by Esther Hatch
Victoria’s eyes caught Sally’s for a moment and then rested back on Lord Farnsworth. A smile grew on Victoria’s face that Sally didn’t recognize. It was not a smile of contentment, nor the smile she gave Sally when she was enjoying a nice meal. This smile reminded her of Lord Farnsworth’s: mischievous and plotting. “I hope so, too.”
Heavens, but she needed to get her sister away from that man.
If only he hadn’t made Victoria laugh.
Mr. Ashton rested a hand on the back of Victoria’s chair. “I’ll continue to work with Miss Victoria here. Why don’t you take Miss Duncan to the winter garden and work with her there?”
The winter garden would still have them in sight of each other, but she didn’t want to be alone with Lord Farnsworth and his well-tailored clothes. “I see no reason why we can’t do a lesson here all together.”
“Miss Duncan—” Lord Farnsworth started.
“Call her Sally,” Victoria piped up from her chair. “And you call him John; everyone else does.”
“I will not.” Sally straightened her spine. She was raising a hooligan. Sally couldn’t go around telling a near stranger to call her by her Christian name, especially not Lord Farnsworth. “And he will not either.”
Lord Farnsworth leaned down and placed his head near Victoria’s shoulder but when he spoke it was not a whisper. “Not yet.”
For the second time that afternoon Victoria snorted. It was not a lovely sound that rang throughout the garden. It was unladylike and embarrassing.
Perhaps it would be easier to keep Victoria to her rooms.
Sally gasped. That thought had not just crossed her mind. The world around her darkened and a crow left its perch behind her, squawking fiercely as it flew overhead. A force like a punch hit her in her middle.
Sally could not become Mama.
She swallowed her pride and took a long, deep breath. “Why would you have our lesson in the winter garden instead of here?” She nearly added “John,” but she stopped herself. Calling Lord Farnsworth by his proper title did not make her like Mama; that was simply common decency.
But John did suit him. Even in all of his fine clothes, the casual way he walked and the way he always looked her in the eye didn’t make him feel like one of the stuffy peers she tried to tell herself he was.
He seemed rather unremarkable, actually.
When he wasn’t jumping in ponds, at any rate.
Lord Farnsworth raised his eyebrows as if he had heard her thoughts. “You can’t have the same lesson as Victoria. She is far ahead of you by now and will become quite bored.”
A few days of boxing lessons had somehow made Victoria an expert? She opened her mouth to give a retort but stopped when she saw Victoria straighten in her chair with a proud smile on her face. That smile of Victoria’s made Sally realize that she never wanted to surpass her sister in boxing.
Lord Farnsworth winked at Victoria and gave the air to her side a punch. In that moment Sally didn’t see a gentleman or a lord. He was a man, and quite possibly a decent one.
She could take boxing lessons from a decent man in the winter garden. It might even be an enjoyable exercise. She could use a break from all the interior design—something she would have enjoyed more if she were the one picking the colors and patterns of the papers and rugs.
“I wouldn't want to slow Victoria’s progress. Lord Farnsworth, I would be honored if you would teach me the first few things about boxing in the winter garden while Mr. Ashton continues Victoria’s lessons here.”
Lord Farnsworth was bent at the waist, still interacting with Victoria when she said it, and his body stilled for a moment before he stood straight and looked her in the eye. He had a question in his, a hesitancy that belied the ridiculousness of their situation. All she had done was offered to let him teach her. She fidgeted with the belt at her waist and then made herself stop. Sally Duncan was not a fidgeter. She could sit in a business meeting where the outcome could mean thousands of pounds for her company and not fidget. She would not allow the gaze of Lord Farnsworth to fluster her.
Sally had never been awed or intimidated by a man’s position in life, and she wasn’t about to start now. He was a lord, it was true. He was also a loggerhead who swam in ponds he only half owned.
Nothing to be flustered about. If only he would stop staring at her. “Well?” she said in hopes of getting him to move. “Shall we?”
He blinked and his half-smile returned. He swaggered over to her and held his arm out to escort her. He was back to being a peer again. She breathed a sigh of relief. She might have been a bit thrown off by Lord Farnsworth looking at her like he was a man, but she could handle Lord Farnsworth escorting her to the winter garden as if he were an overly privileged lord.
Which he was.
Chapter 13
First a present, and now Miss Duncan was inviting him to do something with her. True, it was a boxing lesson in full view of anyone in the house and not far from where Mr. Ashton and Victoria would be working on their boxing lesson, but still. In the past three days she had initiated contact twice. His first week here she hadn’t at all.
Well, unless he counted her telling him to remove himself from the pond.
An invitation to leave shouldn’t count.
Her arm was wrapped in his as they walked down the path toward the winter garden. How often had he walked this path with his mother? The roses and other parts of the garden weren’t in bloom then like they were now, but the garden would always hold a sense of home for him.
