Page 57

The garden was untamed but lovely. Wildflowers danced from wherever they’d decided to grow, ivy clambered over trellises with reckless enthusiasm, and the hedges had long since abandoned any pretense of being trimmed.

All it was missing, Lydia thought, was one of the fat sheep from the front yard to wander through and complete the picture of charming chaos.

“Our old gardener gave up his shovel at the age of eighty,” Alexander explained. “And I haven’t had the, uh, time to replace him.”

She knew well it wasn’t a matter of time that Alexander lacked. Still, she let him have the bluff. A stone bench sat beneath a blooming lilac tree. Alexander guided her to it, and they sat, the scent of spring thick in the air.

“Thank you,” he said after a long silence.

“For what?”

“For not fleeing.”

She laughed. “On the contrary, I rather enjoyed myself. Your sisters are delightful.”

“Delightful, perhaps, and also quite feral,” he admitted. “But I do love them.” His voice was quiet, serious, and she felt a shift in the air. This was not the flustered young man she’d first met, but a man shaped by responsibility and affection.

“Which is what brought you to the card table,” she surmised. “You were playing for their future.” A more noble desire than that of most gamblers she’d met.

Alexander nodded. The afternoon sun danced over his face, highlighting his cheekbones and making his golden hair shine all the brighter. “I wanted to secure their futures. To promise them stability by ensuring they made good marriages.”

“And yet, you have already given them so much. Happiness, freedom, love. A good marriage, as measured by society, does not always offer those to women.” Lydia looked out at the garden, at all the wildflowers blooming wherever they wished.

None of them plucked too young, none of them forced to grow in ways that bent and broke them.

“You do not think them capable of making love matches?”

“I am not so na?ve as to think love alone will be enough for them to be chosen,” he sighed. “Though I of course wish otherwise.”

Lydia's smile faltered slightly. Not from displeasure, but from the weight of emotions she hadn't expected.

She looked down at her hands, imagining a wedding band on her finger, a life lived with one man at her side.

For the first time in years, that image did not fill her with dread.

“And you?” she asked. “Do you think love is enough to make you a match?”

“I told you already I wished to court you.” His voice was as low as his gaze was warm.

“Out of love?” Lydia kept her tone flippant, surprised that he hadn’t let go of his earlier, foolish notion.

“Out of something that feels dangerously close to growing into such an emotion, yes.”

Her hands trembled, just for a moment, at his words. She looked down, finding her words quite dried up. Not even a jest or a sharp quip came to mind.

“Was that too forward?” he asked, so softly she thought she had misheard. “I beg your forgiveness, I--”

“I am usually the forward one.” As their eyes met, she searched his for falsehood. Part of her wished to spot any hint of insincerity, any trace of this all being one big lark to him. But instead, all she found was honesty, warm, and simple, and true. “Though with actions, rather than words.”

He laughed, standing as he did so. “So I recall. But come, my sisters will be terribly upset if we haven’t time for them to show you the tableau vivant they’ve been practicing.”

“Oh?” She couldn’t quite picture those girls remaining still long enough to form any semblance of a tableau vivant, which required absolute stillness for the appropriate effect. Her mother had smacked her knuckles with a fan after Lydia had once sneezed during one.

But Alexander, ignorant of her memory, only laughed, that rich, warm sound that she felt she might become drunk upon. “Perhaps it is more of a play, for they’re not the most silent. Not to mention the kitten tends to run amok.”

“The kitten?”

“Oh yes, we’ll have to introduce you to her, as well. A charming little miss, all fur and claws and the loudest meow. You see, I am utterly outnumbered here, even by the animals.”

That laughter returned, and this time, she matched it with her own delighted chuckle.

“You truly wish to court me?” she asked Alexander, as they strolled through the ramshackle garden. “Despite my reputation? My wanton ways and my…” her lashes lowered, she glanced up at him, coquettishly, “deep fondness for carnal pleasure?”

It resulted in that adorable blush of his. “Can such a fondness be tempered?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, preparing herself for the inevitable lecture on morality.

. But he caught her hand, bent to kiss her cheek, and whispered, “at least for a few months, until the banns are read and you are my wife in name and deed. Then I shall crave all your wantonness as often as you feel prepared to spoil me with it.”

And if the hunger curling through her was any indication, such spoiling, as he put it, would take place as often as time would allow.

She leaned in and kissed him, ignoring any pretense of manners, and let the kiss grow as wild as the garden around them, her hand sinking into his hair, his arms wrapping around her body, lifting her off the ground.

It would be rather refreshing if he would simply carry her off to the most secluded part of the garden and abandon any trace of proprietary left between them.

But instead, he pulled back, lifting her fingers to his lips to kiss each, as if sealing the promise between them.

It reminded her that this was what fascinated her about him.

His rationality, his calm, his steadfast affection.

Now it was Alexander’s turn to go silent, as a great sigh reverberated through his body. “Though it will not be a grand wedding.”

“I know my name is not one benefiting the wife of an Earl,” she began?—

“Oh, it isn’t that. It’s just, we…” he gestured at the house. “We are rich in peerage and poor in all matters which pay the bills.”

“That does not matter to me. I shall allow you to court me, but I will not marry you.”

“Ever?” he asked.

“For now,” she replied. Because as sweet and as kind as he was, a marriage was still a cage.

Later, once her carriage was readied again, Lydia sat inside and stared out the window as Finch Hall receded behind her.

She held a small paper flower in her hand—a gift from Elanor, made after they’d tried, multiple times, to demonstrate their tableau, only to dissolve in giggles each time.

They’d soon begged Lydia to join in, and from there, changed the game to show her how they crafted flowers from scraps of torn wallpaper, intending them to become a decorative chain to wrap the bannister.

It made her heart lighter, to see the girls enjoying such things, to be given the freedom to decorate a home, rather than merely occupy a house.

Alexander might be concerned for their futures, but the present they lived was full of so much joy.

Unlike Lydia’s own childhood, where she had been taught to never take up space, never take any comfort or ownership in the house, for she would not come back to it once she was married.

And yet, she had not married, and never would return to that cold, cold, house.

Lydia took a deep breath, letting her thoughts land upon a more pleasant destination, as she recalled the utter charm of Alexander’s smile.

He too was unlike anything she had known in her life before, or chosen to find in her new life.

Patient, kind, intelligent without being a braggart, and most of all… gentle.

She’d never thought gentleness to be a trait which would summon such desire within her, and yet, she could not shake the craving for more of his admittedly unrefined, unpracticed touch.

Sighing, she gazed down at what she held. The flower was fragile, creased and wrinkled and somehow the most perfect thing she’d ever seen.