Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“ M arriage, Miss Gower,” Reverend Woodfforde said. “Let me be clear. I am proposing marriage.”

He sat across from Lillian in the wood-paneled parlor of Gower House, the gray of the London afternoon barely lightening the somber tones of the room. Lillian blinked, trying to wrap her mind around this revelation.

“You wish to marry Hester,” she repeated.

She’d left Ashbury a fortnight ago. In that fortnight, Paulina had written twice, Octavia once. Augustus had sent her a piece of chalk he’d filched from the White Horse at Uffington, and Faustina had appended a note to her sister’s missive informing Hester that the bustard eggs had hatched.

She’d heard nothing from Leo.

After she’d told him she wanted to end things, jilted him on that cold, endless drive from Ashdown and then retired to her room to sob in her bed, he’d watched in silence as she packed her things. He’d watched her quarrel with Hex about leaving, endure the pleas of the Caesars and Woodffordes to stay. He’d heard of her difficulty hiring a post chaise, for which she had to travel to Swindon.

He hadn’t begged. He hadn’t tried to explain himself, though she longed to hear a true explanation, for him to tell her she’d been wrong in what she heard, wrong about what he said to Lord Craven, wrong about what he intended for them. He’d merely promised that he would be sure to credit her name for the sketches if his findings on Wayland Smith’s Cave were ever published. He’d watched her leave without once breaking his stoic, stony expression.

Her heart in tatters, Lillian went through the motions of each day. Conferring with the housekeeper about meals and accounts. Meeting the girls Sarey collected off the street or from Dark Lane, girls who wanted to leave their profession, agreeing to find them positions in the house and train them up to steady, safer work. Coloring her plates when she wasn’t taking calls, and the calls were many. Far from shunning her as a jilt, everyone left in London wanted to know the particulars of how and why Lillian Gower had broken off with Westrop.

Thank goodness she had her florilegium. Inking plates, keeping the proper colors within their lines, was all she could manage at the moment. It helped her keep a handle on the world.

He had not followed to beg for her back.

The Reverend Woodfforde and his sister had followed; they traveled to London only days behind and had been calling on Hester morning and night. And now, a fortnight later, the Reverend had worked up the nerve to tell her why.

Lillian looked back and forth between the reverend’s hopeful, nervous expression and Temperance’s steady, bright beam. “I am sure you realize you will need my aunt’s permission regarding Hester’s hand.”

Woodfforde nodded. “I am aware, but you seem to be—better informed about Hester’s needs. So, we hoped to approach you first on the matter.”

“I am very sorry to say this, but I do not think Hester is suited for marriage,” Lillian said carefully. “For one thing, I do not think she has—any interest in supervising a household.”

“She would have no responsibilities in our household,” the reverend said. “Temperance sees to all those arrangements.”

“But what if Temperance should marry and leave you?”

Temperance folded her hands in her lap, and for the first time, her smile slipped. “I am not likely to marry, Miss Gower.”

“But why not? Forgive my being impertinent. My cousin’s happiness is in question.”

“And my happiness,” Temperance said steadily, watching Lillian’s face, “is in the companionship of my female friends. Select, dear female friends, fellow sapphists, like me. My brother condones these friendships, so long as I am discreet. Living in his household shields me from questions. Of course, my discretion would extend to keeping Hester unaware of—shall we say, the nature of my liaisons. Though I would like, now and again, to introduce her to my companions, I have no intention of setting up a household of my own. Hester would have the benefit of my oversight as well as my brother’s devotion.”

Lillian nodded. At least now she knew what a sapphist was.

“But I fear my cousin is—not equipped for the other demands of marriage, either. Motherhood, primarily.”

“Ours would not be that sort of union,” the reverend said.

Lillian lifted her brow. “Oh. You, too, have—other companions?”

The reverend raised his gaze to the ceiling, studying the intricate woodwork of the carved panels. Temperance readjusted her hands, folding them in opposite layers. “The illness that took his wife and children several years ago left my brother incapable of fathering more children,” Temperance said steadily.

