“‘Remove any dead branches with a clean snip. Never saw or twist,’” she read aloud. “Right, well. You needn’t be so smug about it,” she told the page, as if the book had judged her for being clumsy.
She turned back to the rosebushes. Well, to Isabelle’s rosebushes, technically. They were growing in a wild, unapologetic sprawl against the edge of the garden wall, as though no one had dared to rein them in for years. Some blooms still held their color, which was a lovely blush pink, like tea left too long on the tray. Others had wilted or grown crooked, their branches arched and tangled like a story left unfinished.
Cordelia carefully reached for one of the overgrown limbs.
She had asked permission, of course. From the Dowager herself, who had blinked in surprise and then smiled in a way that made Cordelia feel oddly seen. It had been a brief conversation, but it had ended with a soft “yes, dear, thank you” and a hand resting lightly over hers.
She had not asked Mason.
She did not think she could bear the bracing cold of his scrutiny again, not after the way he’d looked the day before, like a manwho could kill with a glance and yet chose words instead. She could still hear the bite of them in her memory.
“Careful how you answer.”
Cordelia snipped another branch, this one less lopsided than the last, and tried to ignore the warmth blooming behind her ribs.
He hadn’t needed to speak. He certainly hadn’t needed to defend her. He could have stayed silent. He could have let her suffer through it. But he hadn’t.
It was that fact, more than the threat in his voice or the sharpness of his words, that stayed with her. That was what made her want to do something in return. Of course, it couldn’t be some grand gesture. No, that would not do at all. In fact, that would be utterly absurd.
But perhaps… perhaps making this little corner of the world beautiful again. The rosebushes were hers now in a strange way. She had claimed them not by planting but by tending, by choosing to care.
She brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek with the back of her gloved hand, smearing a bit of dirt along her temple in the process. She was sun-warmed, sore-kneed, and not at all elegant, but she didn’t mind. This was good work, the kind of work that made her think about the man who had made her feel safe. And that was dangerous.
She brushed the thought aside. But just as she did so, there he was, emerging from the woods, as if summoned by the sheer strength of her thoughts. She stood up and dropped her shears directly onto her foot.
“Oh!” she yelped, hopping once as pain and alarm competed for her attention. The book fluttered shut in the grass beside her. “Oh no.”
He was approaching dangerously fast, looking like a romantic painting gone grim. She didn’t give him time to speak.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she blurted, brushing leaves from her skirts and trying to ignore the thudding of her heart. “And I can assure you that I asked your mother first, and I have not wandered, snooped, meddled, rearranged, or breathed on anything that did not explicitly belong to me. I am merely trimming the roses which, frankly, were in such a state of moral disrepair, I feared they might begin organizing a rebellion.”
He raised a silent brow.
“Also,” she added, snatching up the book with a flourish, “I am following scholarly advice.Scholarly, Your Grace. Not that I am frightened of you. Though I do think the decanters ought to come with warning labels.”
He stood very still for a moment then stepped forward and bent to retrieve the shears she had dropped. Cordelia snatched them before he could.
“I’m managing fine,” she said quickly.
“So I see,” he replied, glancing pointedly at her mud-smeared glove and the pricked skin just below her cuff.
There was a pause, heavy with the scent of roses and tension.
He looked at the hedge. “My sister planted these.”
“I know.”
“She named them.”
“I was told.”
“And you thought to hack away at them with borrowed shears and optimism.”
Cordelia tilted her chin. “No, I thought torestorethem. Beauty thrives under care, not neglect.”
His amber eyes fixed on her. “Not everything responds well to being touched.”
Cordelia stared back, stung by something she could not name. “Then perhaps you should lock them away.”
