A Trace of Roses

by Connolly, Lynne

  He crossed the stile with the sense that this was some kind of Rubicon for him. He wasn’t going back from this. He wouldn’t let her walk away.

  So intent on catching her, Grant stumbled over something in his path, half-buried in the abundant grass. He bent and picked it up, recognizing it at once. Her basket, the one she brought his food in, the cloth that covered it, and a plate, the blue and white one that had held yesterday’s pie.

  He swallowed down the bitter taste of fear.

  Oh, God, what had happened to her? Where was she? The basket was crushed, the plate smashed. And Dorcas was nowhere in sight. Tracks led away, the grass springing up to cover even that. Towards her orangery. Grant dropped the basket. It was of no use now.

  Grant raced along the path, trying not to think about what could have happened to her. He always walked her back this far. Except for today. He should have followed her, made sure she got to her brother’s land safely.

  Some days, he’d followed her further, determined to see her back to her home. Not today. And today, something had happened. If she was hurt, he wouldn’t stop until he’d discovered who had done it and torn them apart with his bare hands.

  Impotent fury simmered, fear lurked. He had to find her.

  He turned the corner and saw her, standing with her back to him before the orangery. She was tousled but, at this distance, she didn’t seem hurt. Her hat was hanging from her neck, dangling down her back. She stood perfectly still, staring, and as Grant drew closer, he saw why.

  The costly panes of glass were shattered. Inside, the once neat contents were covered with soil, scattered from the pots and containers which had been destroyed, their pieces like the shards of shells left after a battle.

  He wasted no time. Grant hurtled to her side. As his feet thumped over the ground, she turned to him and flung out her arms. He pulled her close, cradling her head against his chest as she wept.

  “Why would anyone do this?” she sobbed. “What did they want?”

  He knew her questions were rhetorical, born of despair. He had no more idea than she did. But one thing was clear. Whoever attacked him in London was after her as well.

  Or after the roses. They wouldn’t know the plants were beyond saving. He still felt incredulous that anyone would treat flowers so seriously, but the evidence lay before him. The “it” his attackers were after was the rose plants.

  Whoever had done this would suffer; he would make sure of it. He had his suspicions, but he needed to get Dorcas to safety first.

  Time to change his plans. Time to become the duke again.

  “Come,” he said gently. “We need to see your brother.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grant took a numb Dorcas to the great house, and demanded an interview with her brother. The footman on duty tried to send them away. “No duke dresses like this. And her ladyship doesn’t wear cheap clothes.” He stuck his nose in the air. “Do I need to fetch people who will throw you out?”

  Grant rose to his full height, and became the duke. He looked down coldly at the footman. “Take the message to your master,” he said. He didn’t add any threats. He didn’t need to. After one startled look, the footman scurried away, though whether to fetch reinforcements or to do as Grant ordered remained to be seen.

  “Do you want me to help you to your room?” he asked Dorcas, keeping his voice gentle even though fury roiled through him.

  She shook her head. “I need to be there. I won’t be a cipher.”

  She stood next to him, straight-backed, but tears still made her eyes glisten. He would not leave her now.

  A man not in livery hurried into the hall from the back, straightening his neckcloth. When he saw Grant he gasped and bowed. At least someone knew him. “Your grace, I regret the delay. Lord Carbrooke asks you to join him in the drawing room. My lady, his lordship says your maid is waiting in your room.”

  “Let her wait,” Dorcas said firmly.

  He took them upstairs and to the left. Dorcas was right. This place really was a barn, albeit an exquisite one.

  Paintings lined the walls. The gleaming display of weapons and armor in the hall was meant to intimidate.

  Grant could only be thankful that he didn’t own this place. He did have a castle in Scotland, one that cost a fortune to maintain, a keep in one of the dampest places in the country, but he could only imagine the expense of what amounted to a palace.

  The butler opened a set of double doors, and murmured, “His grace, the Duke of Blackridge, my lord.”

