“Are they?”
“Oh yes.I did not think anyone knew the recipe.But for me.”She crossed her arms behind her back, and Sybil rather thought she might pull out a blade.
Apollo shrugged.“Easy enough stuff to figure out if you know what to look for.I do.But no one else does.Don’t worry, Lady G, I’m only in the business of plants.No potions, I swear it.”
“Then I’ll be going now, but…” She stopped right before the door.“Perhaps, when I’m up and running again you may expect an order from me.Camelias, posies, roses.Your best.”
“You won’t want to order them from anywhere else.”He swept her a grand bow.
“Are you coming, Miss Grant?”Lady Guinevere asked.
“No.”The potion mistress had one question to ask; Sybil had a hundred.
“Very well.”Then Lady Guinevere was gone.
And Sybil and Apollo were alone.
Quietly, he crossed the shop and locked the front door.
Slowly, she began a little tour of the shop.It was drenched in sunlight.Floor-to-ceiling windows for three stories.On the second and third floors, a large balcony followed the walls, and ivy swung down from the railings.
“What do you think?”he asked, his voice a whisper against the skin of her neck.They’d left so quickly she’d not thought to don a mantle or bonnet.Her neck, her shoulders, her chest, were open to his view, and he was pressed behind her, so very close, but not touching.Except for the heat of his breath against her neck, her cheek.
She didn’t melt into him, though every part of her body screamed to do so.“I think it’s beautiful.You work here?”
“I own here.”
She spun around, her hands almost landing on his chest, the most natural place for them to be.Stepped backward and clasped them behind her back.“This is your shop?”
“For about a week now.Old Mr.Harley was not eager to sell out, but Diana’s loan was quite generous, and in the end, Mrs.Harley persuaded him to make an early retirement to the country.”
“Diana’s loan?”
He nodded.“I’m paying her back.Slowly.It was hard to sell the plants at first.Harley’s thumb isn’t very green, but mine”—he flashed a smile—“is golden.”
She smiled, and he ducked his head, a shy blush spreading across his cheeks.He walked deeper into the shop, tending to plants, stepping in and out of sunlight where it cast bright striations across the floor.He stopped in a pool of it, caressing a camelia.
“Business starting to increase.”He plucked a bloom and twirled it, the red flashing in the light.
“So quickly.”
“I’m viciously determined.”
“I am aware.”She approached him carefully.“The plants you’ve sent me over the last week are beautiful.”
He reached for her, and with a tentative brush of his fingertips against her temple, slipped the stem of the camelia behind her ear.“You’rebeautiful.”Nowhishands were clasped behindhisback.
So much distance between them suddenly.
She wouldn’t abide it.
“Have you discovered much about yourself yet?”
“A tremendous amount.”
“Such as?”
“I’m a coward.But I don’t want to be.”
