Chapter 20
Eliza
Tensions in the manor only seemed to increase with each meeting that Jasper had with his attorneys.
The staff had been with Jasper so long that even if they were unaware of why his father’s appearance was so unusual, the estate flowed with their unanimous support for Jasper, but it was impossible to ignore the mysteriousness of the situation.
The media, which had only just begun to fizzle out after the pictures of Jasper holding the shotgun had surfaced, were now back in full force, with Darius Blackwood being revealed to be still alive.
It seemed to vary daily, but most recently they had spun it that Jasper had hired a man to claim to be his father in the hopes of clearing his name.
The media had latched on to the story that would get them the most hits.
Even the ones that were close to the truth remained buried in the sea of lies.
Ever since Darius Blackwood had walked out the doors of the manor, the ghost of his wife had been incredibly active and seemed to be in a near panic.
My lip was still swollen and burned from whatever type of devil rose had crawled from the locket and lashed out at me.
It had swollen so big I had hardly been able to talk for at least an hour; thankfully, my dinner with Jasper was the following night, and the only one I ended up talking to that night was myself, while I tried to tell myself that everything was all right when the creaks and pops filled my room.
No real harm had seemed to come from the rose, which I just avoided.
I couldn’t understand if Hester had sent it to me to tell me some sort of message or if she just wanted to lash out in frustration.
When I’d initially seen the beautiful depressed spirit of Hester, empathy had overridden the majority of my fear.
Now, though, I didn’t know what to think.
Deep down, I believed she was not violent or malicious, only frustrated and lacking the ability to communicate things she so desperately wanted to.
I didn’t know the rules of being a ghost or why she couldn’t spell out in the locket what it was she wanted to tell me, but it seemed, in the afterlife, things weren’t allowed to be quite so simple.
Even with my generous interpretation of Hester’s behavior, I had begun to grow more terrified.
Nearly every time I was alone, something eerie or frightening would happen, sending my already taut nerves into overdrive.
Sometimes, it was so subtle that I wondered again if I was being paranoid and imagining things, but those thoughts didn’t stick around for very long before something far less subtle would take place, reassuring me of its validity and of her frustrated presence.
After yet another long and restless night, I had come to the conclusion that I was going to tell Jasper that she appeared to me.
There was a part of me that felt deceptive in keeping such an important fact from him, and in truth, I’d only been keeping it from him in fear that he had murdered Hester and that telling him would put me in serious danger.
And yes, I know I still didn’t have any foolproof evidence that he wasn’t the one to murder her, but I knew he wasn’t capable of something so horrendous…
or at least I really hoped that was the case.
If I found out it was all a lie, I didn’t know what I’d do.
With the way that Hester had gone absolutely feral with the return of her husband, I put my money on Darius as the murderer, though it still didn’t make sense why he would have left Jasper in the manor and not taken him…
It was almost like Darius was afraid of him, the way he had seemingly left him to rot in the manor alone.
Jasper and I were having dinner tonight, and I found myself getting excited and nervous as the day went on.
I had talked myself in and out of the actual dinner at least four times, but as of now, I was looking forward to it.
The first time we met, I had felt the spark of something with him, though then it was through challenges and sharp banter—he brought out the Eliza I always wanted to be: bold and witty.
Every day that passed in the manor, I found myself hoping I’d bump into him in the hallway or that he’d find me in the conservatory.
Initially, I had felt sort of ashamed of it—that wasn’t why I was here, and he most definitely was not a good idea, but I couldn’t help it.
I rarely had dinner outside of the garden, as I usually just grabbed something from the kitchen and brought it back, so sitting down and having company for dinner sounded nice.
Would something more happen tonight? Would we finally kiss?
Should I try and stop it? I should most definitely not let him touch me.
My looming deadlines grew heavier and heavier with each passing hour, laying pressure on my sore shoulders.
