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“You should come down to the field. It will help you. The rhythm is very good today.”

Her gaze flew to his face. Rhythm? It was almost as if he had read her mind. “What do you mean?”

He knelt beside her and dug his hand into the earth. “Here, feel it. Put your hand here.”

Bemusedly, she put her palm on the earth.

“Do you feel it?”

“What am I supposed to feel?”

“The earth sighing, trembling, giving up its soul.”

“Soul?”

“The flowers. Everything has a soul, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. Is that what the priests told you?”

He shook his head. “But I know. Can you feel it?”

She did feel a stirring beneath her palm, but it surely must have come from the breeze disturbing the grasses, their roots slightly moving in the soil. “I don’t think so.”

He frowned in disappointment. “I thought you might be one of the ones who felt it right away. Don’t worry, you’ll feel it later.”

He was so earnest she found herself smiling at him. “You’re so sure that—”

“Run away, Michel.”

She looked around to see Philippe dismounting from a chestnut horse a few yards away. She had never seen him dressed so simply in worn brown knee-boots, dark trousers, and a linen shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal his strong brown throat.

Michel nodded in acknowledgment, but his gaze never left Catherine’s face. “You should come with me now. We can pick together.”

Philippe smiled indulgently at the child. “This is the mistress of Vasaro, Michel. She won’t be picking the blossoms.”

Michel turned to Catherine. “Are you sure? I think you’d like it.”

“She’s sure. Go back to the field, Michel.”

The child hesitated, smiled again, and then was running down the hill. As he reached the field, he was met by smiles and laughing remarks, drawn lovingly into the crowd of pickers.

“I was worried when Manon told me you’d left the house so early,” Philippe said. “You should have told me you wanted to come to the fields this morning.”

“I didn’t know I did. I was standing at the window this morning and saw the workers going down the road.…” Her gaze was on Michel, who was picking the blossoms with a dexterity that astonished her. “Is he the son of one of those women?”

“Michel?” Philippe shook his head. “He belongs to no one. He was found almost dead by the overseer in one of the rose fields when he was only a day or so old. Evidently, his mother was a picker who gave birth to him in the field and just left him there.”

“But how could she do such a thing?” Catherine asked, shocked. “A baby…”

“Babies aren’t always wanted. The woman probably had no husband.” Philippe glanced back at the field. “We think the mother was one of the pickers from Italy. There was a woman big with child who disappeared about the time the baby was found.”

“And she never came back?”

He shook his head. “Never.”

“Poor boy.” Her gaze went back to Michel. “But he seems very happy.”

“Why shouldn’t he be happy? He has everything he needs. He chooses which family he’ll live with every season and I give the picker an extra allowance for his food and lodging.”

“That’s kind of you.”

“Part of managing Vasaro is providing for its workers. It doesn’t cost the property a great deal and Michel works as hard as the other pickers.”

“Shouldn’t he be given schooling?”

“I sent him to the priest to learn his letters, but he refused to go back after a few lessons. He’s happier in the fields anyway. He’s a little simple.”

Her eyes widened. “Nothing seemed wrong with him to me.”

Philippe shrugged. “He’s not like the other children. Perhaps he was damaged from lying in the field exposed to the weather those two days. You’ll see, if you get to know him. He doesn’t think like anyone else.”

“Working in the fields seems a hard life for a child.”

“All the children work. Besides, Michel likes it and doesn’t work only in the fields. Sometimes I let him work with the pomades and the essences. Someday he may be of real use to us. I think he has a nose.”

“Of course he does.”

Philippe chuckled. “No, I mean a nose for scents. Very few people can distinguish precise ingredients in a perfume and how they should be blended to make new scents. It takes a sensitive nose and a certain instinct.” He grimaced.

“Unfortunately, I have neither. Thank God, a gentleman has no need for them.”

“But the boy has this talent?”

“Augustine thinks he does. Augustine’s our master perfumer here at Vasaro.”

“We make perfumes as well as grow the flowers?”

“Recently we started to create our own scents. Why should the perfumers in Paris reap all the fattest profits?”

