by Esther Hatch
She stood upright. “You know my gardener?” As soon as the words left her mouth she wanted to call them back. The man had only just walked her through the whole rose garden from memory, for heaven’s sake. Of course he knew the gardener.
“I do. Thank you for keeping him on. He has been tending to this garden as long as I can remember.”
What did he take her for? The kind of person who would turn out a man who had lived and cared for Greenwood Manor for most of his adult life? “Of course.” She had only spoken to Mr. Ashton once but the care he took in the gardens was evident. There weren’t many manors whose grounds would be so immaculate when the proprietors hadn’t lived there in over a decade.
Lord Farnsworth's head turned in the direction of the gardener’s cottage. “I would like to speak to him sometime.”
“I will let him know. I assume he is welcome to come to your lodge.”
“Of course, but if it isn’t an inconvenience I would also like to visit with him here in the garden—to see the work that he has done and have him show it to me.”
Now he wanted to come to her home and dally about in the garden? When would she ever get her work done? “Why don’t we find him now?” Sally had wasted too much time exploring the garden with Lord Farnsworth. If Mr. Ashton would take him through it, she could get back to the workers on the stairs.
Which admittedly didn’t seem quite as pressing as it had a few minutes ago.
They were not far from the edge of the rose garden, and the path from there led to Mr. Ashton’s cottage. Sally led the way, and for the first time since they had left the dog trot, Lord Farnsworth’s pace did not keep up with hers, as if he was hesitant to meet the man. Was there something about Mr. Ashton that worried Lord Farnsworth? The one interaction she had had with him was pleasant, and his care of the garden alone was reason enough to respect the man.
Lord Farnsworth fell further behind as soon as the cottage came into view. Lilacs and peonies surrounded the area. Mr. Ashton knelt next to the flowers with a pail set beside him. After only just entering the clearing, Lord Farnsworth’s footsteps on the gravel path stopped.
Sally turned to find him staring at Mr. Ashton with warring emotions in his face. Did he want to meet with him or not? Something must have alerted Mr. Ashton to their arrival, for he turned. When his eyes met hers, he quickly grabbed a hoe by his side, used it as leverage to rise to his feet, and gave her a short bow. Then he glanced behind her and took a step forward.
Lord Farnsworth must have found whatever bravery had left him earlier, for he stepped around her and in an action she wouldn’t expect from a baron to a gardener, he bowed his head low and slow. “Mr. Ashton. It has been much too long.”
Mr. Ashton’s arm holding the hoe shook and he leaned forward. He scanned Lord Farnsworth’s face. “John?”
Lord Farnsworth’s shoulders drooped. He took two steps forward and then stopped, then rushed the rest of the way to the gardener and threw his arms around him. The hoe dropped to the ground as the old man reached around Lord Farnsworth’s broad shoulders and enveloped him in an embrace. Mr. Ashton’s head knocked the hat off of Lord Farnsworth, but rather than try to right it, Mr. Ashton stroked the back of Lord Farnsworth’s hair. The shaking in Mr. Ashton’s arms spread to his body, his chin quivering and tears filling his eyes. Lord Farnsworth held him tighter until the shaking subsided.
Lord Farnsworth, burly pugilist lord that he was, held the frail gardener in his arms as if he were his long-lost father.
Tight pinpricks of emotion clouded Sally’s eyes and she turned to face the manor. It had been too long since she had embraced her grandfather. Her father had almost never held her, and Mama embraced her publicly, but almost never when they were alone. Even Mr. Harrison had not been so bold as to enfold her in his arms, although there were times she would have welcomed it.
Sally took a deep breath. Lord Farnsworth hadn’t needed her to accompany him. He should have had this meeting on his own. She wouldn't begrudge him walking across her property to visit an old friend.
She had taken two steps back to the manor when a sound stopped her.
A bark.
She spun around to see a golden-haired dog walking gingerly around the two men. They were no longer embracing—now Lord Farnsworth was kneeling and scratching the dog’s head. “I thought you said there were no dogs on the property,” he called out to her.
Everything about him had changed in the few moments he had been near the cottage. He didn’t look like a pugilist or a haughty lord. With his hat on the ground and his fine wool trousers in the dirt, he didn’t look much older than a boy.
And his smile was as broad as the bow of a merchant ship.
Sally raised her hands. “I didn’t know about this dog.”
“Do you know what this means?”
She raised her eyebrows. No, she didn’t seem to know what anything meant anymore.
“This means he is my dog. I have a dog.”
Mr. Ashton placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. “He has waited long enough for you to return. He and I both.”
Lord Farnsworth stood and gripped Mr. Ashton by the shoulder as well. She fought the need to turn around again. For whatever reason, she had been invited to this reunion. She might as well join it. The work on the stairs would continue without her. She had come to Greenwood Manor to work less and connect more. She had thought to connect mostly with Victoria, the person who mattered the most to her, but perhaps she could commence that goal by establishing new connections with the people who would be a part of her life here. Mr. Ashton was a good person to start with.
Chapter 9
The dog’s name was Bernard. Jonathan had named him that when the dog was not much bigger than his open palm, and Jonathan had been only twelve years old. Mr. Ashton had happily told Jonathan to take Bernard back to the hunting lodge.