Lillian surveyed the reverend, who cleared his throat, blushing slightly. “I would never importune Hester if she did not wish for conjugal relations,” he said. “I am happy to have her merely as a companion. But if she did wish for—more closeness, there will be no risk of offspring. Our union would be without issue.”

Lillian’s heart crumpled as if a trilithon had fallen upon it. A man could wish for a woman’s companionship. He could simply long to be near her. Conjugal relations could be an addition to other affectionate bonds, an enhancement, so to speak, but not the whole substance.

If only Leo had felt the same. If only.

“Then why marry?” Lillian asked. “Why not simply visit her frequently, or host her as a favored guest?”

“As her husband, I could devote myself to her care and keeping,” the reverend said. “I could bring her from her mother’s house into my own. My primary concern in life would be her comfort. We understand she is a gentle creature, innocent in her ways. She will not…flourish in the typical situations. But I think, among us, my sister and I can offer a situation more or less ideal.

“There will be no demands on her, no responsibilities, other than to please herself and enjoy our company. When I lost my family, I thought I could never care again for another. Temperance saved me from despair. But we have long felt the house is so quiet with just the two of us, and Temperance’s companions—well, none of them have expressed the desire to join a household with her doddering old brother.”

Lillian smiled. The reverend was far from doddering. She guessed that his gentle, steady nature had been tempered by grief, forged by the fires of searing loss. And she could guess why he had stepped down from his position as vicar, and was not likely to take it back. Temperance would not have the same freedoms if her brother were in a position of public scrutiny.

“Hester is what we need to complete us,” the reverend said simply. “We adore her. She has brought such joy to our lives. I see us going on quite well together. And if we are legally wed, I can leave her my property at my passing, to ensure she is financially secure.” He cleared his throat again. “I mentioned the possibility of offering to her aunt, and she—ah, indicated that she would readily consider my suit, old as I am. We could even consider hosting Mrs. Giles for extended visits. We have a smaller cottage on the property that might suit her.”

Nothing would suit her aunt but playing the lady of a great house, Lillian wanted to say, but it was Hester’s future under discussion here. Hester had an offer of marriage .

Lillian had supposed, in what thoughts of her future she was able to piece together after the Great Shattering, that Hester would be her companion into her long spinsterhood. But now Hester was loved, and doted upon, and here was a man who wanted a future with her. Not because of what Hester could offer him in wealth or family or skills, but for the sheer delight of her presence.

“We should of course consult Hex in the matter,” Lillian forced through a tight throat.

“Yes.” Hester entered the room and plopped into the chair beside the reverend. She sent him a look of gentle fondness and stretched out her hand. He took it.

“I should like for you to be my husband, Matthew. And I shouldn’t mind if there were a baby.”

The reverend cleared his throat, and Lillian saw he was suffering the same knot of emotion that had visited her windpipe. “I am not quite prepared for a babe, my dear. But perhaps if we adopt a dog? A nice sweet-natured little spaniel who will sit in your lap or at your feet and romp with you through the garden.”

Hester nodded. “I should like that, too. I do hope Mama says yes.”

Lillian smoothed her apron over her skirt. Her apron didn’t need smoothing, but it was something to do with her hands. She was suddenly at a loss, a great piece of her life shifting away. A wall guarding her heart had been knocked down, and all of a sudden there was an inrush of air and light, a disorienting change to the prospect.

“I might suggest you call again tomorrow,” Lillian said. “Aunt Giles will be at home to callers, and Hex and I will have an opportunity to acquaint her with the idea.”

The reverend nodded and rose, taking her hint. “And you are preparing for your lecture tonight, are you not? In that case we will not keep you. But I hope you do not mind that we both will attend. Temperance and I are not members of the Linnean Society, but we are told the meetings are open to anyone.”

“I should be honored for your support,” Lillian answered. “And please do take the liberty of retrieving me from the floor if I suffer nervous prostration.”

Hester giggled. “Lil’s never swooned in her life.”

“There is a first time for everything, is there not?”

A first time for falling in love, and for discovering how overwhelming, how completely immersive passion could be with the right partner.

A first time for heartbreak, for becoming acquainted with the desolate, charred landscape that survived a lightning strike to one’s heart.

