Chapter Twenty-Three

At the orangery at Cloverdale House, later in the day…

P ippa lifted the buds of her orchids and eyed them critically. “They won’t blossom in time for the wedding.”

“Not every beauty can keep up with the breakneck pace you and Nick have,” Bea said, trailing her hand over the new waxy leaves of the orchids. She always admired the long but robust leaves of these plants, which were so at odds with the delicate layers of the blossoms. Several times, when Bea was confined to her room during a flare-up and worked on perfecting her watercolor skills—an activity her mother always highlighted to mask the true situation—she’d found herself thinking about Pippa. Unlike Bea, Pippa could freely spend time in her orangery, unburdened by society’s expectations and the relentless pressure to be the belle of the ball for whatever event her mother deemed important next.

In those moments of solitude, Bea had time to think and often let her mind wander while her hands controlled the pencil for a loose sketch and then the paintbrush for precise movement of the colors. Even though many debutantes were not terribly fond of watercolors, Bea always enjoyed them, especially painting flowers and plants from Pippa’s Orangery.

There were the prickly tops of the pineapples, like palms growing without a trunk. Long pigment-laden brush strokes lent themselves to the sharp-edged dark-green leaves. The same colors but different strokes were required for the busy ferns, which consisted of many-layered dots with just enough space between them to give them the plant’s shape. And then there were the orchids, with burned sienna around the edges of the underpainting, layered with blues for the fleshiest parts of the leaves on either side of the center thread. For the blossoms, however, Bea barely touched the brush to the paint and almost let the pigment flow to the edges of the delicate petals.

“How can I help the orchids bloom in time for your special day?” Bea asked when she’d counted nearly forty dark pink and purple buds.

“I think we need to ask the footman to light the coal stove he installed. There’s still not enough heat.” Pippa surveyed the room. “It’s humid enough but not quite warm enough yet. I’ll ask him on my way to deliver some of these things to the new house.” She eyed the plants near the stove. “Should we move those, do you think? I don’t want them to get overheated or scorched.”

“I’ll do it,” Bea offered. She and Pippa said goodbye and once her cousin had left the orangery, she began moving the pots closest to the stove.

A figure came to the side door, the glass one that had gotten foggy with the humidity.

Bea squinted.

Then, two hands pressed against the glass, and a face followed, looking in.

He knocked.

Bea straightened, sure it was Nick who’d come in search of Pippa and ready to greet him politely.

It would be all right to be found alone for a moment with her almost cousin-in-law.

Thus, Bea tugged at her dress and walked to the door. She turned the key on the inside, and it clicked open.

“Pippa, hullo,” Alfie said as he stepped in. “Oh!”

Bea blinked at the apothecary, dressed in a simple dark brown coat the same color as his chocolate hair. He looked sinfully delicious as always. Her heart skipped a beat.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Beatrice. Ahem… Bea… I thought Pippa might be here.”

“She was, but she left.”

He surveyed the Orangery and the rows of raised beds, and his eyes stopped at the furnace behind Bea. “Why is there a coal oven?”

Bea withdrew from his proximity, an act that demanded every ounce of her willpower. The space between them felt like a gulf she dared not cross, yet she couldn’t stop her mind from wandering in that direction.

“The wedding is in two days, and Pippa wanted her orchids to bloom. We’re trying to warm the space so the buds will bloom.”

Alfie followed her through the path between the raised beds and around the end of one to the mossy bed with tree bark that housed an array of white-laced orchids with delicate stems and little buds in the shapes of lanterns hanging from thin stems.

“Pippa and Nick will be very happy together. I hope they get their orchids for the decorations,” Alfie said in a low voice.

“Why does that make you sad?” Bea asked, instantly chastising herself for sounding like a ninny.

Alfie shook his head. “It doesn’t. Not at all. I couldn’t be happier for Nick. He’s always been there for me, and if I had a brother, I would have wished it were him.” Yet Alfie avoided her gaze and looked over his shoulder at the plants. “Do you know when Pippa is coming back?”

Bea shook her head, shy to admit it but reveling in being alone with Alfie.

“I hoped she’d allow me to pick a few leaves from the myrtle,” Alfie continued. Then he looked up at the tall potted trees near the furnace. Its stems, woody yet slender, converged into a singular trunk, and the canopy, loftier than a man at full height, sprawled outward in a lush display of greenery, casting a cool, dappled shade beneath it.

