As vices went, gardening was hardly gambling or gin. Ladies with titles and money and fine eyes frequently got away with much worse, if the scandal sheets were accurate. Anne, however, keenly aware of her own precarious position in the world—not to mention that of her sisters—knew that solitary gardening, real gardening in breeches and an old shirt, the kind a servant did, would not be viewed kindly by either her equals or her betters. It would be seen as odd, stubborn, and vaguely rebellious in a manner most unfit for a woman of her uncertain station.
She looked with a slightly rueful gaze at the skirts of her day-gown, sitting neatly atop a flowering hawthorn bush. If the truth of the detachable skirt were ever to surface, vaguely rebellious would become extremely rebellious at the drop of a monocle.
It wasn’t just the gardening, or the breeches. It was where she had chosen to garden; not even in the privacy of her own kitchen garden. Sneaking through the elaborate topiary hedge on the edge of the Longwater estate in order to pull weeds was a strange act in and of itself—but the fact that Longwater was the ancestral home of Henry Colborne, who she tried with such consummate failure to be completely indifferent to… well, the unusual nature of the act became positively odd.
Still—Henry Colborne was probably still on the Continent. The man in the green coat had been just that; an anonymous man. Longwater, with its acres of delicious green, was safe.
A shadow fell over the rose bushes. Anne turned, her fear rapidly becoming relief as she took in the stern, sharp-featured face of Susan Colborne.
‘I thought you were going to be late. It is very important that you are not late.’ Susan leaned down, her dark eyes rapidly scanning the rosebush. ‘This will grow much more vigorously if placed against the wall. Do not be late, Anne.’
‘You are correct, Susan.’ Anne smiled. ‘And I will not be late.’
‘Good.’ Susan briefly glanced at Anne, her eyes almost immediately travelled back to the rosebush. ‘I shall not like it.’
Much was whispered about Susan, some of it so cruel that it made Anne want to scream into a conveniently-placed cave. The gossip had followed her since childhood; her near-constant silence, her habits of repeating and ordering the objects around her to an extent that others found worrying, not to mention her dislike of physical contact. The word institution had been whispered more than once, as had a worse word, madhouse—a fate so awful for someone of Susan’s intelligence and spirit that Anne shuddered to even think of it. But the previous Duke of Longwater, and his wife, had cherished Susan with unparalleled love and devotion since the moment of her birth—and thanks to such love, Susan was allowed to grow and flourish. That, combined with the Longwater wealth, had saved her from what could have been a fate worse than death.
Of course, the gossip had continued after her childhood. It had risen most notably upon the occasion of her first marriage; an obscure Spanish nobleman who had been regarded with as much crude suspicion as Susan. The ton had called him mad, cunning, half-witted; a dilution of the Longwater bloodline, trying to obtain a piece of the famous Longwater fortune… but Anne vaguely remembered seeing him in Hyde Park, accompanied by Susan, both of them collecting plant specimens with a queer scholarly gravity that spoke of true, happy companionship.
The Spanish nobleman had died. Susan had tended him to his last breath; the rumours had swelled to a crescendo by then; she has killed her husband… and then, after Susan’s ashen-faced appearance at several balls, they died away again. Now, as Susan lived out her widowhood on the grounds of the Longwater Estate, they had dwindled to naught but whispers.
Anne liked Susan. In a world of smiling insults and vicious half-compliments, her blunt honesty was both refreshing and necessary. Yes, she spoke about her interests for a length of time that others found interminable, neglecting to communicate even the smallest pieces of information about her own life—but Anne happened to share one or two of Susan’s interests, namely gardening and aquatic life, and their resulting conversations had been of a depth and intensity most fulfilling to both parties. Yes, she rarely looked one in the eye—but then, did one really need to be constantly observed?
Above all, she was kind. Not in a soft, gentle way, but with a rough, unthinking and complete acceptance of everything Anne was, and feared, and longed to be. Such a radical welcome was rare even among the best of friends, but Anne had found it in Susan—and so she had determined, quietly but persistently, to welcome her too.
