Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next two days passed in a blur of preparations. Despite Mrs Finch's airy confidence, throwing together a party for forty people at a moment's notice in a house ten miles from the nearest town was no small undertaking.

It helped that Oliver had money to throw at the problem. A lot of money. I tried not to react to the number of carts and carriages that began arriving from York, unloading everything from glassware to shellfish, table linens to crates of champagne.

Servants employed by the agency that Mrs Finch had engaged descended in a mess of feather dusters and kitchen knives. Suddenly Beth was overseeing a kitchen staff of eleven and nine housemaids, while Barker found himself up to his elbows in footmen.

Oliver looked constantly as though someone was pinching him.

"There are people everywhere," he said to me on the morning of the party when we met in the hallway, his expression hunted. "I just found someone trying to bathe Marmalade."

I lifted my brows. "I imagine that went well."

"There was a lot of hissing."

"From you or the cat?"

"Very droll, Bloom," he said over his shoulder, already striding off towards his library, where I knew he would hide for the rest of the day. "With a wit like that, you're wasted on flowers."

In fact, flowers were precisely my focus. I had taken delivery of those myself at the crack of dawn. I knew perfectly well just how much they must have cost, almost down to the stem, and it was more than even my most spendthrift clients in London would have laid out.

Oliver had ordered so many that it was going to take me hours to arrange them all. Not that I was complaining. Not after Beth showed me to the flower room.

Unlike most of the house, it was light and airy – thanks to the tall windows that overlooked the lawn, and which had been given a scrub by the enterprising new maids. Long workbenches ran all the way along two of the walls, and mounted above them were hooks and pegs and empty wooden spindles for holding twine and ribbon. There was lots of clever built-in storage, too, and when I opened the cupboards I found dozens of beautiful antique vases and urns, thick with dust.

Though the room was mostly empty, the florist sent over enough trimmings to fill it out a little. Dozens of silver pails held the flowers, and even with my high standards I had to admit that the quality was exceptional. Barker appeared with brand-new secateurs and floristry wire, and when I thanked him for thinking of them, he told me with a knowing wink that Oliver had sent for the items himself.

All in all, Oliver's flower room was easily four times the size of the space we had at Bloom's for carrying out this kind of work, and I propped the door open, letting in the cool air and the smell of freshly mown grass, humming as I got to work.

I had been in there for hours, filling all the vases, making centrepieces for the tables, creating buttonholes for the gentlemen and corsages for the ladies out of sprigs of the soft, purple heather gathered from the moors at my request, when Oliver finally reappeared, sticking his head round the door.

"Izzy and Max are due to arrive shortly," he said, wandering over to my workbench where I was putting the finishing touch to the final arrangement.

I wiped my hands down the front of my apron. "Is it that time already?"

"You were enjoying yourself," he said, reaching out to touch the delicate white petals of an anemone.

I nodded. "I've missed this." I gave an embarrassed laugh. "Silly to say after only a few days."

"Not at all." Oliver leaned back against the bench, his long legs stretched in front of him. "I understand. Flowers are your passion."

"Yes," I said, reaching up to straighten one of the stems. "I love the whole process – growing them, tending them, arranging them. Making something … beautiful." I raised my eyes to his, then smiled and gestured to the gorgeous bouquet in front of us. "Not bad for something that started as no more than seeds and dirt."

"No, not bad at all," he said, his eyes searching my face. "Bloom's must be very important to you," he said slowly.

"It is," I agreed. "I love the shop, our customers, the way that the flowers we sell become part of the fabric of their lives." I hesitated, thinking about all the secrets that Oliver had shared with me. "Recently, though, I have been wondering…" I trailed off.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't know." I fiddled with the hem of my apron. "I'm proud of Bloom's, and my grandfather built that beautiful, special place from nothing. It's extraordinary – it's his legacy and it's going from strength to strength."

"But?" Oliver prompted gently. I looked into his face and saw no judgement there, only an attentive interest in what I was saying.

"But…" I exhaled. "I wonder if it's … enough." Saying the words aloud felt like a betrayal and I winced. "It feels as if there's a limit to what I can achieve there – with the space, with the business, and perhaps I've reached that. I think that's why I joined the Aviary, because the work they do is so … big. It helps so many people and I love that. And I love this." I gestured to the flowers in front of us. "If only I could use my work to make a difference."

Oliver nodded, as though it made perfect sense. "If that's what you want, then I'm certain you will find a way to do it."

"How can I?" The words came out small. "I'm already stretched so thin between the Aviary and the shop. My family needs me. I'm being selfish, ungrateful."

"Ungrateful?" Oliver snapped, the familiar scowl dropping into place. "What nonsense, Bloom. You have worked incredibly hard to help your family business reach its full potential and now, when you have achieved that goal – no small feat, by the way – you want a new challenge, a bigger challenge. It's not selfish; it's called ambition."

