Chapter Three

"The man is a pig!" Daisy exclaimed, pushing her hands through her blonde hair, messing up the careful style that I knew would have taken a good hour in front of the mirror, demonstrating just how upset my sister really was.

She was speaking about Simon. I hadn't got around to telling them about his awful father yet. I was easing myself into it. (And it comes to something, doesn't it, when the fool who broke off your engagement for no good reason is only the second worst man you've dealt with that day?)

"Daisy!" my mother chided gently, pouring the tea that she insisted would make everyone feel better. "That language is not appropriate." There was a pause while she replaced the teapot in the centre of the table and turned it clockwise so that the floral design faced forward. "Although in this case it is not inaccurate."

The three of us were arranged around the sitting room in our home above the shop, and the pretty, feminine space was doing almost as much to soothe me as the righteous, fiery outrage that sparked in my mother's and sister's eyes. I was still unsettled about the scene with Earnshaw, but being here with them chased some of the shadows away.

Daisy's delicate fingers were already straightening her hair, but her blue eyes blazed as she gave a short, humourless laugh. "He's a pig and he didn't deserve Mari – and speaking the truth is never inappropriate."

"Well, it's done now," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "Perhaps Simon was right. Perhaps it was just a childish infatuation."

"If you feel like that, then it's for the best." Mother sighed. "You shouldn't marry someone unless the thought of them leaving shatters your heart into a hundred pieces. I want that for both my girls."

"You want us both to have our hearts shattered into pieces?" I asked over the top of my teacup.

"Yes!" Mother exclaimed instantly. Then she frowned. "I mean no, no, of course not. I meant…"

"I know what you meant!" I laughed. "I was only teasing. And you're right – I never had any great passion for Simon, but then I never expected to. I thought we'd be happy."

"Happy with a worm like him?" Daisy huffed. "Doubtful."

"Is he a worm or a pig?" I asked thoughtfully. "Or some sort of hybrid? A pig-worm, perhaps? A porm?"

Reluctantly, Daisy chuckled. Then she tilted her head to the side and observed me thoughtfully. "At least you're taking it well, Mari," she said. "I'm sure I'd be a weeping, wailing mess if someone broke off my engagement – even if I had been engaged to a pig. But that's you all over. You're just so … steady. Not like me."

It was my turn to laugh. I appreciated Daisy's self-awareness. At fifteen she was very pretty – small and slender with a mop of guinea-gold curls and wide blue eyes, and she existed on a steady diet of fashion periodicals and penny dreadfuls. The more gothic and ridiculous the love story, the better, as far as Daisy was concerned. She could happily make a melodrama out of the tiniest domestic wrinkle. (Take, for example, the time Mother denied her a new and quite unflattering hat and Daisy drew a straight line from this event to her untimely demise via several increasingly outlandish coincidences, including a seagull and a one-eyed man with a pipe. Needless to say, she wore the hat to church the following Sunday.)

I would have said it was something she'd grow out of, but she was so precisely a copy of our mother in both appearance and temperament that when they stood side by side they looked like the sort of little wooden dolls that stacked one inside the other.

"Well, exactly," Mother agreed with Daisy, only proving my point. "I, for one, would have taken to my bed immediately." She sighed again, heavily. "Probably wasted away, all pale and interesting." Her face looked a bit wistful at this, clearly imagining the picture she'd make lying prone across the bed in her nicest nightgown. "It's fortunate that you take after your father, Mari. He was such a dear, reliable man."

As my father had died shortly after Daisy was born, when I was only three, I would have to take Mother's word on that. I knew that my parents had loved each other deeply – Mother was always clear on that matter, had even written several flowery sonnets on the subject that Daisy and I had listened to with different levels of enthusiasm. My grandfather always said that when his son brought home a Rose, he knew their match was destined.

Even so, the way she often spoke about my father in relation to his similarities to me was not so much poetic as it was like a depressingly dull advertisement for a clock. Reliable. Steady. Dependable. Sometimes it made me feel more like a sturdy shire horse pulling a plough than an eighteen-year-old girl.

"Yes, well, I don't have much interest in wasting away." I took another sip of my tea, picked up a lavender shortbread biscuit and crunched into it with satisfaction. I had found the perfect balance of floral sweetness with this batch; it was time to offer them for sale in the shop. "And there's far too much for me to do to take to my bed." I hesitated but decided to take the metaphorical bull by the horns. "My engagement to Simon – or lack thereof – may have implications for the business."