  Carbrooke sprang to his feet. “Dorcas!” His startled gaze went to Grant and back to his sister. “What has happened? What is happening? Tell me.”

  He didn’t look happy. Grant didn’t blame him.

  Two pots of tea and a plate of bread and butter later, Carbrooke had called for his wife, and they both knew everything Grant and Dorcas knew.

  The two attacks on Grant, the destruction of the orangery, all of it.

  “I still don’t understand why you chose to hide away,” Lady Carbrooke said. “Why not come out and tell us from the start?”

  Grant sighed. “I was badly hurt, and left weak after the assault. I couldn’t face them like that. I needed somewhere to recover, and I didn’t want whoever wants me out of the way to know how feeble I was. I planned to recover here and investigate my new holding at the same time. Don’t forget that I have lost at least two days of memories, so I had no idea I had already proposed to Dorcas. But I have remedied that. I proposed to her again. And she did me the greatest honor of accepting.”

  Her brother regarded them both, saying nothing for a full minute before he said anything. “I see. But now you believe Dorcas is directly involved?”

  Gerald nodded. “When I had time to think things through. I was attacked after I had seen Dorcas. The destruction of the orangery confirms it. Something she has or had was what they were looking for.”

  “You carried her seeds and roses on your ship,” her ladyship pointed out. She glanced at her husband, and he met her gaze. They were as one, a unit. Grant could only wish his marriage would turn out the same way. He would do everything in his power to ensure it.

  “Yes, I believe it could be concerning them.” What else could it be? That was the only common denominator in this business. “I still don’t quite understand why.”

  “Wait.” Dorcas rose and left the room. Grant stared after her until he caught Lady Carbrooke watching him, speculation in her shrewd eyes.

  His social expertise had entirely left him in this instance. His concern for Dorcas’ safety had screwed him into knots. When he groped for something innocuous to talk about, his senses scrambled, and he could think of absolutely nothing.

  Fortunately, she returned quickly. She had a sheaf of papers in her hands. Sitting down, she placed the papers on the low table by the side of the sofa. Plucking the first one off the pile, she handed it to him. “The search for the yellow rose is gaining heat,” she said. “This is from last month’s Horticulturalist.

  After a glance at her, Grant bent his head to the paper. After a few moments, he whistled through his teeth. “Have you seen this?” he asked Carbrooke.

  “Not only seen it, but had it read out to me more than once,” the earl replied. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Grant nodded, and took the next paper from her. He didn’t need to see any more, he had the gist. “In short, the search for the yellow rose is expensive and potentially lucrative. People I admit I’ve never heard of are staking their careers on developing one.”

  “I’m not concerned with that part,” Dorcas admitted. “Only with the challenge. The plants we are using are from China and Africa. You already know about China, but I’ve expanded my prospects. They’re rare and expensive to get hold of. Even more difficult to keep alive for the long journey.”

  She studiously avoided his gaze, turning instead to pick up another paper and hand it to him. “When it arrives, it must be nurtured, treated as gently as a baby.”
She ignored Lady Carbrooke’s inelegant snort. “When it is healthy again, grafts must be attempted, with various roses, to see if anything takes.”

  “Why not use it as it is?” he asked.

  “The flowers are small and not particularly showy.”

  “Why not use another yellow plant?”

  She gave him an indulgent smile. Now he felt like a baby. “The plant must be of the same type. Since there is no yellow rose in this country, nor ever has been, we must look elsewhere for it. Now that they are known, horticulturalists are feverishly trying to breed a rose. But nothing in the craft can be achieved quickly. There needs to be grafts on grafts, refinements, and eventually…” She had leaned forward, gesturing to make her point.

  Grant watched her with fascination. He was seeing the passionate woman he had glimpsed before only when they were making love—nearly making love.

  Dorcas had hidden depths. Much like the plants she adored, a person needed time to plumb those depths, to bring out the beauty hidden within.

