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Below, the parterre traced intricate knots of thyme, sage, and santolina, each bed edged with dwarf box.

Beyond lay the larger garden, and beyond that she could just discern Mr?Darcy’s dark figure moving along the outer path, secateurs now slipped into a coat pocket.

He paused, lifted his face to the grey sky, and seemed to breathe—deeply, deliberately—as though the air itself were some tincture prescribed for melancholy.

Elizabeth turned from the window, unsettled by a pang of unwelcome sympathy. She busied herself unpacking until the mantel clock chimed five, then descended for tea.

The solarium proved a sun-trap even on a muted day, its glass roof latticed with iron like a confectioner’s fancy.

Trailing pelargoniums spilled from high shelves; cane chairs encircled a small round table laid with a brown betty teapot, two cups, and a plate of currant buns so plump they might scandalise a vicar.

Mrs?Winter waved Elizabeth to a seat, then adjusted a shawl over her shoulders. “I take three cups before supper, doctor be damned. Keeps the joints from rusting.” She poured. “Milk?”

“Please.” Steam curled between them, carrying the faintest whisper of bergamot.

“Now,” said Mrs?Winter, “tell me your gardening experience—all of it, including failures. Those are often more instructive than triumphs.”

Elizabeth sipped and began: mornings in Longbourn’s modest flower beds with her mother fretting about earwigs; afternoons cajoled by Mr?Bennet into thinning gooseberries; a disastrous attempt at forcing tulips one winter that resulted in spectacular mould.

Mrs?Winter listened, eyes bright, occasionally punctuating the tale with approving grunts or sympathetic winces.

By the time Elizabeth reached her successful rescue of a storm-flattened pea row the previous summer, both buns had vanished, and the teakettle rattled faintly on its trivet.

“Competent,” Mrs?Winter pronounced. “Capable of recognising her own errors. Not vain. I have done worse in hiring tutors for my orchids.” She leaned back. “You will do, Miss?Bennet. Indeed, I harbour a suspicion you may fly.”

Elizabeth felt a warmth quite separate from the tea expand beneath her collar. “You are generous.”

“I am pragmatic. Flattery is wasted unless it bears fruit, and I expect blossoms as large as saucers come June.” The widow’s gaze softened. “We shall suit, I think.”

The sentiment, simply delivered, eased the last knot in Elizabeth’s chest. For the first time since Hertfordshire blurred behind her carriage window, she believed she might truly belong in this unfamiliar city.

A knock sounded on the glass door that led to the west terrace. Both women turned. Mr?Darcy stood outside, hat in hand, coat dusted with lichens. Up close—closer than the orchard ladder permitted—he looked pale but composed, as though the act of pruning had steadied him.

Mrs?Winter raised her cane in greeting. “Enter, sir, enter. Your apples survived another assault?”

Darcy stepped inside. “Barely. Good afternoon, Mrs?Winter.” His gaze shifted, and his voice dipped into something softer—warmer, perhaps. “Miss?Bennet.”

Elizabeth rose because she could not remain seated while he greeted her. “Mr?Darcy.” The syllables felt strange after so many months, yet they held none of the bitterness that once tinged them. He bowed; she curtsied; civility achieved.

“I hope”—he addressed both women—“I do not intrude. Mrs?Winter, your gardener caught me stealing grafting wood from the Scarlet Nonpareil. In recompense I have brought you the finest cutting.” He produced a slender branch, buds poised like garnet beads.

Mrs?Winter’s eyes lit. “A bribe, you mean? Accepted.” She examined the twig, then passed it to Elizabeth. “Miss?Bennet, would you demonstrate for our neighbour the correct manner of sealing a fresh cut?”

Elizabeth fetched a small jar of tree wax from the sideboard, glad of the practical task. She trimmed the cut clean, dipped it into the wax, and wrapped the end with a narrow strip of raffia.

Darcy watched, expression unreadable save for a faint crease smoothing from his brow. “My mother would have approved,” he said quietly. “She despised careless grafts.”

Elizabeth wound the raffia, tucked the final end, and met his gaze. “Then I am honoured.”

A silence recollected itself—delicate, almost shy—before Mrs?Winter shattered it by thumping her cane. “Enough of horticultural courtship. Darcy, stay for tea. There is talk of seaweed compost, and I require a dissenting vote.”