There came also first times for the publication of one’s florilegium, and the arrival of the first bound copies, the plates a beautiful showcase of years of study. Following that came an invitation to present her work at the monthly meeting of Linnean society, where Miss Lillian Gower was invited to give a talk on the unique features of the Cypripedium calceolus, with the possibility of future appearances should this talk be well received.

“You are certain you want to marry, Hex?”

Lillian took the opportunity to talk alone with Hester as her cousin helped her dress for the evening in the narrow attic bedroom allotted her at Gower House. “It will mean going to live at Watercress Cottage with the reverend and Miss Woodfforde.”

“With Matthew and Temperance,” Hester replied. She sorted through Lillian’s hairpieces, discarding each on the dressing table. “We talked about it several times. I like them. I should like living with them more than I like living with Mama and Uncle Gower.”

“But you might live with me, Hex. At some point I might set up a household of my own, and you will always be welcome there.”

Hester sniffed at Lillian’s bottle of eau de toilette, from which wafted the scent of geraniums. “Aren’t you going to marry Leo?”

“No.” Lillian’s throat closed. “Not now.”

“That is too bad. He wasn’t the wrong sort. Why not?”

“We…Mr. Westrop and I…wanted different things from our future.”

“Oh.” Hester nodded. “That is the nice thing about Matthew and Temperance and I. We all want the same things. A nice quiet house, a few good friends to have for dinner, and a dog. Maybe the occasional explore, if we want to take the carriage out, but no London. No boring parties. No having to do anything but what we wish.”

“That sounds…ideal, actually.”

Hester tilted her head to the side. “And Mr. Westrop didn’t want that?”

What did Leo want? A place in his profession, the respect of his peers. A companion to amuse him at table and in bed.

“I don’t believe so. No.”

He hadn’t wanted her .

Or rather, he had wanted her, in the carnal way, but not in the pleasant companionship kind of way. Not sharing the more important things, like a home. Possibly children, if the carnal relations resulted in such.

There might be a time, years in the future, when the admission that Leo didn’t want those things with her wasn’t the ripping out of an organ, or a limb. The time might come.

“Try these flowers with that dress,” Hester said. “I picked them from the Americas.”

“Gaillardia,” Lillian said. “I adore that flash of red around the center. Thank you, Hex.”

Hester nodded. “I wish things had worked out with Mr. Westrop, since I am leaving you. You are always looking after everyone else, Lil. I should like someone to look after you for a change.”

“To conclude, I have found these points applying to all four species of the Cypripedium that I have studied,” Lillian said.

She kept her gaze trained on her notes, because when she looked at the large room and all the faces turned her way, her mind went blank as the face of a chalk cliff, and every word swam away from her head. Her notes were an anchor, a place to find her footing.

“These include the acaule, the calceolus, the reginae , and the candidum, all of which I describe in my book . ”

Was it in poor taste to mention her book? She had brought copies to give to those of her uncle’s friends who had been her early subscribers, but she would be happy to collect subscribers for a second printing. Mr. Karim had expressed his pleasure with how well the final copies had turned out, and Lillian herself could hardly believe that something like this existed in the world with her name on it, her small contribution to a great and increasing store of knowledge.

“Without seeming fanciful, I would like to suggest that its more seemingly primitive features contribute to the beauty and usefulness of this plant.” She was almost done; if she only kept to her notes, then all that was left was to endure the questions, some no doubt meant to trap her.

“You will recall the slipper orchids are distinct in that their inflorescence is terminal, rather than branched, and their ovate leaves display parallel venation. The pouch-like labellum requires the pollinating insect to travel past the staminode, bees being the preferred method of delivery. And, as I mentioned, not least of its several unusual features is that the slipper orchid is diandrous, possessing two fertile anthers.”

This raised another murmur, and she knew she would be challenged on this point. “But while it may not flower annually, the slipper orchid is a lovely addition to any collection, bringing the footprint of the Lady Aphrodite—if you will forgive me this bit of fanciful interpolation—to British soil. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will be happy to entertain questions.”