The last two days had been spent getting him accustomed to his new home. Jonathan bent down and stroked the gray head that lay in his lap as he finished his noon meal. Seeing Mr. Ashton had brought back more memories and more guilt that he had been prepared for.
Mr. Ashton had not blamed him for staying away. He must have understood. Miss Duncan hadn’t stayed long and so his courting, if he could call it that, had been cut short, but now that he had Bernard, he would always have an excuse to return to the property. It wasn’t as if he could keep Bernard away from his old home.
Bernard was the last of the litter that his mother had saved. Jonathan had helped her name all of them with names that had started with the letter “B.” He couldn’t remember Bernard specifically, but Mr. Ashton had told him Bernard must have remembered him. Based on the way the dog came and laid his head in his lap every time Jonathan sat down, he was inclined to believe him.
It was strange that a place he had left behind so long ago would still have so many traces of him.
Mr. Ashton. How many times had he taken Jonathan into the garden and explained to him the different types of flowers? And when flowers weren’t enough, he led him into boxing. Flowers and boxing. Mr. Ashton would probably have liked him to make more use of his horticultural knowledge than his fists while at school, but life at Eton hadn’t lent itself to much practical use of gardening skills.
Indeed, his first fight came after he had explained the difference of how to trim a rose bush versus a peony. He wasn’t as tall as the other boys. Despite them knowing he was the son of a baron, the fact that he spoke like a gardener’s son made him an easy target—at least the bigger boys had thought so, until he displayed his other skill set. Jonathan’s penchant for flowers was forgotten quickly enough once his fists had been put to use. After his first scuffle, the other boys had learned to leave him alone. It wasn’t until Oliver was being teased that Jonathan had needed to use his fists once again.
He stood from the chair and Bernard looked up at him expectantly. The distance from the lodge to the manor wouldn’t have been long for Bernard when he was younger,
but now…
Jonathan scooped Bernard up into his arms and strode out the door. He kicked the door closed behind him and marched toward Greenwood Manor. Before reaching the pond he set Bernard down and pushed him forward. He and Bernard had bonded, but not well enough for the dog to forget the home he had lived in for the past ten years.
Bernard hobbled for a bit and then, with his joints warmed up, he managed a shuffling jog. Jonathan chased after him, which excited Bernard to the point that he ran and stayed ahead of him. He wouldn’t be able to keep this pace for long, but the exercise was good for Bernard, as long as he didn’t get too much of it, which is why he had carried him most of the way.
Jonathan needed a way into Miss Duncan’s heart, or if not her heart, at least her head. Thus far he had been woefully unsuccessful in capturing her interest. She seemed pleasant enough about spending some time with him, but never tried to seek him out. He had been distracted by the rose garden and Mr. Ashton yesterday and had only managed a few compliments before turning into the sad Eton boy that loved flowers and his gardener. Jonathan needed to be more deliberate. There would be plenty of time for Miss Duncan to discover his strange habits after they were married. Bernard had reached the back garden, and as expected, when he reached the fountain he turned left.
As much as Jonathan would have loved another chance to reminisce with Mr. Ashton, he needed Bernard to find his way to Miss Duncan, not Mr. Ashton. He could reminisce all he wanted with Mr. Ashton once his position with Miss Duncan was secured, and hopefully that could be done before Miss Duncan started tearing apart the library.
He quickened his pace. Bernard was not quite as feeble as he imagined; if anything, he had only sped up the closer they got to his old home. The path bent around a tree and Jonathan hurtled around it.
But he wasn’t the only one on the path. Directly in front of him was a lanky girl standing behind a wheeled bath chair. Jonathan jumped to one side. He landed strangely on one foot and quickly shifted his balance to his other in an awkward leap that left him standing and also kept him from charging head-on into the girl in front of him.
The girl he had almost run over was staring at him open-mouthed. The last thing he had expected to see on his walk today was a young lady with plaited hair, pushing around a wheeled chair. Bernard, oblivious to the humans around him, continued on his path and Jonathan let him. The dog knew where he was going.
The apparition was at that hard age of being somewhere between childhood and womanhood: fourteen, perhaps. Too old for a nursery, but not yet an adult. “Who are you?” she demanded. “The gardener? No, he is old. The gardener’s son, perhaps?”
Flashes of being teased at Eton made him stand up straight. What gardener dressed so well? Did a man ready himself for digging in the dirt by dressing in such well-tailored trousers? For a moment he didn’t answer, though, for a dissenting answer indeed felt like a lie. He was not Mr. Ashton’s son. The world would have been much simpler if he had been, for his father’s barony had done him no good. He would have rather been a gardener’s son.
Jonathan’s eyes went back to the chair. What was she doing with it? “Is Mr. Ashton well?” He craned his neck to look as far down the path as he could. What if something had happened to him? An uneasiness settled deep in the pit of his stomach. “He hasn’t been hurt?”
“I’m certain Mr. Ashton is well. This is my chair.”
Her chair? He blinked, letting the world shift back into place. He took a deep breath. “What are you doing with it?”
