43

“ I t must be strange,” I said, watching her scoop her dress and find a spot on a little rolling hill where the grass was shorter. She crossed her ankles and held her hand out for her books. I hadn’t even realized I was still carrying them until she wiggled her slender fingers at me.

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Florence patted the ground beside her, and I joined her in the grass beneath the tree, finding solace in its little shade. “Everything about Orchid Manor is strange, including myself.”

“Right.” I nodded. “I meant more particularly both living in a period when women were allowed no mercies or liberties to be outspoken or…” I searched for the word, tilting my head back to look at her. “To just be themselves. To now live in a time when female equality is finally being championed and talked about. While not perfect, the discussion is always ongoing.”

The look on her face was striking and confused.

“Some books on women’s rights will be borrowed from the public library this week for you,” I promised, realizing that she had no idea. “We’ll get you up to speed.”

“I would like that.” Florence practically hummed as she began flipping through her book.

“What poem is your favorite?” I asked her and leaned back on my elbows to watch her.

From this angle the sun created a halo around her beautiful auburn hair and cascaded down, kissing her cheeks in a warm light that only added to her ethereal nature. My words caught painfully in my chest as she tilted her head to look at me, a loose curl falling against her throat and the most breathtaking smirk on her lips.

“I don’t know if I have one,” she answered, the green in her big round eyes lighting up. “That’s the beauty of poetry. A poem that means so much to me one day can change the next.”

“How so?” I asked and licked my bottom lip.

“Before you all arrived, my favorite poems were about death,” she whispered.

The admission cracked another hairline through my heart. It was getting harder to resist who she was and separate it from what she could be. Each delicate and warm smile was a blow to my logical resolve. Each eyelash was so light and long that I wanted to forget whatever dangers might linger just to feel them flutter against my cheek. To imagine a world without her, even after only having her in ours for such a brief period. It made me feel miserable.

“Now, if I were to choose, I would say I prefer the ones that riddle about love and springtime.”

My eyebrows rose, but I understood where she was coming from as she explained herself. It wasn’t often that I met someone who looked at the world from every angle, but I suppose when you had lived as long as Florence, you understood all the angles of the world because you’d had the time to examine them all.

“Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like outside the Manor if you had never been trapped?”

She looked up and over the field, back to the Manor looming over the sun-kissed wildflower patch as if it were listening.

“I was trapped long before I came to the Manor; here I’m free to do whatever I want.”

“Except leave,” I added softly.

“All things come with a cost.”

“It’s a shame,” I said, reaching out and rubbing a finger against her wrist, begging her to look at me through touch. “You would be free to be whatever your heart desired now, given the chance,” I offered.

Florence looked over at me and responded with a sad smile.

“What have you learned from your research, Clay?” She asked.

Rubbing a hand over my face and jaw, I sat up, “I’ve learned that there are no public records on who owns the house. The name you gave me, Agatha Warren? No red flags.”

“What is a…” her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Red flag, like a warning sign that something bad is going on or has happened previously. She had none. She was married until her husband died, but his name isn’t on the deed. She lived in the Manor until she died. There’s no record of you ever being here.”

“Yes,” Florence sighed. “Mr. Cameron showed me the death announcement my husband wrote for the paper.”

“He what?” I sat up further in the grass and stared at her for a long moment.

“There was an announcement written for the county paper that stated I had died at home surrounded by my family, but I can tell you with the utmost of certainty, Mr.Du– Clay, I did not die, and I did not die with my loving husband holding my hand,” she said, her eyes growing dark, and voice sharp, almost spitting out the end of her sentence.

Wes had disappeared that night at the library, and fast. By the time I had wandered back up from the archives he was gone, and the note on the table was suspicious. He wasn’t just the kind of guy to run off and go for a walk. I should have known he found something he didn’t want to share.

“He showed that to you to get your reaction,” I said.

“It worked; it was overwhelming, to say the least.” She picked at the corners of the book.

“I had no idea. I’m sorry,” I said.