And here he was walking it again, only this time with his future wife’s arm about his. Everything was moving along even better than he had planned. Miss Duncan was still surprising him much as she had done on their first meeting. Life with her would never be lonely or dull, and her sister was a delight as well. Perhaps the struggles of his family in the past were all leading to this reward: a home that was filled with happiness. If his mother had found a spouse that had suited her, rather than being paired with his father, perhaps she could have been happy as well.
He had escorted a multitude of women at balls and even while on walks in the countryside, but everything about escorting Miss Duncan felt different.
It felt like triumph.
She wouldn’t take a boxing lesson from him if she didn’t like him at least a little bit. The wide round brim of her hat prevented him from seeing any part of her face, but he wished he could see her reaction to him. Just then, her fingers tightened on his arm almost imperceptibly. Something strange lit up inside him—a sudden intense feeling of possession. He wanted to make the woman by his side his, and only his, not in just a legal and written way, but in a real way. He wanted her to choose him, to give herself to him always.
It was a strange way to think about a woman he had only just met. He swallowed and increased the space between them. What was he to do with this growing attachment? He had always seen Miss Duncan as a woman he could grow to love. He glanced up at his mother’s home. He had risked it on the chance that Miss Duncan would eventually agree to marry him.
But what if she didn’t?
He would lose the manor and the young lady beside him. The world around him grew hazy and he blinked hard to clear his vision.
He was gambling heavily on the chance that Miss Duncan would accept his offer. When he had embarked on this journey, all he was risking was Greenwood Manor. Now that he had spent time here again, his heart had remembered everything that was associated with it—Mr. Ashton, the winter garden, and now Victoria and Miss Duncan.
A woman wouldn’t want a man who was scared. He straightened and willed his breathing to return to normal. Miss Duncan would want a man who was strong, not one who was reduced to shaking at the thought of having everything he loved torn away from him.
They entered the winter garden and followed the path until it came to a small bower surrounded by dormant plants. Most of them were still green, but they would have no flowers until winter. Some spots were bare and brow
n where the plants lay hidden a few inches below the soil, waiting for the right moment to spring back to life again.
This corner of the garden was the converse to most traditional gardens. Each specimen here had been collected, planted, and loved for the fact that it was different from what was typically grown. Its beauty lay in its uniqueness.
Miss Duncan slipped her hand out from around his arm and glanced up at him, her wide mouth opened in a smile. His breath hitched. Miss Duncan a winter garden. It was no wonder he had immediately felt drawn to her. She was everything opposite of most of the women he had met. She was a businesswoman, straightforward instead of coquettish. She gave him gifts of the most unexpected nature. She teased him with terrible wallpapers and demolished staircases. Jonathan would always pick a winter garden over the common and generally loved rose garden. Its rarity and strength were its beauty.
“Are you going to teach me to box, or simply stare at me? You are usually more talkative than you have been today.”
He blinked. Had he been staring? It was shaping up to be a strange day. “Do you already know me so well?”
Miss Duncan turned to look back at where they had come from. Victoria was laughing again. Victoria’s laugh was like music. The hat was once again in the way of seeing her face, but Miss Duncan had to be smiling at her sister’s laugh.
“Would you remove your hat?”
She spun and looked up at him once again. “And risk ruining my complexion?” Her eyes were wide in shock. He hadn’t thought her so vain. But then the corners of her mouth lifted. “I jest. I don’t give a fig about my complexion. Of course. I suppose I need to in order to box.” She would need it for that, too. But he wanted to see her face, and even though he was only a few inches taller than she was, he didn’t have a chance with that brim in the way. “Should I remove my gloves as well? I noticed you and Mr. Ashton weren’t wearing any.”
He nodded and Miss Duncan set down the long roll of paper she had brought with her to the garden. As she did so, a few inches of it rolled free.
It was a roll of paper for the walls, and it was rather hideous, black and white and swirling. “What was your purpose in bringing out the papers?”
“I wanted Victoria’s opinion on them. I’m hoping to change her mind.” She straightened and reached for the ribbons that held her hat in place at her throat. His hand moved to help her and then he stopped.
Was he really about to try to remove Miss Duncan’s hat? To untie the knot that rested against some of the softest skin on her person? He swallowed and stepped back, placing his rough, ungentlemanly hands behind his back.
His heart began to pound loudly in his ears. When she was his wife he could help her with such things, and he would. Is this how all men felt about the women they would marry? Both fascinated and in awe?
Miss Duncan made quick work of the knot without his help and then pulled the hat off her head. Then she looked up at him.
He shook his head. He was staring again. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes...Victoria’s opinion. “On the papers?”
“Yes.”
“You are the one who bought the house. What do you think of them?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think of them. I want Victoria to be comfortable. I want it to feel like home. I want to provide something that was made exclusively for her to enjoy while we are here, but I’m no longer sure any of us will enjoy those papers. Even for Victoria, they are too much.”
The strange strangling feeling that had been growing in his chest tightened. Sally had done everything for Victoria: the stairs, the papers, buying the manor in the first place, everything. Sally Duncan was much more than her beautiful smile and her eye for fabrics. She was more than a businesswoman who would see the mutual benefit of a union between them. She was an exceptional woman and a loyal sister. Once again he felt the need to step away. He was the one who was supposed to be wooing her, not the other way around. Jonathan brushed up against the branches of a small evergreen bush to his side.
