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T he sky above was a glorious, celestial blue, the sun’s rays were bright and warm upon the ground, and every breath they took was sweetened with the honeyed scent of Lady Finchley’s roses.

Wasn’t love meant to happen on just such a day, and in just such a place? Conditions were ideal for a budding romance to germinate and grow, but Emmeline had never seen two utterly irresistible people more determined to resist each other than Juliet and the Earl of Melrose.

They didn’t appear at all interested in becoming besotted. Emmeline had held her breath every time Lord Melrose addressed Juliet, searching his face for any sign that he was already infatuated with her vivacious sister, but his expression revealed only polite, detached interest.

As for Juliet, if anything, she was worse than Lord Melrose.

Oh, she was as charming and lively as ever, but she’d hardly spared Lord Melrose a glance, instead reserving her most dazzling smiles and sparkling conversation for Lord Cross, who seemed not to have the vaguest notion what to do with them, or her.

Juliet hadn’t even noticed the way Lord Melrose’s smart navy coat made his eyes look so impossibly blue, Emmeline wished it were possible to breed blue roses, so she might create one just that same shade of cornflower.

Blue roses, of all absurd things. They didn’t even exist in nature.

None of this made any sense. Why couldn’t they just get on with falling in love, so Emmeline could return to the safety of her own walled garden at Hambleden Manor?

The fault must lie with her. She was doing something wrong?—

“Will you join me in a stroll under the rose arbors, Miss Templeton? If you’re not too fatigued, that is.”

Emmeline looked up into Lord Melrose’s warm blue eyes, then turned a longing gaze on the closely planted row of arbors, each so thick with blossoms it was like walking through a magical passageway made entirely of roses.

She would like to join him—that is, not him, precisely. It had nothing to do with him .

She was merely eager to go on a search for the elusive damask rose she needed to recreate her father’s perfume, and couldn’t think of a better place to search than under arches dripping with roses.

But it would be far better for him to have a romantic stroll in the gardens with Juliet. “I’m rather fatigued, my lord, but perhaps my sister would care for a?—”

“I daresay a stroll won’t tax your strength terribly much, Emmeline,” Juliet called from behind them, where she’d paused beside a stone bench with Lord Cross and Lady Fosberry. “You’ve been going on for months about including rose arches in the garden at Hambleden Manor.”

Emmeline cast a sidelong glance at Lord Melrose, but his handsome face showed only tepid curiosity, and not the rapacious glee with which the ton received any mention of the Templetons, even one so innocent as rose arbors in the manor garden. “Well, I don’t?—”

“Such spectacular roses! I can’t bear for you to miss anything, Emmeline. Perhaps Lord Melrose would be kind enough to take you to visit the damask roses afterwards.” Juliet gave them both a bright smile. “I’m certain you’ll discover dozens of clusters to mash together.”

“Species, not clusters,” Emmeline corrected. “And the proper term is graft, not?—”

“Yes, do go on, Emmeline.” Lady Fosberry settled herself on the bench and arranged her parasol to shade her face from the sun. “You can tell us all about the canes and rosehips and crowns and things when you return.”

“Shall we, Miss Templeton?” Lord Melrose smiled down at her, the breeze fingering his hair, and there was little Emmeline could do but take his arm.

“I wasn’t aware roses wore crowns,” Lord Melrose murmured as he led her down a tidy pathway lined on each side by a purple blaze of lavender. “I feel as if I’ve been misled, somehow.”

Emmeline couldn’t help but laugh, though a part of her resented it. This would be a great deal easier if he’d stop being so agreeable. “The crown is the point where the submerged roots meet the emerging canes.”

It was, according to some botanists, the essence of the rose’s vitality, the beating heart of the plant, but the idea of speaking of vitality to a gentleman made her cheeks warm.

“Ah, I see.” He was quiet for a moment as they wandered down the pathways between the overflowing flower beds, then, “I don’t believe you’ve been perfectly honest with me, Miss Templeton.”

Emmeline’s steps faltered. “I, ah…I don’t understand, my lord.”

Had he realized she was the lady he’d kissed in Lady Fosberry’s library? Or had he known all along, and lured her into the privacy of Lady Finchley’s rose arbors to confront her? Her fingers tightened on his coat sleeve as a wave of emotion she couldn’t identify rolled over her.

Anticipation, or dread. Goodness, when did one ever feel so much like the other? She’d certainly never noticed it before.