Put simply, she couldn’t imagine any other friend looking at her gardening breeches with anything other than astonishment. Susan, already talking about the roses she had bought, didn’t seem to have noticed them at all. She hadn’t noticed them that first day, upon discovering Anne with a trowel in one hand and a tulip in the other—she had merely told Anne that the hole she had dug was too deep for such a bulb. And she had, of course, been right.
‘We do not have enough roses here.’ Susan took in the gardens again with a short sigh. ‘These gardens must be completely redrawn. My father neglected the roses atrociously.’
‘A different design is a splendid idea.’ Anne felt a wild hope rising; would she finally be able to make real differences to the Longwater gardens, instead of merely chipping away at the edges? ‘In fact, I have taken the liberty of sketching a new planting plan for the—’
‘We cannot make any changes to Longwater without the express permission of my brother.’ Susan nodded decisively. ‘He is the duke. The land is his.’
‘Of course.’ Anne inclined her head as her heart sank. Susan was right, of course—but given that Henry had all but abandoned his sister for a life of pleasure-seeking, her loyalty to him was puzzling. Still, one could never be entirely rational when siblings were concerned.
‘Plant up the seven that remain, then join me in the lily-house.’ Susan smiled, her gaze tracing the edges of Anne’s face without quite meeting her eyes. ‘I have a new variety for us to examine.’
‘Excellent.’ Anne knelt, the rosebush in her hands. ‘I shall join you directly.’
‘Good.’ With a slight, awkward nod of her head, Susan began walking towards the glittering wrought-iron structure that housed the lilies.
Anne watched her go, musing upon the differences between the Longwater brother and sister. It was as if their personalities had been unequally divided; Susan had been given an excess of constancy, diligence, worry, while Henry had been given far too much charisma for his own good. Henry Colborne, who could charm the sword from a stone…
Enough. She dug her gloved fingers into the earth, quietly rejoicing at the cool, damp feel of the soil. Birds sang overhead, the air scented with blossom and green sap; the rose bush in her hands, small and stunted, would soon bloom into a towering pyramid of flowers.
Yes. Anne relaxed a little more, a small smile appearing on her face. Do not ruin this brief, precious moment by thinking of Henry Colborne.
Henry Colborne, Duke of Longwater, trudged wearily along the yew-lined drive that divided the Longwater hothouses and kitchen-gardens. At intervals he mopped his brow, swearing bitterly as his wine-soaked soul refused to feel even the slightest bit better.
Wasn’t a period of drunkenness meant to be the done thing, as a rake returning to his ancestral seat? He’d certainly done everything expected of him during his first week in Bath—there’d been enough drinking, gambling and amorous adventures with Covent Garden ladies of pleasure to satisfy even the most degenerate of hedonists. Henry, who counted himself as only mildly degenerate while being a keen student of the art, didn’t think that any self-respecting rake could have matched the previous seven days of debauchery.
Of course, the aftermath was a different matter. A self-respecting rake wouldn’t feel quite so tired, or pained in places he didn’t want to think about—and said rake certainly wouldn’t have had to ensure a tongue-lashing from a stern sister, who said aloud the very things that respectable people were meant to keep silent. Things like, you look atrocious and you smell of cigars. Thi
ngs that he could hardly deny, but which he didn’t feel particularly comfortable admitting to either.
He felt old. That was the one thing a rake was never supposed to feel; old and slightly bitter, as if his conduct had left a sour taste in his own mouth. All that time on the Continent, lying low, waiting for people to forget his worst excesses… and now, out of pure boredom, he was forcing the ton to live through them all over again.
Still. It gave them something to do, and acted as a distraction when the duties of his title invariably began to grate. As Henry paused again, casting a scowl in the direction of the rose garden, he added ‘assessing the condition of the grounds’ to the list of duties that would require a lot of drinking to forget.
The sound of metal on earth made him pause. Turning, peering between the overgrown yews, Henry saw someone digging in the rose garden.