“I’ve always wanted to see how tall these could grow naturally in the Mediterranean region—Sardinia, Corsica, and the Aegean Sea islands have myrtles, but this one is from Morocco,” Bea said, trailing her hand along the jagged bark of the myrtle. “What will you do with it?”

“Well, if Pippa lets me take a few leaves, I’ll steam distill the essential oil and use it,” Alfie said, tilting his head backward to look at the canopy of the myrtle just over his head. So that’s what the expression meant: a man standing tall as a tree. Bea could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed and the muscles of his neck, which probably led to an even more muscular chest, and… was the furnace working? She’d started to feel overheated.

Wait, she was hot, not the space around her. The coals were still cold; she didn’t know how to light a fire in a furnace.

“I’ll let you take as many leaves as you need,” Bea said, eyeing the metal cylinder with holes and the tray of coals. “I’ll be here anyhow, trying to light the furnace.”

“I can do that for you,” Alfie smiled at her for a fleeting moment, but quickly looked away as if his eyes were not allowed to linger on her anymore.

“I would like that very much.” Stupid ninny, what’s there to like? Glowing coals? “I mean, I’d be most obliged for your help.” Bea curtsied politely to express her gratitude, but Alfie caught her elbow and gently pushed her up.

“Don’t do that with me,” he shook his head and furrowed his brows.

Taken aback momentarily, Bea looked at his hand on her arm. She liked his touch, but why wouldn’t he accept her gratitude? It would have been rude if his gaze weren’t so sincere.

“You never need to thank me. Especially not for something simple like lighting a fire.”

“Oh!” That wasn’t rude, it was direct, and kind, so she gladly accepted this help. On second thought, nobody had ever done anything for Bea without expecting her to pay them or thank them profusely. Alfie was refreshingly unaristocratic. Yet, he wasn’t like the servants either. He was educated and had an air of certainty about his profession that Bea hadn’t quite experienced before.

Most men of the Ton relied on their social standing and connections to get their way, or on bribes, threats, and perhaps even worse. Not Alfie. He only needed to rely on himself, his knowledge, and his mind.

“Thank you.” She shook her head. “I mean, not thank you… ahem… just—”

“It’s my pleasure,” Alfie said as he set aside a glass bottle he’d been holding and unbuttoned his brown coat. He shrugged out of it and then untied the white strings of his simple white shirt sleeves. He rolled up his cuffs.

Bea licked her lips.

His wrist bones were visible, and a vein formed a long line over his shapely arms, giving Bea a trail to follow with her eyes until the shirt blocked its destination—but she knew it led to his heart, to the strong chest, and, most likely, to the athletic body underneath.

All she’d ever seen were the marble statues at the British Museum.

But now her curiosity was peaked to explore such artistry in flesh and blood.

His flesh, to be precise, brought her blood to boil so much that her vision blurred.

Alfie bent down and stacked the coals within the belly of the small metal furnace. Bea retrieved a candle from a box under one of the raised beds and handed it to him. After lighting the candle with flint and steel, he carefully held its flame to the coals within the furnace until they caught fire.

“This is the best method, actually. Gradually lighting the coals makes for a controlled and steady flame,” he said, igniting the small black shapes one by one.

Bea felt like one of them, feeling the heat rise in her chest as if she were sitting on a furnace, imagining it was Alfie—for he lit her senses on fire.

*

The coals heated quickly, emanating a wave of warmth that Alfie hoped was not due to his hard cock, but the furnace.

“Who is the myrtle oil for?” Bea asked.

“I cannot say.”

“Oh, it’s not a surprise, is it?”

“No.”

She frowned most adorably, pouting a little.

So kissably sweet.

“I’ll just pick twenty leaves and a few twigs if you don’t mind.” The tree had at least a thousand little leaves, and Alfie only needed a few.

“We have so much here, Alfie. If you think it can be useful, please take what you like.”

He flinched at that.

“I often wish I could do something with my station, my privilege. Oh, I admire you so!” Bea’s hand shot to her mouth, and she clasped her lips shut, turned her back to him, and walked toward the large potted tree.

She admired him?

“My work or me?” Alfie wished he could have suppressed the urge to ask a lady that; it was beyond improper, and yet the question burned in his chest. He’d had such an overwhelming sense of knowing her that he couldn’t stop asking.