I reeled back, as though physically struck. "Ambition," I repeated blankly. I felt the shape of the word settle over me, and it felt … right. A name to that gnawing feeling that I had tried to ignore for so long.

Perhaps realizing that I was feeling overwhelmed, Oliver changed the subject. "Do all these flowers have their own secret meaning too? I only know about the foxglove because of Mother."

"They do." I gathered myself and pointed at the anemone he had touched. "Anemones mean forsaken love. It comes from Greek mythology. After the jealous gods killed Adonis, Aphrodite wept and anemones sprung up from the ground." I pointed to the apricot-coloured dahlia, with the perfect symmetry that had so appealed to Max's sister. "Dahlias mean eternal love or commitment. I use them a lot in wedding flowers, or pair them with tulips for an engagement."

"What do tulips mean?" Oliver asked.

"I declare my love for you," I said unthinkingly, and the words hung heavy between us. I cleared my throat. "We always sell plenty of these in spring when love is in the air."

"What about these ones?" Oliver pointed to a perfect pink camellia.

I swallowed a groan. "Camellia – they mean, um … longing for you."

Oliver made a humming sound in the back of his throat. "Very romantic, the language of flowers."

"Yes, I suppose," I said, "though not always. There are plenty of plants that can be used to send a very different message. Marigold actually means grief, which my grandfather was up in arms about when he found out what my parents had named me, but Mother dug her heels in. She said that she thought marigolds were lovely, very cheerful flowers." I smiled, ticking more examples off on my fingers. "Columbine means foolishness, tansy is hostility, petunia is anger or resentment." I brushed the cloudy white head of a lacy hydrangea. "Hydrangea means boastfulness or heartlessness."

"Not always so innocent as they seem, then," Oliver said lightly, and I felt relieved that we'd navigated our way back to steadier waters.

"Not at all." I grinned. "They're not just messages either. For as long as there have been people, they've been using plants to heal or to do harm. There's plenty in here that could do either."

"Really?" Oliver looked intrigued.

"Mmm," I said. "These frilly hydrangeas, for example, contain small amounts of cyanide."

"Cyanide?" Oliver glanced at the flower in alarm.

I laughed. "Yes, very small amounts." I nodded my head towards the window. "What's growing out there is worse. The leaves on buttercups can cause terrible blisters, lobelia will make you vomit, hellebore will do that too, but much worse beside. There are records of a man dying within eight hours of drinking even one ounce of water in which the roots have been soaked. Deadly nightshade – well, that speaks for itself…"

"Stop, stop!" Oliver laughed. "Or I shall be too frightened to ever leave the house."

I grinned at him. "I'm sorry, I've been doing a lot of research for the Finches. Winnie and I have been working on creating holistic remedies, as well as certain compounds that might … help with the work the Aviary does."

Oliver shivered, leaning back once more against the table and eyeing me warily. "You might as well be a hydrangea yourself. Pretty as a picture and deadly as any weapon."

"I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me," I replied, trying to decide what my body was going to do when his words made me want to laugh delightedly and burst into tears at the same time.

Apparently, I was going to do neither of those things, however, because what I did instead was lean forward to press my lips to his cheek.

When I pulled back, Oliver's eyes had darkened. He reached towards me, looping his finger through the waistband of my apron, tugging me closer to where he still leaned negligently back against the bench.

I was hypnotized by the heat in his gaze, my pulse drumming wildly as our faces inched closer and closer together. I could feel the warm touch of his breath coasting over my own lips, and my stomach leaped, even as my eyelids fluttered closed.

Oliver's fingers reached up and brushed my cheek, the same movement he'd made yesterday, and this time I knew it wasn't to rub away any smudge. This time it felt as though electric sparks flew beneath his fingertips.

"Bloom," he breathed, the distance between us closing even further.

"Oliver?" a voice called, shattering the moment, and my eyes snapped open.

Oliver lurched to his feet as I staggered back, away from him. My hands were curled into fists to hide their trembling. I stared down at the floor, too overwhelmed to meet his eye.

"There you are!" Beth appeared in the doorway, her eyes darting between the two of us. "I – I hope I'm not interrupting?" I couldn't be certain, but I thought there were traces of amusement in her voice.

"Of course you're interrupting," Oliver said with startling honesty. "What do you want?"

Beth was unmoved by his sour tone. "I wanted to let you know that your guests have arrived," she said, smiling so that a dimple popped in her cheek. "But perhaps you'd rather just ignore them."

"Don't be ridiculous, Beth," Oliver muttered, trailing after us as she and I hurried back into the hall. "Of course I'd rather just ignore them."