It had to be one of the gardening lads; Susan had told him that the gardens needed modernising. Henry supposed, beginning to wander closer, that his sister had ordered someone to at least begin the work. Hard to see what this one young man could accomplish, really—even if the youth seemed to be wielding the spade with an almost unusual amount of violence.
He stopped a little way away, uncomfortably aware of the man’s breeches. He’d never found himself fascinated by the male form before; after an extremely pleasure-focused tour through Greece and Italy full of offers from all and sundry, he had decided that female charms spoke to him much more loudly than those of his own sex. Perhaps, though, he had simply never looked hard enough… he had never looked at this male form, unaccountably curvaceous, complete with oddly delicate feet helping to stamp the spade deep into the earth…
Well. Henry supposed there was never an ideal time to discover such a preference, especially when it would lead to a life lived in secrecy, but there was no denying the strange, sunlit beauty of the young man in front of him. Or rather, the back of the young man in front of him—perhaps his face was pox-afflicted, or simply ugly. One could only hope, after all.
He cleared his throat. The young man turned, a young woman as soon as her face was revealed, and Henry’s body thrilled with a strange mixture of desire, relief, and acute embarrassment.
‘I say.’ He bowed quickly, hoping to remove at least a little of the woman’s discomfort. ‘I—forgive me. This is somewhat unexpected.’
‘Oh, goodness.’ The woman let go of the spade; it stood quivering in the earth as she stood before him, her eyes wide and terrified. As Henry watched, utterly confused, she sank into a low and elegant curtsey. ‘I—forgive me, your Grace.’
Her accent, as well as her polished demeanour, confounded Henry further. This was no servant-girl; she had to be a lady, one of real quality if her posture was any indication. She stepped backward, stumbling on an overturned patch of earth, looking at Henry as if he would leap upon her with teeth bared.
Not the worst idea in the world. Henry didn’t have much experience of women wearing men’s clothes, but his formerly jaded senses liked the look of it almost immediately. He would probably never have noticed her in a dress—she certainly didn’t have the proud, highly-cultivated beauty of the women he normally associated with—but in a shirt and breeches, this creature’s subtle charms were very evident indeed.
Evident, and oddly familiar. Not carnally familiar, but… familiar.
‘Wait. I—I know you.’ Henry concentrated; every rake had a good memory for faces, normally to avoid husbands, but it came in handy for unusual meetings in herbaceous borders. He did know the woman’s face; her dark, faintly feline eyes, underneath that black sweep of tousled hair. ‘You… why, you’re one of that gaggle of sisters.’ He snapped his fingers, briefly lost in his moment of victory. ‘The Herefords! Anne Hereford!’
Anne’s eyes narrowed. For a moment Henry wondered if he had made a grave misstep; it couldn’t be polite, correctly identifying the woman doing something vaguely scandalous in one’s garden. He bowed again, in apology more than anything else, wondering how on earth he could continue the conversation.
‘Forgive me.’ His curiosity demanded satisfaction. ‘But what on earth are you doing in my garden? Has there… has your family…’
There was really no polite way to ask if the Hereford family had fallen on hard times during his absence, but Anne clearly understood his meaning without the precise words being spoken. She blinked, looking down at the spade as if it would help her craft a response, before speaking again in the same soft tone she had before.
‘No. We remain as cheerfully middling as ever we were. This… this is a private pursuit. Your sister is aware of it, but my family are not. And they would not be particularly pleased to hear of it.’
An attractive young woman with a secretive, vaguely scandalous habit of gardening in men’s garb? For a rake, such a thing was akin to winning at whist thrice-over. Henry waited to feel the usual rush of lascivious power; the feeling of having a woman’s reputation at his mercy… but to his surprise, he felt nothing but overwhelming concern.
He tried to push past the feeling. A salacious offer was almost obligatory, in situations such as these. He opened his mouth, ready to say something appropriately impolite, but felt his soul quiver a little at the look in Anne Hereford’s eyes.
