Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

W estrop’s face when Lillian entered the drawing room of Gower House confirmed something she both longed for and feared.

He no longer looked at her as if she were the float that would save him from sinking, a means to an end. He regarded her as if he saw her. As a person. As a woman.

It would not do for her to harbor fantastical notions of an attachment growing between them. She need only look at the man, the firm oval of his face and the flare of his jaw, those lips that had been so soft when she kissed him—good heavens, had she gone daft that day? His eyes gleamed like peridots above the olive-green redingote with its velvet lapels. In buff pantaloons and tall boots, he was tall, commanding, powerful, beautiful. The very image of a gentleman of fashion.

Such gentlemen existed far from the realms inhabited by plain Lillian Gower.

Once this farce of an engagement was over, she’d never see him again. The thought brought a pang of jealous loss, and she scolded herself as he made his bows to her aunt. She would not be a goose. She would not throw her heart on a string after him, to be left dangling when he cut rope. She had seen the number of young ladies—and older ones, too—casting admiring glances at him last night, hoping to catch his eye. Pudding knees might be an affliction many women suffered in the presence of Leo Westrop.

She wanted her florilegium. She wanted to remain steady, calm Lillian, the eye of the storm. She did not want to find the edges of herself floating away, melted by his attention, seduced by his charm. She would cling to her sense of self-preservation.

“Shall we, my dear?”

She lifted her chin. The endearment was doing it too brown. He needn’t perform before her aunt, who’d said more than once that Lillian had no business being wife to a would-be marquess, having no family lineage, no wealth, no beauty to recommend her, and certainly no great talents of her own.

But she was a rather good botanical artist. Good enough to be published. Lillian tucked the leather bag holding her sketchbook against her chest like a shield between her and the uncaring world.

“I am ready.”

He held out his arm, and she hesitated.

This would be easier if he were one of those men who couldn’t see past her breasts. She knew how to hold her guard against a man’s lust.

The problem was the pudding. Being near him made her feel as if she’d eaten something peppery and her head and belly were departing her body at the same time, in different directions.

Oh, she would not be a goose. Lillian grasped his arm like the handle of a pan she meant to take out of the oven. “Hex?”

Hester rose and shook out the skirts of her simple round gown. She looked adorable and young in a short, fitted jacket, with a straw capote shaping her head.

“Persian apple pasty,” she said to Westrop, her lips in a solemn line.

He regarded her with equal solemnity. “Persian apple—perfume.”

He grinned as Hester broke into laughter, and Lillian felt something even more treacherous than desire. His kindness to Hex removed one of the glass panes shielding her heart. Worse than feeling attracted would be liking the man. When she knew he wasn’t hers, and never would be.

He drove his curricle down Drury Lane, past the theatre where she’d enjoyed the plays and most certainly had not been wondering where Westrop was, if he were thinking of her. They circled St. Mary le Strand, with its stacked steeple and round portico, and Westrop drove them through the colonnaded gates into the grand yard of Somerset House. Lillian stared at the palatial building, a vast expanse of arches and windows, entablatures and new brick, a bastion of knowledge and progress and order.

“The Society of Antiquaries meets here,” Westrop said. “I hope to become a member. Perhaps if I find something of note at Wayland Smith’s Cave, I’ll be nominated.”

“The Royal Academy of Arts has its rooms here also, does it not? My uncle brought me once to see Mary Lawrence’s botanical illustrations,” Lillian said. “I should love to exhibit at the Academy one day.”

Dismounting, he turned to help her, then Hester, out of the curricle. “I should like to see your drawings, Miss Gower.”

His hands were firm, capable hands. This close, her senses filled with him: the trace of citrus in his scent, the way his sideburns shaped his strong jaw, the way his height made her feel both safe and bold.

An unholy glow appeared in his eyes as he looked down at her. As if he were recalling that brief kiss in the glasshouse, just as she was.

“When my florilegium is published, you may purchase a copy, Mr. Westrop.”