She turned to look at him. His expression was more enthusiastic than she had ever seen it. “That was very enterprising of you.”

“I love Vasaro,” he said simply. “I want it to continue to prosper.” He swung up on the horse. “So I’d better be checking on the pickers in the south field. May I escort you back to the house first? You should have your breakfast.”

She shook her head. Her gaze returned to the pickers. “I want to stay and watch a little while longer.”

He hesitated. “You’re sure that—” He stopped, his gaze on her absorbed face. “Eh bien , I’ll come back and fetch you after the morning’s work.” He turned the horse and trotted down the hill toward the road.

Catherine scarcely realized he was gone as she watched the rhythm of the pickers as they plucked the blossoms and tossed them into the baskets.

Some of the baskets were full now, and the men were carrying them to the waiting cart and dumping them in large casks on the bed of the cart.

Then they returned to the field and the rhythm resumed.

“Catherine!”

It was the child, Michel, waving at her from the field, his tanned face alight with laughter, his eyes squinting against the sunlight. She lifted her hand and waved in return.

He was motioning to her. He wanted her to come down to the field.

She hesitated and then shook her head.

Disappointment clouded his face and Catherine felt a sudden twinge of remorse.

What difference did it make if she was the mistress of Vasaro?

She jumped to her feet and was halfway down the hill before she had realized she was heading toward the boy.

She reached the road, crossed it, and started winding her way through the plants, smiling shyly at the workers who stared at her with an uncertainty equal to her own.

She came to the row where Michel was standing.

“You wished to speak to me?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Watch, I’ll show you how it’s done and then you can do it.” He bent down and started to pluck the geraniums again.

“I don’t want to—” She did want to pick the flowers, she suddenly realized. She wanted to be a part of the rhythm that united the pickers with the plants, to know how the dew-wet blossoms felt in her fingers. She wanted to be a part of Vasaro.

That was why she had been drawn from the house to the field that morning. She had not realized her purpose, but somehow the child had known.

“Tomorrow you must wear a hat. You’re not as brown as the other women, so you’ll burn.” Michel didn’t look at her as he quickly plucked the blossoms. “And wooden shoes are best. There’s much mud from the dew in the morning. You’ll remember?”

“I’ll remember.” She watched him closely and then began to clumsily pluck the blossoms and toss them into his basket.

She was slow at first, but she found the occupation ambivalently both soothing and exhilarating.

The work itself was mindless labor and yet the scent of the earth and flowers, the sun warming her skin, the rush of blood through her veins, and the unaccustomed exercise turned her warm and breathless.

She didn’t know how long she worked beside Michel, but the basket was filled to overflowing with the orange-red geraniums, emptied into the cart and filled again, emptied and filled.

Michel worked in companionable silence beside her, his fingers like the beaks of small birds biting the blossoms from the stems.

She moved down the row to another plant and reached out to find the first flower.

“No.” Michel’s callused hand abruptly covered her own. “It’s enough. It’s time for you to leave now.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“The sun’s high now and you’re beginning to grow very weary.”

“No, I feel fine.”

“It’s time for you to go.” His smile touched his face with a special radiance. “You can come back tomorrow. It’s a big field and we won’t finish today.”

“But I want to stay.”

“You’ve already taken what you need from them.”

Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. “What?”

“You needed the flowers but you’re at peace now. You mustn’t take too much or the healing will go away. There’s a…” He frowned, searching for a word. “Balance.”

“Healing?”

He started to pick the geraniums. “Come back tomorrow, Catherine.”

She stood staring at him for a moment, uncertain what to do. His words were strange, but they struck a note of rightness deep within her. She turned and walked down the row of denuded plants and then up the hill toward the manor house.

Catherine returned to the geranium field the next day and the day after that.

On the fourth day the pickers moved to the field of pink bois de roses and Catherine moved with them.

With every day she grew stronger, the rhythm of the work became clearer to her, more serene and better defined.

On the fifth day Michel let her stay with the pickers until their workday was ended in the mid-afternoon.

Pride and contentment filled her as she and Michel followed the pickers from the field.

“Where do you go when we finish in the fields, Michel?”