What could she possibly say in reply, if he did question her? She hadn’t said a word throughout their entire encounter in the library, not even when he’d kissed her neck. She hadn’t demanded he stop, or even pulled away from him. No, she’d arched back against him, as if begging him to keep going.

How could she possibly explain such a?—

“Yesterday at Floris you claimed only a cursory knowledge of scent, but I don’t think that’s the truth.” He turned his face down to hers, the dappled sunlight catching his golden eyelashes. “I think you’re a great deal more knowledgeable than you claim.”

Oh . Well, of course. What had she thought he meant?

“Confess it, Miss Templeton. Weren’t you attempting to charm the perfumer’s deepest secrets from Mr. Beale?”

Charm ? No one had ever accused her of being charming before. “You’re quite right. You’ve, ah…you’ve caught me out, my lord.”

Emmeline smiled, but her cheeks heated with a strange combination of disappointment and relief, and inexplicably, with shame, as if his inability to recognize her was her fault.

Which was perfectly absurd, given she’d already made up her mind it was imperative he not recognize her, as it would ruin all her careful plans.

Juliet and Lord Melrose must marry, and she intended to see the thing done as quickly as possible, and done sensibly, using the solid scientific principles of botany.

A grafting was what was needed here. The cultivar of one rose is inserted into the rootstock of another to create the scion, which the botanist then nurtures with water, rich soil, plenty of warm sunshine, and careful tending until the fuse between them takes, and a delicate new hybrid is born.

Lady Fosberry might tease her about her scientific approach to making matches, but Emmeline never used tools she didn’t understand, and she understood this . Grafting roses was a clean, simple, predictable process, and one with a statistical chance of success.

But there could be no further scandal, no unpleasant surprises, and no losing her wits over Lord Melrose. No matter how handsome he was, or how soft his lips, or?—

“Your interest in flowers isn’t merely a hobby, either,” Lord Melrose went on. “It’s much more than that. You’re a botanist, aren’t you?”

A warm rush of pleasure flooded Emmeline’s chest at his words. No one had ever called her a botanist before. Unless he meant it sarcastically? She glanced up at him, but he was smiling down at her, his handsome face alight with interest. “A novice botanist, I suppose.”

“You follow in your father’s learned footsteps, then?”

Emmeline’s eyes widened. The ton seemed to have forgotten all about James Templeton after her mother’s scandal and his retreat from society.

Aside from Lady Fosberry, even those who’d once been his friends had abandoned him.

No one had dared mention either of her parents to her since then, though she knew the ton spoke of the Templetons readily enough behind their backs.

“You know of my father’s work?” she asked cautiously.

Lord Melrose looked surprised. “Yes, of course. James Templeton is quite well known in Royal Society circles.”

“He, ah…yes. He was a scientist, mainly a chemist and a botanist. He created his own hybrid rose garden at our home in Buckinghamshire.” It had been so long since Emmeline had discussed her father with anyone but her sisters or Lady Fosberry the words came slowly, awkward and creaky on her lips.

“I didn’t like to see his garden go to ruin after he died, so I took up where he left off. ”

Her father had encouraged hers and her sisters’ natural curiosity. He’d been a brilliant man, and had taught them sciences, mathematics, literature, and languages, much to their mother’s outrage.

A spinster in the making, her nose forever thrust between the pages of a book. No gentleman wants a bluestocking for a wife.

Emmeline’s lack of prospects was the reason their mother had insisted she and Phee share their first season. She’d announced she wouldn’t be put to the trouble of bringing out a girl who hadn’t a prayer of catching a husband.

As it happened, Alice Templeton had been proved right. Neither Emmeline nor Phee had had a prayer of making a decent match, but not for the reasons their mother had supposed.

“Does your estate in Buckinghamshire have extensive grounds, Miss Templeton?”

Emmeline managed to smother her very unladylike snort at the word ‘estate,’ and shook her head. “No, both the house and the grounds are quite small, but it’s…it’s home.”

“I understand. I prefer the country to London.” Lord Melrose glanced up at the sky, his blue eyes narrowing against the flood of sunlight on his face. “It’s unfashionable of me, but I find the city begins to press in on me over time.”

“Your younger sisters don’t spend much time in London, I believe?” Emmeline ventured, after a silence. Lord Melrose was said to be utterly devoted to his sisters, and Emmeline, who treasured her own sisters, was curious to hear how he’d speak of them.