She fanned herself, glad for the high neckline of her round gown, the protection of the buttercup yellow half-robe that covered her shoulders and flowed down her back. A matching yellow cap completed her walking costume. She’d dressed considering the weather in the garden, with the breezes off the Thames. Now her costume was a guard against Westrop’s too-knowing gaze. Hiding the flush of her skin when that gaze moved over her, as if he were absorbing every detail, the way she’d imprinted her mind with him.

“Why are we leaving the carriage here?” Hester asked.

“Because I trust these mews to guard my rig and not sell my vehicle, nor my cattle, while we’re away.” Westrop led them around the massive south wing to the terrace, past the fashionable people on promenade, then down the stone stairs that descended straight into the river, where they were met by the smell of wet and mud and fish.

There were all manner of boats pulled up near the stairs, with watermen hawking the open boats and ferrymen hustling their patrons into the hired craft. Some were veritable pleasure barges, with cabins and a roof, but Westrop pointed to one of the sleek, open wherries. “There.”

Hester widened her eyes. “Oh.”

Westrop raised his brows. “You don’t like boats?”

“She’s never been on one,” Lillian said.

“You live in London.”

“We live in South Wales, sir,” Lillian retorted.

“Which is surrounded by an even greater water.”

“Wading in the water is quite different than riding upon it.”

She met his gaze with a challenge. This was where he proved what sort of man he was. The arrogant sort who would tell Hex how to feel about things and would insist on his own convenience. The sort who would wheedle until he got his way. The sort who would throw a tantrum and rail against female whims and obstinacy.

Westrop met her stare. His eyes reflected the murky gray green of the river, with what looked like a dark blue rim around the iris. Strange, changeable eyes, yet she had the suspicion there was nothing erratic or unpredictable about him. He seemed a man steady as clockwork, reliable as the sun.

He nodded. “Very well. It’s a fair sight longer to go by road, but I could take you through St. James Park, past Buckingham House.”

“I want to try the boat,” Hester decided.

Lillian took her cousin’s hand. “Hex. Are you certain?”

“Will it rock?”

“A fair bit, I’m sure.”

“And will it smell like fish the whole way?”

“Most assuredly,” Westrop affirmed. “And there’s a great whoosh when you go beneath Westminster Bridge at certain times. Nothing like the currents around Battersea, I’m told, but a ride all the same.”

Hester’s eyes flared, and she tugged Lillian’s hand. “Lil. I want to whoosh.”

Lillian bit her lip. “Hex?—”

“We can stop and get out at any time,” Westrop said gently, as if he were reading her thoughts. “There are stairs all along the river, and a great stretch of wharves. You forget the Thames was the first and is still the most important highway in London.”

“The first?” Hester asked, looking over the boats with new interest.

Westrop beckoned one of the watermen watching them. “Why do you suppose the Tower of London was situated where it is? The Romans built Londinium on the river, but I’d wager gold they built atop a city that already existed. You’ve got a great tidal river that can ferry goods out as well as bring people in, and it lies in a great fertile belt of land. I imagine that if you could pluck up all the buildings of the old City, you’d find mounds and forts beneath that are older than history.”

Hester watched him with interest. “I like your job,” she said.

“Thank you, I think.”

“Better than Lil’s,” Hester added. “All she talks about is plants. Buildings are much more interesting.”

“I beg your pardon,” Lillian said, but the matter was finished. Westrop, with his chatter, had managed to quell Hester’s nervousness, while arranging their fare at the same time. He took Lillian’s hand to help her into the small wooden boat.

“We’ll sit at the bow, and Miss Giles can sit behind us. There will be less movement closer to the middle.” He winked. “And we can persuade her otherwise if she decides she wants to swim.”

Hester wrinkled her nose. “I’m not going to swim in that . There are dead things in it. And garbage. And fish.”

One of their watermen, the one who’d spoken with Westrop, had red hair and tanned, freckled skin. The other had dark brown skin and curly hair. He gave a polite nod in response to Lillian’s greeting. After the passengers had seated themselves, the watermen took their place at the oars and, in a well-rehearsed movement, shot their boat out of the throng into the center of the river. Lillian, thrilled and alarmed, grabbed for the nearest solid surface. It happened to be Westrop.

