Her breath came short as she stared up at him, and he could see her running equations in her head. Ciphers to determine if he was honorable enough to share something obviously private and painful. He found himself leaning forward, wondering if he’d be found worthy. Wondering how a woman like her couldeverfind him worthy.
At last she worried her lip and whispered, “I suppose you shared something of your past with me, didn’t you? About your mother, in fact. It is only fair to do the same.”
“You don’t owe me something just because I told you about my mother,” he responded. “Tell me if you wish to do so, not because you think I expect a quid pro quo.”
Her eyes widened in surprise and then she clenched her hands together on her lap. “No, I-I want to tell you. So you’ll understand. So someone will understandsomething.”
His brow wrinkled. She was so close to her brother, he hadn’t expected that Elizabeth would say something that indicated she felt…isolated. Misunderstood. He certainly related to that, no matter how far apart their worlds might be otherwise.
“Take your time,” he encouraged, and didn’t stop her when she got up and paced away to the statue of Persephone. She reached out and traced the lines of the stone woman’s face and then shook her head.
“I was eight when they died,” she began. “It was an accident. One moment I had parents, the next I was orphaned. A blink that changed everything about my life.”
“That must have been frightening,” he whispered, trying to picture her as a little girl, grieving and afraid.
“It was, at first,” she admitted. “But Hugh stepped in. I knew he’d be a good duke—he was always so clever and even-handed. But he turned out to be so much more. Despite how young he was, only twenty-one at the time, he embraced the role offatherwith great aplomb. I was lucky to have him, I still am.”
“Still, you must have missed them.”
“My real father was…” She sighed. “He was not a very nice man. He refused to allow any weakness from us. He had little use for me, as I was not his heir, nor qualified to be a spare. He spent all his time and energy and cruelty on Hugh. So when he was gone, I felt little except for a regret that he could not have been…better. But my mother?”
She turned away and her hands clenched at her sides. “I did miss her, terribly. I still miss her. I long to tell her about my small triumphs. And when terrible things happen. Things like—”
She cut herself off, and Morgan straightened. There was that hint again, that little whisper about something that had happened to this woman that no one wished to reveal. Every time it came up, he found himself wondering more and more about it.
“Well, I just wish she were here to advise me sometimes.” She forced a smile as she looked at him again and he saw the false brightness on her face. “Not that I don’t appreciate the relationship I’ve developed with Amelia or the kindness of the other duchesses.”
“But they aren’t your mother,” he said. “No one could ever ask you to take any other relationship and pretend it could replace that one.”
“I suppose not. I’ve always longed for ways to connect with her.” She gave a soft chuckle. “For the first year after she died, I used to stop by her portrait in the gallery every night. I’d drag a chair across the room and climb up to kiss her cheek. Once I fell and nearly broke my head. The servants went into a panic and Hugh found out what I was doing. Then he gave me a miniature of her for my own bedside. I talked to it for years and years. But I never felt quite so connected to her as I did after I found the garden plans last winter.”
Morgan drew back. There it was. The puzzle piece he’d been missing, and it snapped into place and completed the picture perfectly. “It was a real connection.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I could talk all I wanted to a portrait, but there was never any message back. But the garden plans, that is like seeing her heart. Hearing her voice again. It is a guide to exactly what she wanted. And I’m the conduit to give that to her.” She shook her head. “What if I do it wrong, though? What if I don’t complete her vision as she wanted it? What if we make changes like you did when you removed her roses and she wouldn’t have approved?”
He caught her breath. Now he truly understood her reaction to what he’d done. And though he’d meant the surprise as a happy one, he still regretted not discussing it with her first, considering the consequence now.
He hated to see her trapped in the past. Trapped in the approval of a woman who had been dead for over a decade. A woman he had to believe would wish only good and happy things for her only daughter.
He stepped up to her slowly and caught her hand between his. He lifted it and pressed it against his heart as he held her gaze evenly. “If the vision isn’t entirely hers, then it will be partly yours.”
Her brow wrinkled. “I’m not sure that helps, Morgan.”
He smiled at her confusion. “I didn’t know your mother, but I would wager you must be rather like her.”
A blush filled her cheeks with warm color. “If I am, that would be a compliment of the highest order. She was lovely and so kind.”
His smile broadened. “Then you are her true heir, Elizabeth, for you’re both those things and more. I can’t imagine she would want you to punish yourself over those plans. Yes, I’m sure she would love the idea that you found her incomplete vision and are working to make it a reality. But I must believe she’d also love the idea that the garden would ultimately be a shared vision, something that contained you both.”
Her eyes widened. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“If she had lived—” He paused when Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. She gripped his hand tighter and he pulled her a fraction closer in support. “If she had lived, you two would have redesigned this garden many times, don’t you think? You would have planted and replanted. You would have changed things to suit you both. If you loved the garden as much as she did, she would have brought you into that world and shared it.”
She blinked. “Yes. I suppose she would have.”
“Then she would want you to have a place here as much as she did. Don’t you think?”
She worried her lip a moment, and he could see her pondering that, rolling it around in that amazing mind of hers. And then she smiled. For the first time since they had begun this conversation, the expression wasn’t sad or filled with tension or regret. She truly smiled, and it was like someone had lit the world up with the brightest sunshine.