Mother had been stirring sugar into her cup and the silver teaspoon halted in its lazy circles. She lifted her eyes to mine. "Do you think… Will his father…" She trailed off.

"Will he raise the rent on the shop?" I said. "Yes, I'd imagine so. He… Well, I ran into him before I came up here."

I gave a brisk account of what had happened. Mother's face was pale, Daisy's gaze murderous as she almost vibrated with anger.

"He would dare—" my sister started, but I wrapped my hand around hers, gently prising the teacup from her fingers.

"It's no good flinging Mother's best china at the fireplace," I said, setting the cup back on its saucer. "Yes, he did dare, and none of us can pretend to be surprised that the man is an awful, lecherous—"

"Pig-worm," Daisy finished.

I laughed, though the sound was forced. "Like father, like son, I suppose."

"I can't believe you're so calm about it." Daisy tilted her head to one side, observing me as though I was some mysterious new species.

"I'm furious about it," I said simply. "It was horrible. He was horrible. But as I'm not about to become his mistress, it's better to put my energy into finding a solution. We're going to have to raise a decent amount of funds, I suppose, if we want to stay."

The three of us fell silent at that. Because here was the real problem – Simon's father owned the building in which we were currently sitting: the site of Bloom's and our home above it.

My engagement to Simon had been seen as part of a long-term business arrangement – albeit one that his father had entered into reluctantly. Upon our marriage, Simon would own the building in which my family would continue to live and work, and when my grandfather died, the business would belong to Simon too.

As the shop was successful, and I was an extremely competent manager who had grown the business as far as a person possibly could, this was hardly the act of benevolence that Mr Earnshaw made it seem. He and Simon stood to make a good amount of money from it, though both seemed completely baffled by my role as my grandfather's second-in-command, and heir apparent, and by the very idea that a business run by a woman could be turning a profit.

"I don't know how to tell Grandfather." I shifted uncomfortably against the pretty though worn sofa cushion. "Not about Mr Earnshaw," I said quickly. "There's no need to trouble him with that."

My mother and sister both nodded in swift agreement. It was all too easy to imagine Grandfather calling for pistols at dawn, which would, I thought fondly, appeal to his own romantic nature but – as this was 1898 and no one had duelled for almost fifty years, and the man had never so much as fired a gun in his life – could only end in some fresh disaster.

"You know he was never thrilled about the arrangement with Simon in the first place," Mother began tentatively.

"I do know that," I agreed, "but he understood it was necessary. Practical. Without the agreement in place, Mr Earnshaw has no reason not to drive up the rent, let alone reduce it as we had planned. We're in the fashionable part of town. He knows he can get more for the building. He would have squeezed us out a long time ago if it hadn't been for the engagement."

I looked around at the sitting room, the one that I had grown up in – the one my father had grown up in, and a fragile connection to him that had always felt so important. To be forced to leave would be a terrible wrench for all of us, and Grandfather was older now, his health not what it once was. I couldn't see him leaving his home, the one he had built and shared with his wife, without a fight. And despite what he might have to say about the matter, I worried that such a fight might be asking too much of him.

"How could we move?" Mother's hands twisted fretfully in her lap. "Not just the house but to move the family business, the one that your grandfather built…" She trailed off again, tears brightening her eyes.

I tried not to let it bother me that she didn't mention my contribution to the business. In the eighteen months since Grandfather had turned the day-to-day running of the shop over to me, our income had grown significantly. I had taken on several big accounts, working for some of the most prominent families in the city, and – perhaps most importantly – I'd established our own small nursery with a thoroughly modern greenhouse on the once-scrubby strip of land at the back of the house.

The greenhouse. At the thought of that, I winced. It had been a big investment: one I had made based on the certainty of a future with Simon. It had changed everything for Bloom's – we'd been able to produce a small but carefully curated contribution to our stock without being reliant on the local nurserymen and their changing prices. In addition to that, we could experiment with different growing methods, cross-breeding new varieties – particularly roses.

I had high hopes for several of my experiments. Grandfather and I had even talked about flower shows, about the possibility of stocking prize-winning blooms for our customers – the ones who demanded the rare, the exclusive, and who would pay well for it.

"It won't come to that," I said with a certainty I didn't precisely feel, but Mother's face cleared instantly. Her complete faith that I would fix everything was both gratifying and infuriating. "I'm sure I'll think of something," I added, trying to eradicate any hint of doubt from my tone.

"You always do," Mother agreed warmly. "Honestly, Mari, what would we do without you?" She reached over and squeezed my hand in hers. "You're a treasure."