He grinned down at her, evidencing no concern that she had placed her hands on his person. “I won’t let you fall in,” he said.

“I don’t expect I will. It’s only—it’s been an age since I’ve been boating. How are you, Hex?”

“Grand,” Hester said, twisting about to look in every direction at once. “I can see St. Paul’s.”

“You’ll see more,” Westrop promised. “We’ll go past the Adelphi Terrace and Whitehall, and then, after the bridge, you’ll see Westminster Hall and Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop of Canterbury lives.”

“And I’m not sick at all,” Hester marveled. “Yet.”

The watermen kept up some stream of chatter between them, a language Lillian guessed was English, but riddled with so much dialect as to be nearly incomprehensible. “And they say Welsh is a strange language,” she whispered to Westrop.

“Do you speak it?”

“No, but some of my uncle’s tenants do, and many of the older villagers of St. Athan. I know the names of a few flowers, but little more.”

“Plants,” Westrop said, with a smile that was decidedly smug. “So much less interesting than buildings. I win.”

She laughed, then did something she could only explain by being overcome with gratitude. She squeezed his arm against her bosom, as if she were a delighted child cradling a cat.

He hadn’t been high-handed with Hex, nor selfish, nor petulant. He hadn’t made cutting remarks about female unsteadiness or tried to shame her with exhortations to act her age. He’d simply offered her a way out.

Leo held very still, and Lillian grew conscious of how she clutched him. His gaze didn’t drop to her breasts, though she was intensely aware of that part of her body, which suddenly felt hot and full, her nipples aching. His gaze roamed over her cheekbones, ears, and jaw, then lingered on her lips.

Heat coiled in her belly, stretching taut as ivy.

She let go of his arm.

Hester shrieked with laughter and clamped her hat to her head as the boatmen lined them up and they whooshed through one of the arches beneath Westminster Bridge, just as Leo promised. They regarded in somber reverence the medieval turrets of Westminster Hall, seat of British justice, with the spires of the great Abbey rising behind, keeping watch over its illustrious dead.

“Gothic monstrosity,” Lillian whispered, and was gratified to see Leo’s grin in response. That grin tugged at her belly as if there were a string attached between them.

Hester saw a flash of a red cassock on the balcony of Lambeth Palace and swore it was the archbishop. Leo agreed he must be out for a morning constitutional. They floated past the broad stretch of Tothill Fields, and Leo pointed out the landing for Vauxhall.

“Have you been? I should think you’d enjoy investigating the gardens.”

“Aunt won’t take us. She says the entertainments are frivolous, and you cannot be sure what, or who, you might stumble across.”

“Your aunt would not last long on an archaeological expedition, would she?” Leo guessed, and Lillian shook her head with a rueful laugh.

“Are those the Neat Houses?” she asked, pointing across the opposite bank. “I’m told their produce supplies most of London.”

“Have you an interest in seeing them? I could arrange it,” Leo said. “If your interests extend to useful plants, and not merely the decorative sort.”

“I beg your pardon, but that distinction is a mistake,” Lillian answered. “Most plants combine beauty and function. They are both decorative and useful.”

Lillian blushed again as he studied her. As if he wanted to see beneath her skin, to her heart and mind and the passions stirring deep within.

“I suppose that is true of only some people,” he said. “It is the rare specimen who can lay claim to both qualities.”

Was that admiration in his tone? Perhaps she wanted too much to see it.

“Though one should be wary,” she said, “as the function of plants can extend to both benefit and bane, at the same time. Very often a plant with healing properties can possess poisonous properties as well. Or the very essence that proves useful can become toxic, in too large of doses.”

“That is true of some people as well. Toxic, in too large a dose. Yet I fancy there are some whose properties are wholly useful, besides being beautiful.”

He was flirting with her. She didn’t quite know what to do about it.

“Is that Ranelagh?” Lillian nodded toward the lines of trees with a rotunda showing between the foliage. “Aunt said she might be persuaded to take us there. She heard the entertainments are a bit more respectable, though the admission is higher.”

“I shall take you whenever you wish.”

“You’ll be busy,” Lillian retorted. “This must be Chelsea Hospital.”