She looked up, and the broad room narrowed to one singular point, the whole world becoming a cylinder of light focused on one subject. Leo Westrop stood near the back of the room.

Questions came at her, and she gave answers, but she hardly knew what she was saying. The lamps lining the walls of the room were too bright and hot yet too smoky and dark to see clearly, all at the same time. She broke out in a cold sweat beneath the sheer muslin scarf she’d tucked into the bodice of her round gown. One of her prettier gowns, the one she’d worn to Highcastle House, with the embroidery that made her feel like a flower.

Leo’s intent, penetrating gaze, unswerving from its focal point on her, made her bloom like an orchid that had been dormant for seasons. Years.

He was here. Why was he here?

He raised his hand to indicate a question.

Lillian swallowed the burning pastille in her throat. “Yes. Mr. Westrop.”

At the name—the name of the fiancé she’d jilted—every head in the room swiveled in his direction.

He advanced up the aisle between the rows of chairs. “Tell me, Miss Gower, since you have studied this flower in depth, particularly the calceolus . How does the lady propagate? The flower, I mean. The orchid.”

The burning from her throat crept up her cheeks, scorching her eyes. He was here . He looked so splendid in the bottle green coat and pantaloons he’d worn the night he broke her heart. It was as though they’d never left that moment. It was as though the ache of the weeks without him fell away into some chasm of unremembering, and all she could recall was how it felt to be in his presence, because he was here.

I beg you will not talk of reproduction , he’d said. Because even then, he’d been longing for her, imagined being with her. But passion was all he’d wanted, not her in whole. Not the complete Lillian, uncontained, undainty creature that she was. She must remember that.

“It is very difficult to grow the Cypripedioideae from seed,” she answered. “I know of no cases where a gardener has been successful at it. Cuttings also appear to be insufficient. I believe one must capture the plant at its rhizomes and make divisions at the root. My greatest success has been in transplants that replicate the plant’s natural growing conditions as much as possible, including traces of original earth.”

“That would suggest there is something in its natural element that is necessary to the plant’s survival. Something in the air, the temperature, the exposure to light?”

“My theory is something in the soil,” Lillian said. He drew closer, and her lungs contracted, laboring to draw in air as her heart expanded in her chest, taking up too much space. “Perhaps there is some specific mineral or nutrient that is necessary, the way a specific insect is required to pollinate.”

“That’s me,” Leo said. “I’m an orchid.”

“Do not be absurd, sir. You are a Homo sapiens, not a member of the Cypripedioideae.”

“But I find there is a very specific element necessary to my survival,” Leo said. “And if I lack it, I will die.”

“That is a fanciful imagining.”

“That is absolute truth.” He neared the lectern where she stared down at him. His eyes were wide and the silver of mercury, his expression earnest, troubled, and—adoring. He wore a look of open adoration. Her knees loosened.

“Ask me what is necessary to my survival.” His gaze didn’t waver from her face. Her heart wavered, though. It looped in her chest like a bee whirring in circles.

Lillian couldn’t speak. Her tongue was glued to the top of her mouth like the fused sepals of a Cypripedium.

“Ask him, Miss Gower,” urged an audience member, a female voice.

“Say it’s her!” Was that Temperance? She was normally so soft-spoken. “Go on, then, Mr. Westrop.”

“It is you,” Leo said simply. “My life is empty without you.”

“That is factually untrue,” Lillian said, her voice wobbling. She couldn’t break her gaze from his stare; he had her hypnotized. How fortunate she had a lectern, because it, and her fingers gripping the wooden platform, were all that was holding her upright.

“It is metaphorical and spiritual truth,” Leo said.

There, before the entire audience on the premises in Panton Square, he lowered himself to one knee like a knight of old kneeling before his lady. “I made a spectacle of you once in public, Lil—Miss Gower. I snared you into a ruse, a pretense of an engagement.” Several gasps rose from the audience; this bit of gossip would be spreading before they left these rooms. “I won’t pin you to an answer before all these people. But I am asking you again if you will be in my life— be my life—as my bride and wife in truth.”

“For real this time?” Lillian asked weakly.