She almost definitely wanted him to leave; to bow, make his excuses, and never mention this unusual meeting to anyone. Henry had pressed his case as a rake before; many women had breathlessly refused his advances, fluttering their eyelashes, before succumbing with an enthusiasm that belied their earlier reticence… but he had never attempted to force himself, verbally or otherwise, upon an unwilling woman. And Anne Hereford, if he was judging her correctly, was unwilling to listen to anything he said.
He held up his hands. ‘Then I shall leave you to your work.’
Anne blinked again; Henry couldn’t help noticing that her dark eyelashes were remarkably pretty. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ Henry stepped backward, narrowly avoiding walking straight into a yew. ‘I am far too distracting to stay.’
He felt a small thrill of triumph as Anne smiled. How attractive her face was, lit from within. ‘How very considerate of you.’
‘I am nothing if not considerate. Well, perhaps that’s not quite true—I am considerate, charming, attentive, beautifully dressed, and an excellent dancer.’ Henry smiled. ‘Thinking about it, I’m rather a good shot as well… oh, and if swimming counts, then I suppose I’m—’
‘Do you know anything about the care and cultivation of traditional rose varieties?’
Henry stopped, abruptly deflated. ‘No.’
‘Then alas, your talents are misplaced.’ Anne picked up an earth-covered tangle of roots and stems, the occasional leaf falling to the ground as she tenderly brushed away the clumps of soil. ‘That is all I am interested in. There really is no reason at all for you to stay.’
Henry almost laughed at the elegance of the cut. He hadn’t been told off quite so firmly in almost a decade. As he looked into Anne’s eyes, trying to ascertain just how long he could continue before outstaying his welcome, he caught a glimpse of shy, refined excitement.
She was flirting. Henry was no longer used to such subtle flirtation; his reputation normally preceded him when it came to conversations with women. Standing up a little straighter, hoping that his hair looked a little less dishevelled than it had that morning, he took several tentative steps forward.
‘How very cruel of you.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘What if I had suddenly developed a deep, abiding interest in the care and cultivation of traditional rose varieties?’
‘Then I would make you sit and listen to Susan list every single variety the Longwater Estate is known to grow.’
She used Susan’s first name; they had to be friends, and intimate ones. Henry had never thought of his sister having friends; his heart swelled with a curious, almost painful tenderness. ‘And if I wished to learn by doing?’
Anne raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you ever held a pla
nt?’
‘I’ve held any number of flowers.’
‘A plant, your Grace.’
‘Does hiding in an oak tree count? I was certainly gripping onto it.’
‘No.’ Anne laughed; Henry found himself lost in the sound. ‘It certainly does not.’
‘But it may. It’s quite a story—’
‘And I have no interest in hearing it.’ Anne’s tone cooled slightly. ‘Especially if it involves some sort of… moonlight escapade.’
She knew of his reputation, then. Normally Henry considered such prior knowledge an advantage; the lady would know, at least, what to expect. But Anne Hereford, standing in front of him in breeches, had managed to make him feel obscurely ashamed of himself.
It was erotic. Powerfully erotic. Erotic enough to spur him onward, despite the look of cautious disapproval in Anne’s eyes.
‘Perhaps my stories are unsuited to such an early hour.’ He stepped forward, regaining a little of his earlier confidence. ‘And although I have never held a plant, madam, I imagine I will be quite as good as it as everything else I—’
With a slight swagger to his walk, he stepped firmly onto a patch of earth. A patch of earth occupied by the half-hidden flat of the spade, the handle of which hit him heavily in the stomach.
Bugger. On a normal day, Henry would have been able to shrug off the blow without breaking a sweat. Given his delicate condition on this particular day, he sank to his knees—and onto his back—with a sagging sigh of disbelief.
The Estate looked rather different lying down. Everything looked rather different, through the lens of such corrosive embarrassment… apart from Anne Hereford, her eyes wide, who looked even more beautiful than she had the minute before.
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