“Designed by Christopher Wren,” Leo replied. “You must concede the beauty of a fine building.”

“I concede that the gardens are very fine,” Lillian replied. “A building may house the body, sir, but a garden nourishes the soul.”

He chuckled, and the sound unseated something within her. It was quite unfair that his every gesture should make such an impression on her. She must not become a goose.

“I like that house.” Hester pointed.

“Gough House, I believe. Belonged to the Baron Calthorpe, who died this spring, God rest him. Currently let by some nabob with the East India Company.”

“I should like to live in a house that fine,” Hester announced.

“Waringford Hall is finer, and you may visit anytime when your cousin marries me,” Leo replied.

Hester’s eyes widened. “Oh, how splendid. I shall do that.” She turned to Lillian. “I should like to stay in a room that has pink paper, and have a sip of sherry before dinner, just like Mama.”

“I can promise nothing, darling, as my marriage is a prospect far, far on the horizon.”

Lillian shot daggers from her eyes at Westrop as the boatman rowed them toward a stair leading down from the riverbank. How dare he lead her cousin on in such a fashion? Lillian would be the one to break her heart with news that they wouldn’t be invited to Waringford, not even as guests, once Lillian jilted Mr. Westrop.

As casually as if he didn’t intend to crush both their hopes, Leo led the women up the stairs and through the black wrought iron gate set into a brick wall. Lillian caught her breath at her first sight of the garden.

Four cedar trees marked the corners of a small reflecting pool, shading a network of gravel paths dividing neat plots of green. In the center of the garden reared a statue of the man who had bought the Manor of Chelsea and leased it in perpetuity to the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for the modest sum of five pounds a year, thus ensuring the gardens would always have a home.

“Who is that?” Hester tipped her head back to regard the statue, smiling beneficently down upon them.

“Sir Hans Sloane, physician and collector,” Leo said. “He sold his very extensive collection to the government on his death, for far less than what it was worth, on the condition that anyone, of any class level, should be able to view his curiosities.”

“You know how you like hot milk in your chocolate, Hex?” Lillian turned slow circles as she took in the bounty surrounding her, overlooked by the blocky Tudor manor house and its glass wings. “Sir Hans is credited with that recipe.”

“He learned it from the Jamaicans when he was there,” Hester replied. “He didn’t invent chocolate milk.” She stared with some disapproval at the statue.

“Ah, Jamaica. Sloane described over eight hundred new species in his Catalogue of Jamaican Plants. Carl Linnaeus was so impressed he named a genus of flowering plants after Sloane. The Sloanea. Uncle has a copy of the Jamaican catalogue in his library.”

“Sir Hans didn’t discover them,” Hester said fiercely. “They were already there. Just new to him.”

“That is true.” Lillian paused to replace a curl that the wind teased free of her hat.

“And his wife was rich from sugar plantations that enslaved Africans,” Hester reported. “He wrote about the incredible cruelties that were inflicted on them. So that is where the money to buy all his wonderful things came from.”

Soberly, all three of them regarded the statue. The waves of the river slapped against the stair, carrying the smells of mud and fish and the low voices of their boatmen, waiting in the shade. Birds called and twittered as they flitted about the cedar trees, which shed their delicious scent into the air, and insects droned in their early summer chorus. Sloane’s expression had taken on a decidedly smug slant, the master of all he looked upon.

“I think of my tombs, and how we have no idea what lies within them, because whoever built them left no record,” Leo remarked. “The Romans, if they didn’t eradicate the earlier peoples, built over their monuments. Then the Saxons, then the Normans, and I am forgetting the Danes. The victors take the spoils and write the history, calling themselves discoverers and explorers, and the conquered—who speaks for them?”

Lillian swallowed. And now he was a thoughtful man, philosophical, attentive to the plight of others. She had to stop learning more about Westrop. It was a danger to her peace.

Hester turned to him. “I knew you had an interesting job,” she said.

“I speak for the plants,” Lillian protested. “Isn’t that interesting?”

“Not really,” Hester said.