  He looked forward to it. His heart went out to her as she spoke. Not once did she mention the lucrative returns anyone who created this miraculous blossom could expect, but he was seeing it now. For as they worked, the horticulturalists were developing new techniques that could be used on other plants, ways of working that would prove useful to the commercial farmer. His business brain kicked in automatically when he recognized exactly what could be achieved.

  “I will back you,” he said.

  Silence fell as Dorcas turned to face him. Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. “What?”

  “If you’re to achieve this miracle, you need a backer. I will do that. Present me with an account for the next twelve months, and I will back it. I suggest setting up a company for this, so our personal fortunes aren’t intertwined with it.”

  Lady Carbrooke beamed. “What a wonderful man! You are so right, sir. My silversmithing business is completely separate. My sons will inherit it. It has nothing to do with the earldom, or any businesses concerned with it.”

  In any other situation, Grant would have been happy to discuss business practice with Lady Carbrooke, but today, all his attention was fixed on Dorcas. He would back her enterprise whether she married him or not, but he now wanted her to wed him more than ever.

  “You think the attacks were connected with the roses?” the earl asked him.

  Grant nodded. “More than I was before, now I know how much profit is to be made. Not only the enthusiasts, but businessmen, people looking to turn a profit.”

  Dorcas made a sound of derision, a feminine grunt that made Grant smile. She had no thought of the profit to be made. He would swear that it had not crossed her mind at any time.

  He wanted to protect her from that crass world, which did not care what it invested in so long as it turned a profit.

  That was one reason he kept away from the lucrative Africa trade. He’d seen and smelled a shipment of slaves. Once was more than enough for him. The thought of those people festering below decks for thousands of miles, chained for most of their lives, sickened him. He wanted nothing to do with it.

  But if he’d told his fellow businessmen, many would have called him soft, and tried to take advantage of him.

  “But why?” Dorcas protested, her voice still pitched too high and tremulous for Grant’s liking.

  She spread her hands, glanced at Grant and then her brother and sister-in-law. “It’s true that the pursuit of the yellow rose will be lucrative, but not enough to kill someone for, surely. I’m not the only person working on the project. So why not go for one of the other people?”

  She sprang to her feet. “I have to go, take a look and see what is missing, try to discover what they were looking for.”

  Carbrooke rose along with Grant, and held out his hand. “You’re not going anywhere, Dorcas.”

  Ice crept up Grant’s spine. She had come so close!

  Carbrooke guided her back to her seat. Grant’s heart went out to her. She was so agitated, she didn’t know what to think. But she would not continue in this way.

  She shook her head but when she stepped towards the door, Grant was there to stop her going through it. “They might already have what they were looking for,” she said gloomily.

  “Good,” he answered her. “Yes, you may go and try to see if anything is missing…” He flung up a hand to still Carbrooke’s protests. “But not today. Not now. Your brother may set a guard on it. If they come back, we will have them.”

  She gave a jerky nod.

  Grant disagreed. “I want this matter cleared up before the wedding.”

  That stopped everybody cold. “What wedding would that be?” Carbrooke demanded. “You have only just recommenced your proposal.”

  Grant sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Ah, yes. That wedding. I don’t want to wait any longer. I want us to be married as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  So Dorcas was betrothed. She couldn’t quite remember when it happened, but it had, and once Grant had said the word aloud, matters progressed like a runaway horse.

  Gerald produced the contract between Damaris and Logan, which everyone agreed formed a suitable basis for the new one. Grant and Gerald would have gone off together, if Dorcas hadn’t cleared her throat and reminded them that she was here. “And if I’m signing something,” she said, “I want to know what it says.”

  Gerald swallowed. “Yes, you’re right. I only have one copy of this here, so I need to keep it. I’ll make the notes with Blackridge, and we may continue from that point. I’ll give you ample time to read it.”