If I couldn’t get some of these rare propagations back to Pinehurst, then they weren’t likely to have enough funding to make it, at least not without cutting their newest staff members, which, unfortunately, included me.
Jasper had been kind enough to invite some of a nearby town’s well-known philanthropists in the hopes of Pinehurst receiving more donations.
Still, I felt the overwhelming, suffocating pressure that it all sat on my shoulders.
Sometimes, propagations were unsuccessful; I didn’t know what I’d do if these didn’t take.
The irony of it all was everything landed in the hands of the corpse flower.
I had already been forced to change the date of the party, pushing it up as it became clearer the bloom was going to happen sooner.
The phallic-looking specimen was my only solid beacon of hope.
I couldn’t harvest a propagation from the corpse flower while it was blooming because the corm was in the plant’s underground storage organ, which typically takes years to grow and mature.
During blooming, the plant expended a lot of energy on its reproduction, so I couldn’t dig up the tuber without potentially harming the plant.
I had to wait until after it had completed its blooming cycle and started to die back.
This was when the corm could be separated carefully from the rest of the plant for replanting and propagation.
With the corpse flower’s blooming cycle being as rare as it was and only occurring once every three to seven years if you were lucky and had perfect conditions, my nerves were tense.
Even now, as I stood admiring the beautiful plant, it felt like both a blessing and a curse; this one plant had the ability to save an entire botanical garden and all its employees, and they were all counting on me to make it happen.
The other rare plants would be very helpful, but none of them were quite as rare and valuable as the corpse flower.
People would flock from all around to see the rare, rotting-flesh-scented bloom, and it gave us the rare opportunity to create and sell more corpse flowers, bringing even more money to the gardens.
“It’s quite phallic-looking, isn’t it?” Jasper said from behind me, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. Something he seemed to do frequently. Despite his size, he was able to move like a wraith. It was unnerving. You only saw him when he wanted you to.
His eyes widened with a smile, seeing how he had startled me.
“I’m beginning to think you do that on purpose,” I said gruffly, trying to calm my racing heart.
Hester’s feisty escapades and watching Jasper shoot a man had me jumpier than normal, even though Katya had promised me the man had been taken away with only minor injuries.
I looked back at the vibrant green corpse flower.
“Wait until you see it in a few weeks,” I said.
“The long green middle part continues to grow up until it blooms, and that cabbage-looking petal right there? It will open up to reveal a beautiful deep-purple interior around that enormous green spike that only lasts for about twenty-four hours, forty-eight if we’re lucky. ”
Jasper inspected the unusual-looking plant.
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes darted over to me, and I could imagine the vast number of inappropriate sentences that overflowed his mind and he was trying his best to filter.
He sat back on the newly restored bench and propped his arms on the back rest, getting comfortable, as if he were about to watch his favorite baseball team.
I laughed, grateful for the company but uncomfortable with being his entertainment. “Don’t you have a job or something to do?”
“Yes, but the job is boring and doesn’t look as good as you. I’ve had enough stress for the day, and I’d like to do something fun,” he said with a soft smile as he watched me.
I had just finished planting the freshly tilled bed in the corner and, in truth, was ecstatic to have someone look at it—it was almost as if he knew when to come and praise my work.
I wondered how often Jasper watched me when I didn’t know.
That thought caused a tightening in my lower stomach, and not in a bad way.
It was utterly intoxicating to be seen for once.
“You’re welcome to help me,” I said sardonically, waving my hand over the next extremely large bed that I needed to till.
“And get my suit dirty before our dinner? Okay, but then I’ll have to take it off,” he teased.
“We are still on?” A bit of hopefulness in his words made my heart race.
Tonight felt special, like it was going to be a defining moment for us.
“What happened to your lip?” he said, suddenly sitting up and looking lethal.
Shit. “Oh, it was stupid. I bumped into a stray thorn.” I lowered my face from view as my eyes darted to the tiny demon rose that remained growing in the crack in the pavers I’d been avoiding.