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“She kissed you last,” he said finally, turning to Juliet, with that mischievous glint still in his eye.

“Oh… yes,” Juliet nodded, blinking. “Is—is it a bad thing she has done?”

“Oh no. It is just that,” he paused for a beat, “she has always kissed Adam last.” He set the glass down.

Juliet glanced at Adam then, noting that he had not moved at all since his daughter had left the room. Even now, she could feel his attention on the side of her face, and it set her heart pounding in her throat.

But this feeling brewing in her belly from being the center of his attention in that moment…

It was not fear.

Oh, it was most certainly not.

Chapter Ten

“They were not here before,” Eloise said, stopping so abruptly that Juliet nearly walked into the back of her head. The girl’s arms came wide to either side of the lavender hedge. “This was only that brown, scratchy mess. I used to trip on the roots.”

“They were always here.” Juliet stepped alongside her. “They just needed some clearing.”

Eloise turned, her eyes bright. “Oh! So you freed them,” she said, clapping her hands excitedly, and Juliet chuckled, her cheeks pinking slightly from the child’s unbridled joy.

“Well, in a manner of speaking,” she nodded, looking down at the young girl whilst trying her best not to preen.

Eloise giggled and moved on with her bonnet strings trailing loose. Juliet followed closely behind, peeling off her gloves as she went. The heat had been climbing since before noon, and now it sat across her shoulders with the sun directly overhead and no cloud anywhere to cut it.

“And those?” Eloise pointed toward the south bed.

“Sweet William. Red and pink when they flower properly,” she explained, and Eloise gasped.

“When do they flower?”

Juliet smiled. “A few weeks yet.”

Eloise made a sound of extravagant suffering. “Everything takes weeks,” she bemoaned, her pout extended past her upper lip this time.

“Most things worth having do,” Juliet told her, giggling softly.

“I do so detest having to wait, Juliet!” Eloise sighed, sounding utterly inconvenienced.

She cut left off the gravel path and headed for the lower gate that led onto the meadow beyond. Juliet followed, her skirts collecting warm air.

Eloise stopped at a cluster of white-topped stems at the meadow’s edge. “Oh! I know this one! Meadowsweet,” she announced, but Juliet just smiled down at her blunder.

“That is yarrow, dear,” Juliet said, and Eloise blanched before looking back at the plant. She turned to Juliet again.

“Uncle Daniel’s book showed meadowsweet with white flowers,” she argued, but her tone was not confrontational in the slightest. No, the precious child was genuinely confused and trying to learn.

So, Juliet crouched down to her height. “Meadowsweet grows taller, and it wants wet ground, near streams. This one has feathery leaves, very finely cut.” Juliet crouched and turned a stem in her fingers. “Look at the cluster. Flat-topped, yes, but the leaves are what tell you.”

Eloise crouched beside her and looked. “Feathery,” she said carefully.

“Yes.” Juliet smiled.

“That is yarrow.”

“Correct.”

Eloise nodded once and jumped to her feet, eager to move on just as easily as any seven-year-old would. A few yards ahead, she pointed at a patch of bright yellow without breaking stride. “Buttercup.”