Buxus microphylla.
His mother had planted it. She had planted it for him. Every single flower that bloomed here in the winter was like Victoria’s papers. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this woman standing in front of him held the answers to questions that he had always been too afraid to ask.
“Does making something for her make you happy? If you never had any other enjoyment in life, could you take pleasure in just this home? In providing a place where Victoria can be happy?”
Miss Duncan chuckled. “Victoria and I don’t always see eye to eye. But, yes, it makes me very happy. I wasn’t really there for her when she was recovering from her surgery.”
“She had a surgery? Did it help?”
“No.” A haunted look passed over Miss Duncan’s eyes. “No, it did not help. She was born with clubfeet, a bad case, one doctors had tried to fix with bindings, but that only ever helped and never cured them. She could walk, though; she could do everything, really, they just weren’t pretty.” Sally swallowed. “Mama wanted her to wear dancing slippers…”
“Oh.” His response was inadequate. Completely inadequate.
“After the surgery we kept hoping that her feet would heal, but they only got worse, and then the bindings didn’t help anymore. I wasn’t really there for any of that, though. I was busy with Vermillion. It wasn’t until someone mentioned how little time I spent with her that I recognized how I had neglected her. And Mama was never the same—the house had become a prison to both of them.”
“So you bought Greenwood Manor.”
“Yes. I sold Vermillion to do it. To go back to your question—was it worth it? Yes. Do you hear that laughter? It was worth it. The sale of the company got me not only the funds for the manor, but Victoria now has a dowry fit for a queen.”
“It’s a good thing she is learning to box, then.”
“Yes, she is going to need it to fend off fortune hunters.”
“Don’t marry her off without consulting me first. I know most of the men of quality in London.”
“Really?” She quirked one edge of her mouth. “And what are they doing running about with the likes of you?”
“They need someone to do their dirty work.” He flexed his hands. They weren’t the hands of a gentleman. Most of his knuckles had a few scars from practice or actual fights. He had mostly grown out of his tendency to settle problems with his fists, but he couldn’t get his boyhood hands back.
Miss Duncan tipped her head to one side. “Will you be removing yours as well?”
Jonathan blinked, unsure of her meaning. “Pardon?”
“Your hat.”
“Yes, of course.”
He pulled his hat off his head and reached for hers so he could set them both down on the top of the buxus bush.
As soon as the hats were out of his hand, he tried to smooth down his hair. It had just enough curl in it to look quite disheveled whenever he removed a hat. He turned to see Miss Duncan staring at the top of his head.
Did it look that horrendous? “My hair is quite irredeemable, I’m afraid. It never stays put like it should.”
Miss Duncan pulled her lips together as if she wanted to laugh. He used both hands to try to smooth his hair down again, but with no mirror he had no way to tell exactly where it was misbehaving. “You find my hair comical? Is it sticking up strangely somewhere? I can’t have you distracted during your lesson.”
Her eyes followed the line of his head. “I like your hair. Your comment before just reminded me how suitable it is to you.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Only that I thought you would stay put in London when I bought this house, and when you didn’t I thought at the very least you would stay put in the hunting lodge, but you have never stayed put like I think you should.”
“You think I should stay in my hunting lodge?” He furrowed his eyebrows. He thought he had finally made some progress with her.
Once again her eyes made their w
ay to Victoria and Mr. Ashton. “No, I thought that at first. But now, I think I may have been wrong.”
Deep in his chest, his heart warmed. “I’m guessing that doesn’t happen very often.”
“It does not.”
He shrugged. “It happens to me all the time.”
Miss Duncan burst into laughter. Her laugh was similar to Victoria’s, in that it rang throughout the garden and burst forth without restriction, but Miss Duncan’s laugh had a husky quality that made him think about removing her hat again. His fingers would just graze the soft skin while he felt the vibrations on her throat.
He coughed. “Well, I shall try not to be hurt by your laughter.”
“You are a grown man; you can handle it.”
“Yes, I can. But I must admit there was one time I thought you quite wrong.”
“Me?” she asked, as if the possibility was very unlikely. “What did you think I was wrong about?”
“The stairs, and the wallpaper, and the menagerie.” The back balcony of Greenwood Manor was still unscathed by that particular plan. “Now that I think about it, you might still be wrong about the menagerie.”
She scoffed. “I was never serious about the menagerie. I said that only to rile you up.”
“Well, it worked.”
“Of course it did. If I didn’t know how to read a gentleman, I could have hardly made my business successful, now could I?”
“No, I don’t suppose you could.”
“And the stairs and the papers...you no longer feel that I am wrong about those?”
Victoria was laughing again. They both watched for a moment as Mr. Ashton feigned falling to the ground. He had used that same technique while teaching Jonathan to box. As an eight-year-old he had felt as mighty as a giant.