He nodded, and they stared at one another in silence. A church bell tolled, the bells of St. James, and it seemed the beginning of something. He was here, which should not be enough, but it was , and moreover, he was saying things that were so closely in line with the secret desires of her heart, she couldn’t trust that she was hearing him speak them. She felt the same way she had when her brush moved aside dark earth to show the dull grayish white of human bone: a mystery, a secret, a truth revealed.

“Let us speak in private, you and I.” Lillian turned toward one of the vestibules leading from the main room with its columns and carvings.

Distinct groans emanated from the audience. “This is what happens when you give females scientific training,” a man muttered—it might have been Sir James.

“Their feminine sensibilities wither,” another agreed. Was that Woodfforde, the traitor? Lillian didn’t have time to consider. She stepped into a smaller, empty antechamber and immediately regretted how close the space demanded Leo stand to her. She couldn’t reason with him so near; all she could think was how much she wanted to be in his arms. Scientific studies hadn’t blunted her female sensibilities in the least.

“You told Craven you only wanted me as a mistress.” That was the heart of it; that was the break, the defining point, the end of a season of plenty and the beginning of famine.

“I said it.” He nodded. He stood close. He was larger than she remembered, more solid. He smelled wonderful, like fresh earth and herbs.

“It filled me with shame, but I said it. I said it because I did not want him, a stranger to me, to know the truth of my heart before you did.”

“But you let me believe you meant it,” she whispered. The flame in a lamp high on the wall danced in a draught of air, and her heart sidestepped with it like a spooked horse, wanting to come near the thing it desired, afraid of being captured if she did.

He looked around them. It was a short, narrow hallway, a long oaken table standing to one side, assorted busts in their niches. A place of temperance and learning, not a place for passionate declarations.

“You’ll have noted that my family calls me Gideon, and I dislike the name.”

“I’ve wondered why.”

“Gideon was my father’s name. Refusing to be called by his name was the way I could refuse him. Every peccadillo, every scandal, every insult to our family…every time he was elsewhere when we wanted him at home, and every insult he dealt us when he was home and I wished him gone—it was a way to repudiate him. If I did not use his name, I could not be anything like him.”

“I do not think?—”

“Let me say it, my love. When I saw what Craven saw, that I had been dallying with you for my own amusement, abusing your heart…I saw my father. I saw myself doing exactly what my father would have done, and I hated myself for it. That is why I did not try to stop you when you left. I was ashamed that I had used you so badly. That I had not made my intentions clear from the first. I thought I deserved to have you jilt me, for behaving as I did.”

“But you are not your father,” Lillian said. He was close enough she could touch him. She anchored her hands at her middle. If she touched him now, something would alchemize and change inside her; she would become fused to him and might never be able to stand again on her own.

“Do the intentions matter, if the outcome is the same? I wanted you from that first night, Lillian. I left your uncle’s home thinking what it would be like if we had a life together. I wanted to hold you, provide for you, keep you safe, make you happy. And I could not see how to do that, with what little I had to offer.”

“All I want is to be loved,” Lillian said, her voice treacherously unsteady. “Not as a mistress who can be set aside. Loved inside of marriage, where I am the cherished, and the first, and the only.”

“I want that too.” His eyes burned like fairy lights through fog, the green lights that came from swamps on a dark, magical night. “But how can that be enough? I depend on my family for my finances. What she could save my father from spending, my mother manages. My allowance from my uncle is small. I do not know how I could provide you a home or the life you deserve.”

She swayed closer to him, not touching yet, but breathing his air. “Our home will be our latest expedition, your dig and my flower studies,” she said.

“But how to finance such a life, my love? We must be practical. The sparrows and the lilies of the field may not need to toil, but a man must have income.”

“We can live on my inheritance,” Lillian said.

He drew closer—was she leaning toward him, like a climbing vine reaching for support? “I beg your pardon,” he said.

“My mother’s parents left me money,” she said. “A small annuity, and a property in Galloway that brings in some rents. It is not large, and I have mostly been investing the proceeds of late, since I have so few expenses. That is how I paid Mr. Karim to print my florilegium.”

