She’d heard Lady Guinevere might be a real lady, but she’d thought it a rumor put about by the woman herself to gild her reputation.
The lady (real lady!) looked out the window, her hands tangled together on her lap.“In my family, the women were always good with plants.I’d watched my mother give a rosebush sunlight in the middle of a month-long rain.She seemed to be able to… give off her own light.Odd, I kn?—”
“No.Not odd.”
“My father hated it.He thought it an illness, a mental instability, a defect that needed hiding.”She shook her head and offered Sybil a bright smile.“I refuse to get even more maudlin than I already am.Look.We’re here.”She tapped the window glass as the hack rolled to a stop.
They stepped down together in front of a little shop at the end of a building where it narrowed to a rounded point.Glass windows wrapped all the way around that point from east to west on all three stories.Those windows were crowded with plants of all kinds, and the little door on the first floor at the very end of the point was painted a fresh coat of green.It looked like the windows and sign hanging over the door may have once held lettering, but it had been wiped out.They were blank now.
“Old Harley’s never had plants as good as the ones in your brother’s parlor,” Lady Guinevere said.“And he charges too much.Your Chester could never afford to buy that many subpar plants from him, especially not if he’s given up on his apprenticeship.Perhaps he’s selling himself at a bawdy house.He’d likely go for a not-insulting number of coins.”
Sybil scowled.He’d better not be.
“Come along then, let’s find out how to contact your beau.”
A little bell rang above the door as Sybil followed Lady Guinevere inside the shop.
And there he was, standing right in the middle of it, arguing with a woman who had at least six feathers in her wide-brimmed hat and a small pot of lavender in her hands.
“No, you cannot take the lavender,” Apollo said, hands on hips, a lock of hair falling over his forehead.
“I don’t see why not!”The woman bristled.
“Because you’re dense as a brick wall.Lavender needs sunlight.The right kind of soil.Your garden is all shade.Too much clay in the soil.You’ll kill it in a fortnight.Less.”He grasped the pot with both hands and pulled.
She pulled back.
They stared at one another like bulls horn-locked in battle.
“Are we interrupting something?”Lady Guinevere called out.
Apollo looked up, swept his hands behind his back.His head tilted to the side when he recognized Lady Guinevere.Then he saw Sybil, and it felt like her heart was about to explode.
“Go ahead, then, take it,” he grumbled.
“I must pay.”The woman cradled the pot of lavender against her breasts.
“It’s a gift.Now go.”
“I’ll remember how unaccommodating you are and send my friends elsewhere.”She sniffed and made for the door.
“You’ll remember!And you’ll come back anyway!Because my plants are the best in all of London!England!Don’t kill the lavender!”he yelled as she stepped out into the street, and the door shut behind her.
And when not even the echo of his outburst filled the growing silence, he scratched his neck, looking sheepish for a moment before scowling at Lady Guinevere.
“What are you doing here?”he demanded.
“Are you selling potions?”Lady Guinevere asked.
“No.Are you?”He lifted a brow.
“Apollo,” Sybil warned.“Be nice.She’s lost everything.”
“Not everything,” Lady Guinevere insisted.
“It’s hard to be nice when I’m irritated,” Apollo said.Then, un-wrinkling his nose, he put on a placid smile and swept a gallant bow to the potion mistress.“No, my lady, I am not selling potions.As you can see, only plants.”
“Those you sent Miss Grant”—Lady Guinevere moved about the shop, inspecting flowers and vines and stems—“are of a specific sort.”