For some reason this had tears prickling at the back of my eyes and I blinked rapidly. I never cried, and I wasn't about to start now. I simply had to be practical, make a plan. People were depending on me. If our outgoings were going to increase, then I would just have to find ways to boost our income. It was only a matter of balancing numbers. I could do that.

"And here are my little blooms, pretty as a picture!" a deep voice boomed from the doorway.

"Gramps!" Daisy got to her feet, rushing over to take his hat from him, while Mother fussed about getting him to sit in his favourite armchair and I poured him a cup of tea, setting a biscuit on the plate beside it.

Horatio Bloom was – unquestionably – a darling. Small and spry, well into his seventies, with a thick silver moustache that tickled when he kissed your cheek, and green eyes that sparkled with humour, he could charm the birds down from the trees. He took over his father's flower cart as a young man but had secretly dreamed of a life on the stage, and he certainly had the presence for it – which is a polite way of saying that all my sister's flair for the dramatic came from him.

His health had started to decline over the last couple of years, and he was easily tired, had dizzy spells and suffered heart palpitations that he would never admit to. Fortunately for him, he had a daughter-in-law and two granddaughters who watched eagle-eyed for any sign he was overexerting himself. He pretended to hate us fussing over him, but really he responded to attention like a flower to sunshine.

"Marigold, my love," he said, biting into his biscuit with an expression of bliss, "these are wonderful. The lavender is just right… Are you going to put them out downstairs?"

"I thought so." I nodded. "And the rosemary ones if I can get the balance right with the salt."

"A Bloom through and through." Grandfather sighed, content. "Always thinking, always growing. A man can retire happy when he has a granddaughter like Marigold, isn't that right, Rose?"

"Yes," Mother said, casting a glance my way. "We're all lucky to have Mari. We were just saying so."

"Mari can take care of anything," Daisy said staunchly.

I wondered why their supportive words felt like wearing a corset tied too tight. Clearly, they were waiting to see if I was going to reveal all to Grandfather, but I found myself desperate to put it off for as long as possible. I'd have to tell him soon; I was horrible at lying, but I needed a moment's pause, a respite from the bleakness of this morning's events. I wasn't sure I had it in me to go through it all again just now. Suddenly the room felt airless, the crawling sense of panic that I had pushed down returned with even greater force, taking me by surprise.

I placed my teacup back on the tray with an almost steady hand and got to my feet, dusting off my skirt.

"I think I'll head off to the library," I said, forcing a smile. "I have time before my meeting this afternoon with Mrs Birch about the arrangements for her dinner party, and there's a new book on landscaping I wanted to borrow. Time to start looking for some more new ideas."

Mother looked relieved by my decision not to tell Grandfather just yet, flashing me a look of agreement. He only rubbed his hands together and started telling me that the last book I'd taken out on propagating roses had clearly been written by an imbecile, with the cheerful confidence of a man who knew everything there was to know about flowers.

"Oh, Mari, you're so clever, filling your head with all those gardening facts," Daisy cut in, beaming at me, and even going so far as to bat her eyelashes.

"And what are you after?" I asked suspiciously.

Daisy's finger traced a pattern on the sofa. "Nothing, really – only if you're going to the library anyway, I wondered if you could pick up a book for me."

"After the fine you cost me last time?" I bit my lip, trying to look stern.

Grandfather chuckled.

"It's not my fault I dropped the book in the bath." Daisy pouted. "Honestly, I was just so scandalized." She shivered with gleeful appreciation. "Rodrigo had just come across Isabella's hiding place in the woods and…"

"Stop! Stop!" Mother held her hands to her ears. "You know I haven't got that far yet. It's taking me much longer to read, with the words smudged as they are. I spent several pages convinced they were discussing radishes rather than the potential ravishing of the heroine, and I found the sudden interest in root vegetables to be most confusing…"

Her complaint was cut short by Grandfather and Daisy's abrupt shouts of laughter. After a moment, Mother joined in too. I tried to laugh as well, and watched the three of them guffaw, spurring each other on, with a giddy mixture of love and worry. My family. They were depending on me.

"Radishes!" Daisy snorted from her position sprawled face down on the sofa, which only set the others off again. The fist that had wrapped around my heart gripped harder.

Trying not to draw attention, I slipped out with a murmured goodbye, the sound of their laughter chasing me down the stairs.

I wouldn't let them down, I swore, remembering the feeling of Mr Earnshaw's fingers on my skin. I would find a way to fix this.