Lady Fosberry’s gardener had come in this morning and pruned the spent blooms from the rose canes, snipping them just above the foliage so the plant might produce more blossoms. He’d left an orderly row of thriving roses in his wake, the canes standing tall, each one aligned in perfect symmetry with those before and behind it, like soldiers on the march.
If only people would fall into tidy rows as prettily as roses did, but instead of the neat, logical conclusion Emmeline had hoped for, this business only grew more tangled. Not only had Lord Melrose not forgotten the Lady in Lavender as she’d predicted he would, he was also proving to be dreadfully stubborn about falling in love with Juliet.
Emmeline couldn’t understand it. She’d been so certain putting the two of them together would be the simplest thing in the world, but somehow it wasn’t working out as she’d thought it would.
She wandered toward the stone wall at the back of the garden, her feet silent against the soft ground. Lady Fosberry had warned her—she’d tried to make Emmeline understand people weren’t logical or predictable, that emotions were slippery, and it was folly to think one could control them. Emmeline hadn’t wanted to listen, but every day that passed was proving Lady Fosberry had been right all along.
Because ever since she’d kissed Lord Melrose, she hadn’t recognized herself.
She reached out to stoke the glossy green leaves of a fragrant yellow rose at the end of the row closest to her, but the glide of the silky petals under her fingertips didn’t soothe her as it usually did, so she knelt down, heedless of the dirt, and stuck her fingers a few inches into the soil at the base of the plant.
“This isn’t resting in your bedchamber, Miss Templeton.”
Emmeline’s hands stilled for an instant, her breath catching in her throat, but she didn’t turn around. “No, it’s not. I’m afraid you’ve caught me, my lord.”
“I’ve never known another lady who loves dirt the way you do.”
From another man’s lips the words might have been a taunt, but from his they were gentle and teasing, almost…affectionate.
He crouched next to her, watching the movement of her hands. “Will you tell me a little about what you’re doing?”
Emmeline cast a shy glance up at him, then looked quickly away again when she realized how close he was. “Just making certain the soil is still damp. It dries quickly on warm, sunny days like today.”
“Ah, I see. And here I thought you just enjoyed digging.”
Emmeline smiled. “Well, I do.”
His answering chuckle was soft and warm, like a summer breeze drifting over her skin. “What will you do next?”
No one had ever asked such a thing of Emmeline before—certainly not a handsome earl—but when she leaned back on her heels to see if he was making fun of her, she saw by the tender smile hovering at the corners of his lips that he wasn’t.
Not at all.
She cleared the sudden lump from her throat, and tried to return his sweet smile. “Lady Fosberry’s gardener takes excellent care of the roses, so there isn’t much for me to do, but if this were my own garden in Buckinghamshire, I might walk down the rows to see which have bloomed, and check the leaves for signs of disease.”
Lord Melrose got to his feet, and held out a hand to her. “Shall we do that, then?”
Emmeline looked up at him, at his handsome face cast in shadows, the sunlight behind him turning his hair a fiery gold, his hand held out to her, and something shifted inside her chest.
It wasn’t painful, but it felt…final, as if it would never shift back again.
She accepted his hand, and they strolled down the rows together, Emmeline explaining how to remove diseased leaves from a plant as they went, and describing how to stake a rose so it might resist buffeting by the wind.
He listened, his head bent towards hers, and soon enough her reserve melted away, until she forgot herself and spoke to him as if he weren’t the Earl of Melrose, or the Corinthian, or the Nonesuch, but as she might speak to a friend.
A very handsome friend, with kind eyes, and a devastating smile—
“Thank you for humoring me, Miss Templeton,” he said, when they’d circled back to where they’d started.
Emmeline had opened her mouth to tell him she’d enjoyed their stroll when he did something that made her words flutter away like petals scattering in the wind.
He raised her hand to his mouth, his gaze holding hers as he brushed his warm lips against her knuckles. There was nothing scandalous or improper in it, but Emmeline felt the brief, warm press of his lips deep in her belly, a seductive echo of his mouth gliding across her skin when he’d kissed her neck in the library.
“You won’t forget our ride to Greenwich tomorrow, to see Lady Hammond’s gardens?” He was still holding her hand, and the low, husky timber of his voice pulled another thrilling pulse from deep inside Emmeline’s belly.
She swallowed. “I won’t forget, my lord.”
“Until tomorrow, then.” He gave her fingertips a gentle squeeze, and then he was gone, the wrought iron gate closing with a soft clink behind him.