She lifted her eyes heavenward. “At the moment, trying to turn it around. The gravel is too loose here and the wheels keep sinking in.” She leaned forward and pushed the handles at the back of the wheeled chair a few inches to her right, and then, placing a good deal of her weight on the back of the chair, she gingerly took two steps to the side, each of which produced a wince.
It really was her chair.
He stepped back onto the path and to her side. “How may I help?”
She lifted her chin. “I can do it.”
Instead of answering, he leaned forward. “We haven’t been introduced. May I ask with whom I am speaking?”
“I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to tell you until you answer my question; besides, you should know who I am.”
He should know who she is? Was she someone from the village? She was too young to be someone who would remember him. There were no babies that he could think of associated with the property before he left. She was too well-dressed to be a part of the household staff. Perhaps she was someone from the village who often visited, but if that were the case she would have known he was not the gardener.
“I should know who you are?”
Her head lifted. “Definitely.”
He looked her up and down. The lift of her chin reminded him of the way Queen Victoria lifted hers when she walked through a crowd; a person comfortable in her own importance and place in the world. He snickered. “My best guess is that you must be Queen Victoria and you are here as some sort of a plot to take over Dorset.”
Her eyebrows furrowed and a snort escaped her mouth. “If I were Queen Victoria, why would I need to take over Dorset? I already rule Dorset.”
He snapped his fingers. “So you admit it.”
She tipped her head to one side. One long plait dragged along the armrest of her wheeled chair. “I admit to nothing. However, I will say that you are not completely wrong. And now that you know something about me, I would like to know your name.”
If she was Queen Victoria, he figured he could be whomever he wanted as well. “I am Jonathan Francis.” True enough. He put both hands on his hips and pulled his shoulders back. “The world-renowned boxer.” Not so true.
“You are a boxer?”
Oliver had gotten into his head, and now even he was telling people he was a pugilist. “Not simply a boxer.” He raised his eyebrow. “A world-renowned boxer.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And I am Queen Victoria?”
“Yes.”
She shrugged. “Fair enough.” She pulled on the wheel to her right, trying to move the chair to one side, but she was stuck in some of the gravel on the path.
“Were you trying to go somewhere?”
“I wanted to meet the gardener, Mr. Ashton. My sister told me I have to explore for at least two hours and I’m not allowed to read any books until I have. She said Mr. Ashton could teach me about flowers. I know his home is this way, but here, the path isn’t smooth and packed down like in the garden.”
So this was Miss Duncan’s sister. Jonathan had studied Miss Duncan enough to know that her grandfather had passed away three years ago, and her father even earlier than that. The only family she had left was her mother and a sister who would be about this young nymph’s age. He hadn’t known she was in need of a wheelchair. The gravel was deep the rest of the way to Mr. Ashton’s cottage, and it wouldn’t be easy to push her through it, nor did he want Miss Duncan to find him removing her sister from the garden. “Would you like me to run and fetch Mr. Ashton? I believe he has my dog, anyway. I was headed in that direction.”
“Yes, I would like that. Thank you...” She paused, obviously uncertain about what to call him. “Mr. Francis.”
He didn’t correct her; he had been Mr. Francis for most of his adult life. Lord Farnsworth still felt as if that were his father’s name, and besides, he didn’t want to intimidate this young queen. She seemed quite sure of her possession of the garden, and he didn’t want that look of independence and pride to leave her face. Besides, Mr. Ashton was certain to let her know in one way or another.
He jogged down the path until it opened up to the front garden of Mr. Ashton’s cottage. Mr. Ashton was standing just outside his front door, bent over and petting Bernard on the head. No doubt Bernard had made his presence known by scratching at the door.
Mr. Ashton had always seemed ancient. In a strange way it was almost as if he had stayed the same age these past years, but Jonatha
n and Bernard had felt the years. Jonathan waved. “Bernard wanted to pay you a visit.”
“Only Bernard?”
“Of course only Bernard. If I visit you, you will put me to work. Miss Duncan doesn’t want a baron trimming her rose bushes.”
“Something tells me Miss Duncan wouldn’t mind that at all.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow. Had Miss Duncan been speaking of him to Mr. Ashton? “What do you mean by that?”
Mr. Ashton laughed. “Only that she is a woman who isn’t going to be intimidated by a title.”
He didn’t want her intimidated, but he had hoped perhaps Mr. Ashton had meant something more with his offhand comment. “Has she said anything about me? Asked anything about me?”
Mr. Ashton’s hand rested on the top of Bernard’s head. “She hasn’t.”
Oh.
Mr. Ashton stepped toward him, Bernard following. “Of course, other than the time we spent together, I have hardly had a word with the young lady, so that shouldn’t be surprising.”
“Speaking of Miss Duncan, I’ve a young queen in the garden waiting to meet you.”
“A young queen?”
“Yes. Miss Duncan seems to have told her you would be willing to show her some of your skills in the garden.”
“My skills in the garden, eh? Who exactly is this young lady?”
“Come and see.” Jonathan didn’t bother to tell him about the chair. Mr. Ashton wouldn’t treat her any differently because of it.