Mr. John Fairbairn, the head gardener, hailed them with a smile, and Lillian soon gleaned that Leo had arranged for a personal tour. Fairbairn led them through the various garden plots, each with their separate function: the medicinal plants, ordered alphabetically; the beds of annuals and biennials; the perennial plants; the wilderness; the frames that sheltered the tender exotics. He showed them the bark stoves that warmed the plants from hotter climes and the glass case that housed the succulents.

In one corner, sheltered by the high brick walls, stood a tree only a few meters tall, its slender bole branching into graceful limbs bearing narrow, light green leaves. Lillian’s mouth watered.

“The only fruiting olive tree in Britain is to be found here, in the Mediterranean garden,” Fairbairn said with pride.

“The only ?” Lillian tried to hide her dismay.

He nodded. “Don’t seem to like containers, they don’t. Prefer their roots in deep soil. In a pot, they’ll flower, but they won’t bear drupes.”

Leo moved close to murmur in her ear. “We shall have to find a way to plant your olive tree, Miss Gower.”

She shivered at the low, confiding tone in his voice. There was no we about this. There was no reason for him to recall her affection for olives, or her ambitions to cultivate her own tree. He was, after all, so busy .

He was only having this potent effect on her senses now because she’d spent the past week wondering where he was. Why he’d drawn her into a spurious engagement, then left her to face the gossip alone. He hadn’t come to Highcastle House looking for her; he wanted Lord Craven. He was only here today because he’d made a bargain to help her publish her florilegium. Everything with him was about his expedition.

She refused to go weak in the knees over a man who was going to leave her. Damn his breathtaking, changeable eyes and steadfast, single-focused soul.

Lillian listened with one ear as Fairbairn showed them what he called the seminary for the young exotic plants. She had grown up playing second fiddle to antiquarian forays. She’d spent every birthday of her life on one dig or another. She wasn’t high-born enough to be invited to a Queen’s drawing room for her presentation, but she could have had a debut among some small society, perhaps Cardiff, or Bath, or Cheltenham, if her parents hadn’t been so absorbed with poking about the ancient stones of Tinkinswood and St. Lythans.

She loved her parents, and she didn’t regret a moment of her unconventional childhood, for it had made her a mature, self-reliant, sensible young woman, with a head full of knowledge, a backbone as firm as the rocks her father loved to clamber over, and a spirit as resilient as a young tree.

But she would not give herself to a future where she stood in the shadow of a husband’s passions. If she ever acquired a husband—and to be truthful, such a possibility seemed distantly remote—he would cherish her. He would love her. He would build a life with her around their shared interests, rather than regarding her as a lovely and talented assistant.

As likely to find such a man as to get her olive tree to flower.

At long last, Fairbairn led them to the bulbous rooted flowers. “This is the one in which you have a special interest, Miss Gower? The Cypripedium calceolus.” He chuckled. “I thought it was an Epipactis before it flowered. A hellebore. But now, there’s no mistaking it.”

“The largest flowering terrestrial orchid, at least in Britain.” Lillian cooed in appreciation. “This is a fine one, nearly two feet tall.”

“Oh,” Hester said in delight, “it does look exactly like a lady’s slipper! If the lady has a rather puffy foot.”

“That is the labellum, and how Linneas named the species. Cypri , for Aphrodite, the Lady of Cyprus, and pedium , for foot. Isn’t it lovely?” Lillian sank to her knees. “Ovate leaves, resupinated flowers. And look.” She slipped a careful finger beneath the lip of one petal. “This is what I wanted to confirm. Two stamens—it’s diandrous.”

“You don’t say.” Fairbairn peered over her shoulder. “Two anthers? Not like the other orchids, then.”

“And both fertile, from my observation,” Lillian confirmed.

Leo made a small, muffled noise beside her, and she wondered why talk of reproduction dismayed him so. He didn’t seem precious about other conversational topics, and for heaven’s sake, the man had put a hand on her bottom to keep her from falling off a ladder.

She must not think about that . She focused on the flower.

“But this one has not propagated? She should spread via rhizome. That is what I have seen in the wild.” Lillian pulled out her sketchbook and flipped through the pages.