Bea faced him but she was several steps away. “Both?”

“Are you asking me?” Alfie took a step toward her, but only one.

“I don’t know much about your work as an apothecary. I met some ayurvedic healers when I was sixteen, but they didn’t speak with me.”

It couldn’t be… did she remember?

“Where did you meet them?” he asked carefully, trying not to let his mind join his heart in that elusive space where he hoped for more than he ought to have with Bea. But if they had a past, or at least a shared encounter… would anything change?

“I… ahem … nobody must know but you already do. I’ve never told anyone where we were when I was sixteen. My parents searched for a cure for my beast.” She frowned. “Or rash, as you call it.”

“In Delhi? With Master Varier?”

Bea’s eyes found his and her pupils grew wider as her mouth fell open. “Who told you?”

“Nobody.” But it all made sense now. He shouldn’t have recognized her veiled in his apothecary, but he’d seen her that way in India and now he followed his intuition. There was no doubt in his mind that he’d seen her like this before. “I was there.”

Bea jerked her head back. “Where?”

“At the British Residency, the British Resident in Delhi was Sir David Ochterlony.”

“Did you work for the East India Company?”

“No, for Master Varier. I was an apprentice.” And considering how many people there were in India, it wasn’t just a coincidence that he’d seen Bea before. It was fate.

She cleared her throat, furrowed her brow, and crossed her arms. Alfie was unperturbed because the tension in his stomach had ebbed away, replaced by the serene certainty of newfound knowledge.

“I was two-and-twenty, and I had completed my apprenticeship. Felix was there, too. He worked in the town. I continued to work with Master Varier until I had enough to pay for the passage to England.”

“What does that have to do with Sir Ochterlony?”

“He had guests. A family from London with a daughter who always sat by the north-facing windows, away from the sun. She was always veiled.”

Bea narrowed her eyes. “Did anyone tell you this?”

“No! Who would tell me that your veil had small yellow flowers embroidered along the edges and a few white tassels in the back to hold it down? Or that you always had stacks of books and maps before you?”

Bea gasped and her arms drooped to the sides.

“How would I know that the apprentice—also veiled—brought you honey to sweeten the awful-tasting tea that Master Varier had delivered to you every day?”

“That was you?” She closed the distance to Alfie and surveyed his eyes as if she could find a glimmer of her past in them.

He nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Confusion mixed with anger pierced her voice.

“I didn’t realize it had been you all along. We never spoke until Pippa and Nick wanted me to make the ipecac for your uncle.”

The flicker of recognition in Bea’s eyes ignited into a full-blown blaze of enlightenment.

“Y-you spoke English!” Bea clasped her chest with both hands. “You knew about my beast!” The color drained from her face. “Did you understand everything my mother said?”

Alfie pinched his lips. Patient confidentiality turned into a rather muddy area if one was speaking to a patient who’d been treated by one’s master… oh drat ! This wasn’t a conflict of interest but a conflicted love interest.

“I wasn’t supposed to speak with the lady, but I was chosen for the task to ensure that I understood and that I could comply. Most of what I did was carry sacks of dried herbs, berries, and leaves at that time. Master Varier only let me mix in his rasashala , his laboratory.”

“So you know about my beast? How long have you…?”

“I didn’t know it was you. My residency was confidential and there were so many rules I was required to follow. I wasn’t allowed to speak with you, for one. I was supposed to be as invisible as the servants fanning the air around you.”

“But you did speak. I remember it.”

Alfie couldn’t suppress a slight smile. The fact that she remembered meant more to him than he ought to admit. “I brought you honey, and I snuck cinnamon into your tea to make it taste a little less bitter.” I also remember that time my thumb accidentally brushed over your hand and the jolt I felt.

It was nothing compared to kissing you.

Bea stood seemingly puzzled under the myrtle. The foliage overhead had the shape of a large umbrella made of many elliptical leaves. But the woman standing under the canopy took his breath away. She sucked her lower lip in.

He’d given her much to think about and he wasn’t yet sure what to do with the revelation of their shared encounters more than three years ago. All he knew was that he wanted to hold her now.

Distraction.

Good idea. He had to distract himself.

From what exactly? He’d nearly forgotten why he was alone in the Orangery with the girl he’d admired from afar and dreamed of for all this time, only to find out that she was the same who’d let him steal some of the most sizzling kisses he’d ever… I want to kiss you again.