He hesitated. Elizabeth glimpsed the faintest echo of the old Darcy—guarded, wary of company—but it flickered and was gone. “Gladly.”

They drew up an extra cane chair. Conversation meandered from pruning calendars to Bath’s unreliable postal service.

Darcy spoke little, but when he did, it was with an earnestness Elizabeth had never before witnessed: praising the virtues of mulching, questioning the best method for discouraging cider wasps.

Mrs?Winter needled him good-naturedly, and after the second cup he smiled—an unpolished, brief, but wholly genuine smile that caught Elizabeth unawares.

Her tea cooled unnoticed; instead, she memorised that moment: the way the afternoon light silvered the edge of his hair, how his eyes—so often stern—softened at Mrs?Winter’s tale of an escaped goose trampling a seed bed.

She recalled Lydia’s assertion that Darcy never laughed.

How wrong we can be, Elizabeth thought, and felt a prickle of humility.

The party broke at half past six. Mrs?Winter departed to inspect the henhouse (“Eggs wait for no one”), leaving Elizabeth and Darcy to wander the gravel path back toward the arch.

Evening had deepened; lamps along the Crescent flickered to life, dots of gold sewing the curved street into the gathering dusk.

Elizabeth clasped her hands behind her back to still their fidget. “Bath is quieter than London,” she offered, “yet livelier than Meryton. I suspect it will suit me.”

“I hope it does,” Darcy replied after a pause. “Mrs?Winter values her companions. And her roses.”

“I gathered.” She smiled; he did too, faintly.

They walked a few steps further. Somewhere overhead a blackbird trilled its final song. Elizabeth inhaled cold air laced with the scent of damp stone and newly turned earth.

Darcy broke the silence. “Miss?Bennet, I—I wish to say that your presence here is entirely unexpected but… not unwelcome.”

Warmth spread through her chest in steady rings, like ripples from a dropped pebble. “Thank you.” She hesitated, searching his face. “I trust you are well?”

“Well enough,” he answered, though shadows lingered at his temples. “Bath is—peaceful.”

“Yes.” She traced the outline of a lavender clump with the toe of her boot. “Peace aids reflection.”

His gaze sharpened. “Do you find reflection useful?”

“Sometimes.” She met his eyes squarely. “Other times it merely shows the same image until one does something different.”

A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “Miss?Bennet, I have missed your candour.”

She felt her pulse flutter but stood her ground. “And I, sir, have missed honest conversation. It appears the garden may offer opportunity for both.”

He inclined his head. “Then I look forward to it.”

They reached the yew arch. He opened the gate for her and stepped aside. She passed beneath the dark boughs and paused on the threshold of the street. “Good evening, Mr?Darcy.”

“Good evening.”

She walked toward the east wing door, the evening cool against her cheeks.

Only when she reached it did she glance back.

Darcy still stood beneath the arch, framed by yew shadows and lamplight, hat in hand as though reluctant to sever the moment.

When he saw her turn, he touched two fingers to the brim in silent salute, then disappeared into the orchard.

Elizabeth pressed her palm against the wooden door, steadying herself.

She had come to Bath to earn a living, not to entangle her heart afresh.

Yet gardens, she reflected, cared little for human resolutions; seeds sprouted, roots searched, blossoms opened when conditions favoured growth.

And here, at Number?Nine, conditions might prove perilously fair.

She slipped inside, closed the door, and set her back against it.

The house smelled faintly of beeswax and thyme smoke.

Somewhere above, a clock chimed seven; somewhere beyond, a ladder creaked as it was folded and stored.

Elizabeth drew a steadying breath, squared her shoulders, and headed upstairs to draft a letter to Jane—one that spoke of roses, robins, and the curious comfort of shared routine, yet mentioned nothing of the man whose quiet smile had startled her more than all the miles of road between Hertfordshire and Bath.

Tomorrow would bring compost debates at dawn, and seedlings demanding vigilance, and perhaps another encounter in twilight.

She would greet each in turn. For tonight, she allowed herself a single indulgence: laying the Scarlet Nonpareil cutting on her windowsill as though it were a promise—not yet rooted, but alive with possibility—waiting for patient, steady hands to coax it into bloom.