“We both need to learn how to stop apologizing for others,” she huffed and closed the book in her lap. “I suppose I gave him exactly what he wanted. It was hard to read that, to know I could be so easily wiped away from my old life. But I shouldn’t have expected anything more from a man who had never cared about anything past his status in society.”

“He sounds like a horrible husband,” I said tightly, trying to busy my tense hands by picking grass.

“Lord Cabot, Matthew, was a terrible man, and husband to me by law alone,” Florence quipped. “Though most men were not much better in my time, he was among the worst.”

“Don’t lump us all together.” I clutched at my chest. “You'll hurt my feelings.”

“I didn’t know you were born in the eighteen hundreds. My apologies,” she teased with a smile I had never seen before, but it tightened my chest with anticipation for the next time it might appear.

“Was he cruel?” I asked, knowing that I might be pushing the boundaries of what she was willing to tell me, but I couldn’t help myself.

“As cruel as they come,” she answered honestly, looking out at the field of flowers. “But I suppose it is unfair of me to lump all men together. My father was an exceptional man.” She sighed, her eyes seeming to clear from the darkness that clouded them when speaking of her husband. Now they were warm, and full of love. It was breathtaking.

“He never treated me any less for not being the son he so desperately needed to help with the farm. He taught me to read and to write, and to care for the animals and cultivate gardens. He was always quick to laugh, and open with his affection. Sometimes Koen reminds me of him,” she whispered. “His emotions are raw and honest.” She paused for a moment and looked down at her hands, her fingers worrying the leather corner of the book she was holding. “But then, so were Matthew’s; they were just the wrong kind of emotions…”

“Koen won’t,” I said instantly, without thought. She’d grown tense beside me. The air could be split down the center between us. “I can tell when someone is trying to feel out a situation. When they’re trying to determine whether or not we can be trusted. It is always handy when dealing with law enforcement, victims, or family members. They’re unwilling to talk to us, even if we flash a fake police badge or act like lawyers,” I tried to explain. “I’ve always been able to read people and I can tell you’re trying to figure out if Koen’s loyalties are fickle or if they’ll turn violent. They are not, they will not.”

Florence stared at me with a fire blazing behind her eyes.

“Once he makes up his mind, it cannot be swayed. So, for the sake of us all, I hope to God, or whatever supernatural force may be listening right now, that you are who and what I think you are because if you’re not, Wesley Cameron will move heaven and earth to ensure his little brother is safe, even if Koen doesn’t want the special treatment.”

And regardless of who or what stands in his way . I don’t add, but she can see it lingering, unsaid.

“I understand and I thank you for your honesty.”

“Excellent,” I said, holding my hand out to her. We were both still sitting in the uncomfortable reality that no matter what, it might end in bloodshed. “Now, let me read some of those to you.”

“You want to read them to me?” Her brows furrowed in that adorable way again, but that time I didn’t stop myself from reaching out and brushing my thumb between them. She pulled back gently, staring at my hand with a blush on her cheeks that made my mouth dry.

With that the suffocating reality eased off my chest.

I wanted to do more than read to her.

I wanted to roll her over in the grass and kiss her until she forgot her own name.

I wanted to show her the commitment that coursed through me to find a solution. An instinct that burned bright below the surface to never stop digging until I found a way to free her from this prison. A raw, feral urge to find a way to see that smile without conditions or the looming threat of what could happen.

But for now I would settle for reading to her if it made her happy.

“If you’ll let me.” I smiled at her and she handed me one of them, allowing me to flip to a page that had been dog-eared. “I didn’t take you for a book destroyer, Florence.” I scowled and pressed out the corner.

She laughed wildly and with conviction into the summer air at my huffing. “I didn’t know you were the authority,” she quipped back.

“Stop the research.” I shook my head in feigned disgust. “This right here is why you might be a monster,” I said, shaking the antique book in the air at her.

“Just read to me,” she giggled, eyes rolling as she pressed her fingers against the leather and pushed it back toward me, that teasing smirk returning to her lips.

It was getting progressively more challenging to see Wes’ argument when she smiled at me like that.

All my logic flew out of my mind, leaving only thoughts of Florence.