The simple muslin dress accentuated her cleavage, and even though there was nothing more exposed than a lady ought, the light layers of dusty pink fabric brought out the copper hues in her hair and the flush on her cheeks. A cream-colored layer of something delicate stuck out of her cleavage, and Alfie imagined the sheer layers of a chemise, how he’d lift it slowly and bunch it over her hips.

He reached up and tried to pull a myrtle branch down to pluck off some leaves, but he was just a few inches too short, perhaps three.

*

The one time she’d been allowed to travel with her parents, Bea had been isolated from the locals. After months on the schooners with Father discussing diplomatic relations with the captain and her mother forcing Bea to practice her watercolor and embroidery in her cabin all alone.

She’d been forced to wear a veil even though it had been stifling hot at the Residence. Her mother had wanted to hide the rash, but he knew… he’d seen her… and somehow, Bea wasn’t ashamed anymore.

This explained everything.

“So you completed your apprenticeship, came back to England, and started a practice?”

“That’s making it sound rather simple, but yes.” Alfie followed her.

“And the ointment smells like the tea! I recognized it right away but thought it was a coincidence!”

She turned around and Alfie’s face had already lit up with a bright smile. “I combined some of the skills from our western chemistry with ayurvedic herbs. It’s the same combination of herbs, but I made a more concentrated essence and mixed it with soothing oils.”

“It helps,” Bea said.

He beamed. “I’m glad.” He bowed and her breath hitched. She didn’t want that distance her parents had put between them. He wasn’t a servant. Alfie had become so much more for her.

She just couldn’t quite formulate the thought in her mind at the time, yet now she could. She loved him. And she always had because he’d been her only friend, and they’d communicated without speaking and… oh she wanted Alfie and not the prince! But she’d been raised to wait for a man to woo her and didn’t know how to act around him anymore.

Bea led Alfie to the raised beds, her heart thudding in her chest as she revealed the set of wooden crates hidden beneath. She was aware of his gaze washing over her like a summer rain. With a nod, he hefted the largest crate and carried it over to the tree, positioning it carefully before climbing on top. Bea’s breath caught as she watched him, his movements graceful yet strong. The Orangery transformed into an intimate shrine where she found herself in awe of Alfie’s quiet strength and unassuming presence.

His shirt bunched up as he reached to gather the myrtle leaves, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his lean, chiseled abdomen. Bea couldn’t tear her eyes away, mesmerized by how his body moved with such effortless elegance. Each stretch of his arm sent a thrill through her, and she marveled at how this simple task could become a moment of pure reverence. In that secluded, sun-dappled space, Bea’s admiration for him deepened, her emotions swirling like the fragrant air around them.

But as Alfie descended from the box with a handful of leaves, his eyes met hers, holding her gaze with an intensity that took her breath away. Bea’s pulse quickened, and she felt an urgent pull to act on the longing that had simmered within her for so long. Her courage to touch him was as fragile and potent as myrtle’s scent, leaving her teetering on the edge of indecision.

Thus, she decided.

Her hand shook and grew a little wet, but she reached for his belly where she could see the skin exposed. His muscles twitched and she wanted to withdraw. Perhaps she’d gone too far.

For certain.

But then Alfie bent down slightly, put his hands under her arms and pulled her up onto the crate. Bea forgot to breathe the moment she looked into his eyes. As if he could smile with his gaze alone, Alfie’s bright green eyes were so much lighter than the shades of the leaves overhead. And then everything blurred but his face.

“I’ve been dreaming of the girl under the white veil for so long that I never thought it possible that I’d hold her in my arms.”

Bea nestled against him. She was the beastly girl whose first season had to be postponed, whose parents traveled across the world in search of a cure for her affliction. She’d been locked up and hidden behind veils but somehow Alfie didn’t see any of that. He was the only person in the world who knew everything about her darkest secrets—yet he held her with such reverence that she had trouble believing her good fortune.

“And you say I’m the dream,” Bea whispered as she wrapped both arms around him. “It’s been you all along.”

There, on a wooden crate under a potted tree that should only grow on the Mediterranean coast, the apothecary who could take a sack of twigs and leaf dust and turn them into a healing tincture had lifted her heart into a realm she didn’t know existed.

And when his lips touched hers, Bea knew that everything would change.