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“Oh.” She took the parcel and then nodded to the porch. “Would you care to sit for a bit?”

He tugged on the brim of his cap and then went to take a seat in one of the two wicker chairs on the porch. Adele nipped back and took up the lamp she had just been lighting.

She took the seat across from Macalister and set her lamp down on the porch rail so the soft glow of the flame cast out a pool of light around them.

“Shall I open it?” she asked, holding up the parcel.

He inclined his head, and she took this to mean that she should do as she wished. She pulled the end of the twine, unraveling it. With the twine no longer holding it together, the paper fell open, revealing the back of a tan leather-bound book.

“What is this?” she asked, turning it over so that she could open the front cover.

“It’s a garden journal. Every good gardener keeps notes of when they planted things and what the weather was doing,” he explained.

“I could write down that I sowed sweet peas today,” she said with a weary smile.

He nodded.

“Thank you,” she said. “I would not have thought of that.”

“You would eventually,” he said.

“I still feel very new to all of this.”

“You’ve learned a lot,” he said.

“But not enough to know not to plant hydrangeas in full sun or that I should prune a camellia in the early summer,” she said.

He huffed a quiet laugh. “It will come. You have all those books of yours.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of my books,” she said.

“I never said that.”

“But I could tell you thought it.”

He dipped into his pocket for his flask. He untwisted the top and drank before handing it to her. “Maybe there’s something to them.”

She took a neat nip of the liquor, not hesitating the way she had the first time he’d shared his flask with her. The spirit burned as it went down her throat, but she had long ago learned to expect it.

“Was that an admission that I might actually know something useful in the garden?” she asked as she handed the flask back. “That is certainly something I never thought I’d hear from Macalister’s mouth.”

Silence settled around them, and she was aware that it was not at all comfortable. Instead, it felt loaded, heavy with a meaning she dared not put a name to.

It was, she was relieved, Macalister who broke it first. “It’s probably none of my business, but are you all right, Mrs. Whitley?”

She pulled back a little. “Why should I not be?”

One sloping shoulder lifted in a shrug. “You worked hard today.”

“I should have thought you would approve,” she said.

“I do, but I also know that there is a difference between working hard and punishing yourself.”

“You believe I was doing the latter.”

That earned her another infuriating tilt of his head.

“The truth is, I do not know how much longer I will be able to keep you in my employ,” she said.