“My wife,” Leo said, “is an heiress?”

“By no means, or at least, not a grand one. But we wouldn’t be destitute. I might find a way to draw an income from my sketching as well, like Mrs. Delany. That would not sully the Westrop name with trade. Though I doubt your family will accept me no matter what.”

“If I may have you,” Leo said, “I will say farewell to all of them, and good riddance.”

“Not Aunt Melina,” Lillian said. “I have yet to see her glasshouse.”

He took her hands, and the contact made her shudder, as the earth must have shuddered when the great trilithon at Stonehenge fell, surrendering to the inevitable pull.

“That is how I will win you?” he asked softly. “With my Aunt Melina’s glasshouse.”

“And digs where I get to tramp about fields sketching flowers,” she said. “You don’t know how happy that makes me. I can think of few things that thrill me more.”

He lifted his brows and she read his face, the sultry burn in his eyes.

“Well, that ,” she said, her cheeks heating. “That part of our union is thrilling also. But I feared it was the only thing, for you. And I could not bear to mean so little.”

“My darling Lillian.” He gathered her to him. “You mean everything to me.”

The door to the lecture room opened. The Marquess of Waringford stood there.

Lillian blinked. No, it was really him, not some apparition.

“Has Miss Gower accepted you yet?” the marquess demanded.

Leo kept his arm around her. He was citrus and open meadows and rich earth and everything she loved most in this world. She leaned against him and was not ashamed. Sometimes vines were not clinging; sometimes the symbiosis was mutual, and not parasitic.

“Not in so many words, but I will continue to assemble reasons to persuade her. I’ll ask for your approval, uncle, but it will be a formality. I’ll marry Lillian with or without your consent. And if you see fit to cut me out of the succession, please do so at once, so she is aware of how little comes with my hand.”

The marquess studied Lillian. He appeared in better health than when she last saw him. Lines of strain fanned from his eyes and mouth, though, and his neck behind the cravat showed the tendons of his throat, the mark of a man who had left behind his robust prime to begin battling the infirmities of old age.

“You’d take him with nothing?” he demanded.

“Nothing but love,” Lillian confirmed. “Though I intend that he will help me further my career, the way I intend to help further his, so there will be some benefit to me.”

That, and passion. The flush stayed in her cheeks at the thought. She could not touch Leo without feeling all those other touches, the layers of their history forming, building, growing rich and deep.

“Come to dinner at Westrop House tonight,” the marquess said abruptly. “We have one or two things to discuss.”

“Uncle instructed us to be beastly to you,” Catherine confided. “He wanted to scare you away if you were merely setting your cap at a future marquess.”

The Westrops and their guests sat around the carved oak table that had been restored to the center of the dining parlor in Westrop House. Aunt Melina sat on Lillian’s right, Leo to her left. Lady Mary sat in the hostess’s chair at the foot, glowering at Lillian, but tonight, she was the only one doing so.

“To be clear,” Lillian said as a footman set a dish before her, “you lot weren’t what scared me back to London.”

Lucy nodded. “Told Father you had more backbone than that, and you weren’t digging for gold. Not from Leo, at any rate.” She sliced into her fricassee of lamb.

“I do not generally bring pets to the table,” Annibel said. “Tonight, for instance, my hedgehog is in the parlor. I shall be happy to make an introduction when the ladies withdraw, should you wish.”

“I would like to meet him,” said Hester, sitting across the table from Lillian. “I’m going to have a dog when I marry.”

“I hope not to marry for many years,” Annibel said. “Please tell my father that.”

“Same for me,” Catherine said immediately. “I want a good match, Father. Not just any match. I want a man who is as wild for me as Gid—Leo is for Lillian, though I wish for my husband to be a good deal more intelligent, and handsome, and rich.”

“Best of luck in your search.” Lucy snorted. “Will someone please tell Father that if or when I do marry, it shall be for myself and not to fulfill some line of succession.”

The Westrops fell silent at this, and Lillian guessed from Leo’s face that the ghost of his cousin Rupert had entered the room, a grief still fresh.

