Ashbourne in your hand.
I assumed it was meant to accompany the other correspondence, so I included it in the packet. "
The floor tilted beneath Frederick's feet.
"Your Grace? Is there a difficulty?"
"No." The word came out strangled. "No difficulty. That will be all."
Pemberton withdrew. Frederick stood motionless in the centre of his study, his mind cataloguing the disaster with brutal precision.
The top drawer. He had put the letter in the top drawer like a fool, like a man half-asleep, like a man who had wanted so desperately to send it that his hands had betrayed him.
She had read it. She had read every word—the confession, the wanting, the admission that he could not stop counting things that belonged to her. She knew. She knew everything.
He should write to her. He should apologise, explain that the letter was never meant to be sent, beg her forgiveness for burdening her with declarations she could not answer.
Instead, he called for his horse.
* * *
The garden had always been Florinda's sanctuary.
When Edwin had left her, she had come here—kneeling in the dirt, her hands buried in soil, coaxing life from seeds that did not care whether she was foolish or wise.
When Edward had announced she was to be sent away, she had walked these paths until her feet ached, cataloguing every bloom as though she might never see them again.
Now she sat in her wheeled chair among the roses, a trowel in her gloved hands and a flat of seedlings at her feet, and she told herself that the letter tucked beneath her mattress did not exist.
It did not exist. She had not read it fourteen times. She had not memorised the way his handwriting grew more ragged with each confession, the ink blots where his pen had pressed too hard, the crossed-out words that revealed how many times he had tried to say what he meant.
Dearest, Darling Florinda. I have no right to write those words, but I feel I might die if I do not.
She jabbed her trowel into the earth with more force than the seedlings required.
"Miss Florinda?" Martha's voice came from the garden door. "You have a visitor."
Florinda did not look up. "If it is another neighbour come to gawk at my splint, tell them I am indisposed."
"It is not a neighbour, miss."
The tone in Martha's voice made Florinda's hands go still.
She looked up.
Frederick stood in the garden doorway, a potted plant in his hands and an unreadable look on his face. He was dressed for riding—boots, breeches, a coat that fitted his shoulders with the precision of expensive tailoring. Behind him, the afternoon sun cast his features into sharp relief.
Florinda's heart stopped. Then it started again, beating far too fast.
"Your Grace." Her voice emerged steady. She was proud of that. "This is unexpected."
"I came to enquire after your recovery." He stepped into the garden, and the space that had felt like a sanctuary moments ago now felt impossibly small. "And to bring you this."
He held out the plant. It was an orchid—no, not an orchid. Stephanotis, with waxy white blooms and a fragrance that carried across the distance between them.
"From the Carthedge conservatory," he said. "I thought it might... that is, I recalled you admired the collection."
"You brought me a flower that symbolises marital happiness." The words escaped before she could stop them.
A muscle tightened in his jaw. "I brought you a flower that is difficult to cultivate and rewards patience."
"Ah." She set down her trowel. "A commentary, then."
Martha cleared her throat. "Shall I fetch refreshments, miss?"
"Yes, tea would be lovely." Florinda kept her voice steady. Normal. This was a normal visit from a neighbour enquiring after her health. "Is Hope still in the kitchen garden?"
"Running about with the cat, miss. Shall I call her in?"
"No, let her play. She will find us when she tires of tormenting poor Marmalade."
Martha bobbed a curtsey and retreated toward the house. Through the garden gate, Florinda could hear Hope's high voice scolding the cat for some imagined offence. A child. Playing nearby. A perfectly adequate chaperone for a perfectly proper visit.
Frederick's eyes followed Martha's retreat, then flicked toward the gate where Hope's voice carried. "Lady Raventhorn's daughter?"
"My sister." The word still felt strange on her tongue. "Half-sister, I suppose, though Margot would scold me for the distinction. She is three years old and convinced that cats should learn to curtsey."
"A reasonable expectation."
"Marmalade disagrees."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Not quite.
* * *
Frederick had not planned what to say.
He had ridden the three miles from Carthedge to Ashbourne with his mind churning through a thousand openings—apologies, explanations, desperate pleas for her to forget what she had read. None of them had seemed adequate. None of them had captured the magnitude of what he had done.
Now he stood in her garden, the stephanotis clutched in his hands like a shield, and honour demanded his silence.
She knew. He could see it in the careful way she did not quite meet his eyes, in the steadiness of her voice that was a fraction too controlled. She had read every word, and she was not going to speak of it, and he—
He would not either. He could not. To acknowledge the letter would be to make it real, and if it became real, he would have to act upon it, and acting upon it would destroy them both.
"Your roses are thriving," he said instead.
She blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"The roses." He gestured vaguely at the blooms surrounding them. "They appear... healthy."
"They are roses, Your Grace. They require very little beyond sun and water and the occasional firm word."
"You speak firmly to your roses?"
"When they require it." She picked up her trowel again, turning it over in her gloved hands. "The yellow ones are particularly stubborn. They sulk if not pruned correctly."
"I did not know roses could sulk."
"All living things sulk, Your Grace. Some are merely more obvious about it than others."
They were discussing roses. He had ridden three miles in a cold sweat, certain that his life was about to collapse around him, and now they were discussing the temperament of yellow roses whilst a three-year-old scolded a cat in the kitchen garden.
It was absurd. It was also the only conversation he could bear to have.
"How is your recovery progressing?" he asked. "Dr. Blackwell's reports have been encouraging."
"You receive reports on my recovery?"
"I—" He stopped. Swallowed. "The accident occurred on my land. It seemed appropriate to monitor your progress."
"How conscientious of you."
"It is merely—"
"Duty. Yes." She set down her trowel. "You are very devoted to duty, Your Grace."
The words hung between them. Neither acknowledged what lay beneath them.
* * *
He was too close.
Florinda could feel the heat of him—the warmth radiating from his body, the faint trace of sandalwood and horse and a deeper note underneath that was simply Frederick.
She could see the rapid pulse at the base of his throat, the way his hands had tightened around the pot until his knuckles went white.
He set the stephanotis on the garden bench—carefully, as though it were precious, as though his hands needed to be occupied. Then he moved closer, and closer still, until he stood beside her chair.
"You have dirt on your face," he said softly.
"I was gardening."
"Yes." His voice had gone rough. "I can see that."
His hand rose.
She watched it move—watched his fingers drift toward her cheek as though drawn by a force neither of them could control.
The distance between his touch and her skin narrowed.
Inches. Then less than inches. She could feel the ghost of his warmth against her face, the promise of contact that would change everything.
From the kitchen garden, Hope's voice rang out: "Marmalade, you are a very naughty cat!"
Frederick's hand stopped. Hovering. The space between them electric.
"Penelope," Florinda said, her voice soft. "Penelope will make you a good wife."
His hand dropped.
The distance between them—which had been inches, which had been nothing—became a chasm.
He stepped back, his face smoothing into the mask she remembered from the entrance hall at Carthedge, from the morning room, from every formal interaction they had endured whilst pretending they were nothing to each other.
"Yes," he said. His voice was steady. Only his eyes betrayed him. "Yes, she will."
* * *
He should leave.
He had come here to—what? To apologise without apologising? To stand in her garden and almost touch her face whilst she sat surrounded by flowers and a three-year-old scolded a cat beyond the garden wall?
Penelope will make you a good wife.