The ground beneath him shifted, his assumptions crumbling.
"Miss Winters seems like a pleasant young woman," he offered, grasping forsafer territory.
"She knows more about roses than anyone I have ever met." Lady Alice's voice warmed. "Including the Latin names, which I intend to use strategically at the earliest opportunity."
"Strategic botany." Despite himself, the corner of his mouth twitched. "A formidable weapon."
"I have always believed in diversifying one's arsenal."
They stood in the morning garden, the lily pond glittering between them, and Samuel realized with alarm that he did not want to leave. The comfortable certainties he had held about Lady Alice lay in ruins at his feet, replaced by something more complicated—a woman who defended strangers with the same wit she used to deflect intimacy, who wore her armor so skillfully that he had mistaken it for her substance.
He thought of his own armor and wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
They began walking without discussion, falling into step as naturally as if they had done so many times before. The gravel crunched beneath their feet in a rhythm that might have felt companionable under other circumstances. Two guests taking the air, nothing remarkable.
He was keenly aware of her beside him. The rustle of her skirts, the faint scent of lavender water,the grace that made everything around her seem less elegant by comparison. His gaze stayed fixed ahead on the path, yet his attention clung to her at his elbow.
"The weather has been fine," he offered, immediately regretting it.
"Has it?" Lady Alice's voice danced with amusement. "I confess I had not noticed, being so consumed with thoughts of botany."
"A demanding pursuit."
"Exhausting. I shall require restorative naps for the rest of the week."
They walked in silence for a moment, passing beneath an archway of climbing roses that showered pale petals at their feet. He noted the way she lifted her face toward them, eyes closing against the delicate fall.
"Miss Winters," he said, before he could talk himself out of it. "You defended her rather fiercely."
It was not a question, but she answered anyway. "Did I? I thought I was merely engaging in a botanical consultation."
"Lady Alice."
She glanced at him, and something in her expression shifted, revealing glimpses of the woman he had seen comforting a stranger on a garden bench. "Youwant to know why."
"I confess to curiosity."
They reached a stretch of path bordered by lavender, its purple spires humming with bees. Lady Alice brushed her fingers against the blooms, releasing a sharp, floral fragrance into the air.
"I was her once," she said quietly. "Not precisely, but close enough. Young. Uncertain. Convinced that the opinions of fashionable people mattered more than my own sense of worth." Her fingers lingered on the lavender. "Someone intervened for me. A woman I barely knew, who had no reason to involve herself, who simply saw cruelty and decided it should not be allowed."
His chest tightened. "What happened to her?"
"She married a viscount and died of a fever three winters later." Lady Alice's tone was matter-of-fact, but grief lay beneath it. "I attended her funeral. I did not know her well enough to weep, but I have never forgotten what she did for me."
They walked in silence. He became conscious of his hands clenched behind his back, and forced them to relax. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
"I had not realized," he said finally.
"That I was capable of sentiment?" Her smile returned, but it was gentler now. "How disappointing for your assessment of me. I expect you had me quite thoroughly cataloged."
He should deny it. The polite response was to protest that he had formed no opinions, made no judgments, arrived at no conclusions about her character. But something in the morning air, the lavender or the echo of her words, made him reach for honesty instead.
"I had," he admitted. “And I was wrong."
Her eyes widened, that same startled expression he had provoked earlier. "Lord Crewe. Two confessions of error in a single morning. Are you quite well?"
"Merely adjusting my calculations."