“Ungrateful, irresponsible hoydens, without an ounce of dignity or sense of duty,” the marquess said calmly, and without heat. “About the succession,” he went on, attacking the roast. “You can have all the sons you want, Lucy, but the title goes to the next male heir, and my grandfather set up the entail to follow the title. Unless you do away with your cousin, you’ll be calling him milord at my funeral, and his sons thereafter, should he have them.”

Leo’s hand was steady as he spooned his soup. “You could marry and sire a child yet, sir.”

“Just to spite you?” The marquess shook his head. “I’ve no need for a wife, and no need for an heir if I’ve got one. I can see you’re not following after your father, and an antiquarian won’t shade the name if you turn out an Aubrey or a Stukeley.”

“I shall do my best, sir.”

His uncle nodded. “You can live here when you’re in London, so long as you let the girls lodge with you while they find husbands. And I suppose your lady could manage Waringford Hall.”

Lady Mary made a squawk of disapproval, seeing her territory infringed upon. “And you mean to simply turn me off, Waringford? What, am I to live in a crofter’s cottage? After all I endured with your brother?”

The marquess regarded her curiously. “Refuse to get on with your new daughter, eh? ‘Spose Leo can put up at the Compton Beauchamp house, then, if he’s to continue poking about that old cave.”

Leo put down his spoon, staring. “That’s one of yours?”

“And will be yours, eventually. It’s part of the entail. Have to sit down and acquaint you with the estate.”

“And you can see my glasshouse while he’s at it,” Lady Melina informed Lillian. She turned back to Uncle Gower, on her other side, for whom she had ignored the rest of the table for most of dinner. “Got a ghost orchid, I have.”

Sir Lloyd nodded, heartily devouring his collar of mutton. “Could be Lil’s next project. Told her she should draw all the orchids. Do up a proper florilegium. She could focus on it now that she’s not distracted by bringing this one up to scratch.” He leaned forward to address Leo down the table. “Was going to drag my old bones up to Uffington if you didn’t turn up, son,” he said. “Got tired of my girl moping.”

“I was not moping,” Lillian said, mortified at Leo’s grin.

“Were too. Why, the other day I asked her where she put the latest issue of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine , and she brought me Cranke Andrews’ Botanical Repository . And when I told her to fetch me a volume we’d filed under Pythagoras, I found her standing and staring at the shelf under Ptolemy!” He shook his head. “Was afraid you’d made her addlepated. Don’t waste her good mind, lad, even if you’ve been taken in by those dimples.”

“I love Lillian for more than her dimples,” Leo said gravely. “Though I admit they were the first thing I found fetching about her, they are not her only fine quality.” He winked at Lillian, who couldn’t decide whether to scold or blush.

“Gideon always did have an eye for women built like Venus,” Lady Mary said. “Though a woman with that shape needs to watch herself, or she’ll grow round as a melon.”

“Do you refer to your late husband, madam?” Lillian asked. “Because Leo and I intend to remain active in our respective professions, which I hope will prevent me from acquiring any shape you would disapprove of.”

Lady Mary glared at her for having the presumption to correct her, while Lucy bit back a smile, Catherine grinned openly, and Annibel made no attempt to hide her giggle.

“That’s my boy,” Lady Melina crowed, slapping the table beside her plate. “Found a girl with spirit. What we’ve always wanted for you, nephew. You’ve been serious for far too long.”

“I anticipate nothing but a great deal of future happiness, Aunt,” Leo said with a smile toward Lillian that made her feel she’d turned into a pudding. “More than I deserve, I suspect.”

Under the table he reached for her hand and held it, and Lillian recalled that first night, the night of his astonishing proposal, when he held her hand as strangers congratulated them. She’d known then that something new was coming into being, something that would unalterably change her life.

Now she knew the shape of it, and it was beautiful. It was this man beside her, loving her till the end of his days, and her loving him in return.

And he’d brought her all this: a table full of family, her circle expanding like ripples from a stone thrown in a pool. This, too, was beautiful. More beauty than any one person deserved, perhaps, but she would enjoy it as long as she could.

With Leo, she knew this happiness was real.