  Thus pulling the rug out from under her feet. Dorcas could have no objection to that. Gerald had always treated her like an adult, and he continued to do so now. What other objections could she have? She’d enjoyed Grant’s kisses, assumed his courtship would continue gently and gradually. Apparently not. Dorcas was used to a different tempo, seasons rather than weeks, but now she found herself rushed as never before.

  Dorcas wandered around the house, bewildered, until Annie found her sitting in a parlor staring at her hands.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Annie said gently. She closed the door and joined Dorcas on the sofa. “You can say no.”

  “I know,” Dorcas answered miserably. “But I don’t want to. At least, I don’t think I do.”

  “Take a few days to think about it. You can even say you are ill, if you want to.”

  Dorcas wrung her hands. “But I am sure. He’s been unfailingly kind, and considerate. But I never imagined myself as married.”

  Inside, her senses twisted. “My sisters and I assumed we’d never marry, and I suppose we became accustomed to it. I did, anyway. Season follows season, plants flourish, die, and I spend time nurturing new ones. Everything happens year after year, the same but subtly different.”

  She closed her eyes. “I don’t know how to cope with sudden change. My sisters have gone, and now I’m going, too. It’s too fast, Annie. Everything is happening too quickly for me to manage.”

  A hand settled warmly over hers. Dorcas opened her eyes.

  Her sister-in-law’s soft gaze met hers. “I know what you mean. How do you think I felt, becoming a countess! People think that I was climbing the ranks, that somehow I’d trapped him. Oh, I’ve heard the gossip.”

  Annie shook her head. “But if I wanted Gerald, I had to take everything else. That’s the real truth. We might have been much happier living in Shoreditch, especially considering Gerald’s affliction, but together we have taken our changes and dealt with them. Together. That is our secret. We are stronger together than we are apart. Nothing comes between us because we do not allow it. Can you say the same about you and Blackridge?”

  No, no she could not. “He is an honorable man and a kind one, despite his gruff exterior.”

  The hold on her hand tightened. “If you have any doubts, then we will stop it now. Much easier to do it now than later. Be sure, Dorcas.�
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  Yes, that was her problem. “But I’m not. In any case, when I plant seedlings or bulbs, or even plan a garden, I’m never perfectly sure what will happen. If I am, where is the joy?”

  She could do this. “You accepted more than me, didn’t you? You expected to spend your life in the City of London, making a success of your business. And yet here you are, a countess. We always knew Gerald might inherit, and we did receive some attention with that in mind, but it was more of a duty the old earl considered he had to do. Still, we knew.”

  “And I had not the faintest idea,” Annie said, smiling. She got to her feet and briskly walked to the sideboard, on which rested a tray of decanters. “I think we both deserve a brandy.” She poured generous doses into two tumblers.

  Dorcas didn’t object.

  She took the glass with a word of thanks. After a couple of sips the world seemed rosier, but that was more because of Annie’s bracing practicality than the drink.

  Of course she could cope. “I haven’t met anyone I like better than him,” she said. “But there is a mystery. His relationship with his mother and brother is strained, and I don’t know why. And his brother’s illness, or condition, or whatever it is. I’m concerned that it may be a family problem.”

  “Have you asked?” Annie said. She took a long sip of her own brandy.

  The wickedness of drinking strong spirits in the morning gave Dorcas a thrill, though she didn’t intend to make a habit of it. If she had to resort regularly to strong drink, then she’d really be in trouble.

  She considered. “No.”

  “Then do it. You’re to be his wife. If anything is worrying you, you need to know everything. We’re visiting him today, so ask him then. I’ll make sure Gerald is out of the way.”

  Much heartened, Dorcas got in the carriage to travel the short distance to Grant’s manor house at two. They were to have a tour of the house, and stay for dinner. Gerald and Annie seemed in good spirits, and Dorcas was feeling much better after Annie’s commonsense advice. Of course, she should ask. The vague references Grant made about his brother, and the way nobody talked about the boy—man?—she had a right to know.