Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)(80)

Ethan slept a great deal at first, especially since the opiates Garrett administered for pain made him drowsy and relaxed. During the hours he was awake, she sat by his bedside reading Hamlet aloud, as well as the most recent editions of the Times and the Police Gazette. Garrett found herself bustling about in a state of barely contained joy, doing small things for him, straightening the covers, monitoring everything he ate and drank, measuring out tonic in neat little cups. Sometimes she sat at the bedside just to watch him sleep. She couldn’t help it—after having nearly lost him, she took intense satisfaction in having him safely in bed, clean and comfortable and well-nourished.

Ethan must have found her attentions smothering—any man would have—but he never said a word. Often she caught him watching her with a faint smile as she busied herself with little tasks—reorganizing her supplies, rolling freshly sterilized bandages, misting carbolic spray around the room. He seemed to understand how much she relished—needed—the feeling of having everything under control.

During the second week, however, Ethan became so restless from confinement that Garrett reluctantly allowed him to leave the bed and sit outside on a small second-floor terrace overlooking the vast estate gardens. With his shirt removed and his wound lightly covered with gauze, he lounged like a tiger, dozing and stretching in the sun. Garrett was amused to notice a few of the housemaids gathering at an upstairs parlor window that afforded a view of the private terrace, until Mrs. Church came to shoo them away. One could hardly blame them for wanting a glimpse of the half-dressed Ethan, with his dark good looks and superb physical build.

As one lazy sun-washed day followed another, Garrett was forced to accommodate the relaxed pace at Eversby Priory. There was no other choice. Time moved at a different pace here, where the manor’s thick walls had once housed no less than a dozen monks, and the fireplaces in the common rooms were large enough to stand in. The clamor of locomotives on railway tracks, omnipresent in London, was rarely heard. Instead there was the sound of chiffchaffs and warblers in the hedgerows, the chiseling of woodpeckers in the nearby forest, and the whickers of farm horses. Distant bursts of hammering and sawing could be heard as carpenters and craftsmen worked on the south fa?ade of the house, but that was a far cry from the tumult of London’s public construction works.

There were two daily mealtimes at Eversby Priory: a hearty breakfast and a hedonistic dinner. In between, an artful miscellany of leftovers was arranged in a sideboard buffet. There was no end of cream, butter, and cheese made from summer grass milk. Juicy, tender bacon and smoked ham were served at nearly every meal, either on their own or chopped into salads and savory dishes. There were always abundant vegetables from the kitchen garden, and ripe fruit from the orchards. Accustomed as Garrett was to the quick and Spartan fare at home, she had to force herself to eat slowly and linger at the table. In the absence of any schedule or responsibilities, there was no need to rush.

While Ethan slept in the afternoons, Garrett fell into the habit of taking a daily walk through the estate’s formal gardens. The summer-flowering beds had been beautifully maintained but intentionally left just a bit disheveled, lending offhand charm to the otherwise disciplined design.

There was something about being in a garden that made thinking easier. Not just regular thinking, but the kind that went a few layers down. This, she mused on her walk one day, was why Havelock had advised her to go on holiday.

As she passed a bronze fountain of frolicking cherubs, and a bed of chrysanthemums with curled and tangled white blossoms, she recalled something else Havelock had said on that occasion: “Our existence, even our intellect, hangs upon love—without it, we would be no more than stock and stones.”

Now she had done both things he’d advised: gone on holiday—although it certainly hadn’t started that way—and found someone to love.

How extraordinary this all was. She had spent most of her life running from the guilt of having caused her mother’s death, never slowing enough to notice or care what she might be missing. This was the one thing she’d never bargained for. Love had appeared mysteriously, taking root like wild violets growing in the cracks of city pavement.

Havelock would probably caution her that she hadn’t known Ethan long enough to be sure of him, or of her own feelings. Most people would say it had happened too fast. But there were a few things about Ethan Ransom that Garrett was absolutely certain of. She knew he accepted her flaws as readily as she did his: they could do that for each other when they couldn’t do it for themselves. And she knew he loved her without condition. They had each arrived at a crossroads in life, and this was their chance to go in some new direction together, if they were brave enough to take it.

On the way back to the house, Garrett took a detour on a winding path that led to the estate’s kitchen gardens and poultry house. Instead of the standard shed with an attached wire pen, the Eversby Priory chickens lived in a poultry palace. The central brick-and-painted-wood structure was topped with a slate roof and openwork parapets, and fronted by a colonnade of white pillars. Two wings curved outward from the main building, encompassing a paved court and a small pond for the birds’ use.

Garrett walked around to the back of the building, where the wire exercise pens had been planted with fruit-bearing trees. At one of the corner posts, an elderly gardener was standing and talking, while a younger man sat on his haunches to mend a fencing panel.