“She?” Leo inquired.

“She is undoubtedly a lady, dainty yet powerful. Sure of her beauty, but not eager to divulge all her secrets.” Lillian came to the page she wanted and pulled out her crayon.

“I’m told it may take a few years before she reproduces,” Fairbairn said. “I’ve tried capturing the seeds, but with no success.”

“I never had any luck propagating from seeds either,” Lillian murmured. “I thank you for allowing me this chance to see one in flower, Mr. Fairbairn. I discussed my work with Mr. Bauer at Kew and he expressed doubt about the two stamens, which made me think I ought to revisit my drawings.”

“Well, he is Austrian, so perhaps that’s all he knows.” Fairbairn watched her sketch. “You’ve a fair dab hand, Miss Gower.”

Leo caught a handful of pages that slipped free of her notebook. “Lil—Miss Gower. These are strikingly well executed.”

She looked up. “You sound surprised.”

A smile pulled one corner of his mouth. “Shame on me if I am. I ought never have doubted you.”

“But you did.” Lillian narrowed her eyes at him, then went back to refining her sketch. “Never mind. Somehow, I am not surprised.”

He studied the drawings in his hands while Lillian sketched, peered at the flower, sketched some more, and Fairbairn courteously escorted Hester while she wandered the gravel paths, pointing at whatever took her fancy.

“Lillian,” Leo said at length. “These are quite good.”

“Good enough to be published?” she challenged him. “These are only my base sketches. The ones for the book I’ve painted in full color, and I will need a quality engraver to capture all the details correctly.”

“How long have you been studying orchids?”

“All my life.” She moved to a new position to sketch from a different angle, extracting herself from his distracting heat.

“Like me and my barrows.”

He sat regarding her, not the flower, and her concentration unraveled beneath his intent gaze. “I can’t draw with you watching me,” she said finally.

“I am observing the orchid. She is as beautiful as you say. Strong, dignified, graceful. Seductively elegant, yet she commands respect. There is nothing else to match her.”

Lillian lifted her head to stare at him. His eyes glinted in the afternoon light, and the breeze from the river ruffled his neckcloth. He had knelt in the path as carelessly as she, and he stayed with her, rather than wandering about on his own, becoming bored because no one was paying attention to him, making noise to draw attention to himself, as other gentlemen would.

He was also not studying the plant.

“She is unusual because of her size, but also her delicacy,” Lillian said. “She is a complicated flower. The contrast of deep purple and bright gold is striking, but I adore the dots of color on her staminode—that is the part that looks like an upper lip. Those spots make her seem so demure.”

His gaze lingered on Lillian’s face. “Unusual indeed. But if she seems demure, I imagine that is what she wants us to see. She is a clever bloom. Hiding secrets.”

Lillian dropped her attention to her sketchpad. Her hands felt unsteady. What was he doing to her? “I think you give her too much credit, sir.”

“And I think you do not give her credit enough.”

Hester’s shoes appeared in the periphery of Lillian’s vision. “I’m hungry.”

“I’m almost done.” Lillian jotted a few labels of the flower’s organs and closed her sketchbook. “I’ve seen what I needed to see, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Fairbairn.”

“And Mr. Westrop, who brought us here,” Hester said.

“I am merely the agent to help Miss Gower realize her ambitions to publish.” Leo rose in one movement, graceful and lithe as the cat he was named for. “I suspect her florilegium is art that demands to be seen.” He held out her pages.

“You’re relieved my book may be of passable quality,” Lillian said dryly. “Since you entered our bargain quite blind, without being able to look in the horse’s mouth.”

“It’s a fine, healthy horse, and I am increasingly realizing what an advantageous bargain I made. I see more and more benefits accruing to me.”

“Why are you speaking of horses?” Hester asked. “There aren’t any here.”

“That is true.” Leo turned her way. “What does your hunger require, Miss Giles? I see no Persian apples about.”

She grinned at him. “I want ice cream.”

“Persian apple ice cream?”

“Ice cream of any flavor.” Hester chuckled. She was relaxed with Westrop, as she never was with strange men.

