“I see.” She smirked and looked away.
He enjoyed having amused her.
“Is there something you don’t like?” Adam asked, hoping for a little tit for tat.
When she hesitated, he thought she might tell him something important or nothing at all.
“I do not care for watercress. I don’t want it on me, near me, or in my room when I am sleeping.”
Adam couldn’t help himself — he started to laugh and couldn’t stop for a few moments.
“If you kill any spiders that approach, then I will eat any watercress we encounter.”
Her smile before she spoke made his heart stutter, then beat rapidly.
“Very well,” Mrs. Malcolm agreed. “That seems a fair deal.”
They had exited the park, and time was slipping away. Urgency made him bold because he might never have the chance again.
“Won’t you share your story?” he asked, wanting more than ever for her not to be such a mystery. “Just as I am more than an heir, you are more than a governess.”
Another long pause ensued until he was convinced she wouldn’t answer. At last, Mrs. Malcolm spoke without looking at him.
“I have been widowed for two years, which is half a year longer than I was married.”
He thought about her words. “How did your husband die? Was he a soldier?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Unless you married an older man,” Adam began, “then I assume your husband was my age. And I don’t intend to die anytime soon.”
She shrugged. “He may have been a little older than you. I may be a little older than you, for that matter.”
He hadn’t considered that, but he knew better than to ask her exact age. It didn’t bother him one way or the other. They were simply two people riding together.
They approached the Circus, the architectural masterpiece of John Wood, the Elder. Adam was glad to see it in her company, knowing she would be able to answer any questions he had. She was that sort of person.
As expected, when they entered the first of three semi-circular sections of the golden-stoned neighborhood, Mrs. Malcolm said, “Mr. Wood designed it after being inspired by a visit to Stonehenge. Sadly, he died shortly afterward, only three months into its building. It took his son the next fourteen years to complete.”
“A lot more columns than Stonehenge,” Adam said, looking along the crescent of homes in front of them and then around at the other two. Doric, Roman, and Corinthian columns stacked one above the other, moving up in complexity for each of every home’s three stories. To be sure, it was clever and pleasing to the eye.
“Palladian architecture at its finest,” he said.
When Mrs. Malcolm cocked her head in his direction, he confessed, “My mother grew up here, and she told me a bit about it.”
Adam thought the facades were exceedingly interesting, with friezes high above and all around.
“What are the symbols?” he asked, just to hear Mrs. Malcolm talk.
“I have walked all three sections many times,” she said. “There are emblems of the Mason and the Druids, and many items to do with science and art. Hundreds actually. I’ve seen a compass, flowers, boats, globes, birds. Even a paintbrush.”
“A serpent,” Adam pointed out over one door.
She sent him an arch look, and he wondered if she knew his given name. He shrugged.
“One point of interest,” she said, “if you look at the parapet atop each home, you’ll see the finials are all in the shape of an acorn.”
Adam craned his head and looked. “Indeed. And why?”