Lillian felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, as if she were hungry, too. It wasn’t too much to ask that her cousin be treated with basic courtesy by her new acquaintances, yet all too often, basic courtesy seemed beyond them. But not Leo—Westrop.

Mr. Fairbairn took his leave and wandered off, with the request to have a copy of Lillian’s florilegium once it was published. One of the boatmen escorted Hester down the stairs and settled her in the wherry.

Lillian paused beneath a cedar tree to tuck her pages into her sketchbook, then snug her sketchbook into her bag. The last thing she needed was for her work to be scattered along the Thames.

The scent of cedar intensified, and she looked up to find Westrop standing before her. A prickly heat ran along her neck beneath the layers of her gown and half-robe. The shade heightened the severe lines of his features, the slash of his cheekbones, the square jut of his jaw. More unsettling was the intensity of his gaze.

“I believe you have purposefully misled me, Miss Gower,” he said.

His voice was a deep tenor, resonant, and hearing it struck an answering chord in her, as if she were a plucked string.

“I cannot imagine what you mean, Mr. Westrop.”

“You let me believe you were an ordinary young lady with an interest in pretty flowers.”

She positioned the strap of her bag across her breasts. “And so I am.”

“You are a talented artist.”

“It is not talent to draw something true to life.”

“Yes, it is. I could not draw a figure if my life depended on the task.”

She walked to the next cedar. A pied wagtail called from the riverbank with its distinctive chirrup, as if reminding her to hold up her chin.

“Is it my fault if a man sees only what he expects to see?”

“Are you accustomed to being underestimated?” He sounded stern.

“No. Usually, no one makes any estimation of me at all.”

He drew closer. A shadow cloaked his jaw, the fine beginning of stubble. His lips were a shade a lady would envy. His breath smelled of wild mint.

He placed a finger alongside her jaw. Her skin wanted to lift away.

“I think you should kiss me again.”

“Not here ,” Lillian squeaked.

“Then you must run away directly, because if you stand here a moment longer, I will kiss you, and I do not care who sees.”

But there was no one to see them. The boatmen were settling Hester. The other boats passing on the river were too far away for the passengers to see them distinctly. Fairbairn had disappeared. They were Adam and Eve in the first garden, the only two people in existence, and she wanted his kiss more than she wanted her next breath.

She didn’t answer. But she didn’t pull away.

He stroked her jaw, tipping up her chin, and then he kissed her.

His lips were like a flower petal at first, cool and silky smooth. Breath escaped her at the gentle, fluttering touch. But heat rose instantly as his mouth opened against hers, and she found herself being devoured. Hers had been a chaste kiss pressed to his lips, the brief landing of a butterfly. His mouth was a well of pleasure, and she tumbled straight in.

She clung to his shoulders, sagging against him, and he took the invitation to press deeper. His tongue slid inside her mouth, and she nearly bit down in surprise. Instead she clamped her tongue around his, shocked, and his groan traveled from his chest directly to hers, the consequence of her arching against him, as close as she could possibly be. He stroked his tongue in her mouth in a rhythm that made her head cloud and her body tremble, a bright arrow of heat plunging from her mouth to her breasts to her belly, and lower still. This was possession, and she ached for more.

His mouth left hers. Lillian gasped for breath, then eventually, as the fog in her brain receded, opened her eyes.

He smiled at her, but there was something feral in his smile, and equally dazed, and triumphant, and hungry.

“You surprise me all over again, Lillian,” he whispered.

She was about to ask what he meant when Hester’s voice floated up from the riverside. “There’s no ice cream here,” she called.

Lillian blinked at him, trying to collect herself. She’d crossed some threshold, and now what she’d seen could never be unknown. “You,” she floundered.

He offered her his arm. He was so solid and large and strong. “Yes.”

“That,” she tried again.

“Yes.”

“We mustn’t.” She tried to sound firm as he escorted her down the stairs.

She focused on the steps so she didn’t slip, then focused on not tipping over as she climbed into the wherry, so awash was she in dazed wonder. With the buzz in her head, she might have imagined the words he dropped in her ear as he took his seat next to her.

“Oh, my dear. But we will .”