The Last Garden in England(112)

“It must have been more complicated than that. I think she and Matthew had an affair and her reputation was on the line.”

“And so Matthew marries her and takes on a different name so no one could trace the affair back to her work at Highbury House,” he said.

“And look at this,” she said, excited as she flicked through the pictures on her phone to the image of Professor Waylan’s letter she’d texted to Charlie. “A professor who helps me sometimes found this letter from Spencer Smith to Venetia in 1912. ‘Sometimes when you are away I think back to the celestial connection that forever binds me to you. The joy that slipped through our fingers led us to where we are now. I hope you do not hate me for having no regrets, because now I have you.’ Someone wrote on the final garden plans ‘Celeste’s garden’ under the name for this space. What if the celestial connection is this garden?”

A little smile tipped his mouth. “I love how excited you are by this.”

She grinned. “I like the idea that maybe I know a secret about Venetia Smith that no one else in the world knows. Except you.”

Henry picked up his spade and began pushing dirt to level off the bottom of the hole they’d pulled the box out of. “You know,” he said as he worked, “I never did get an answer to my question.”

She crossed her arms as she watched him. “What was that?”

“When are we getting drinks?”

“Are you asking me out to be neighborly or because you want to ask me out?”

He huffed a laugh. “If you have to ask, I’m not doing a very good job of sending signals.”

Emma crossed the short patch of ground between them, and kissed him. She could feel his surprise as his lips opened, but then he cradled the back of her neck, deepening the kiss. She traced her hands up his arms, gripping his hair and pulling him closer to her, finally letting herself do what she’d wanted to since he’d taken her groceries from her at the pub and pulled her into his world.

When finally she pulled away, he kept her anchored to him, his hands on her hips.

“Let’s skip drinks and go straight to dinner,” he breathed.

She laughed, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I thought you’d never ask.”





? DIANA ?


DECEMBER 1944

Diana watched Bobby pick up the red toy lorry with its chipped paint and place it in the tin box. It had been three weeks since Bobby’s aunt had left Highbury House carrying a battered suitcase and her handbag. While quiet, Bobby was a sweet little boy. With time, he would once again grow into the vibrant child who’d played with her son.

Sometimes Diana fretted that she had used her money and her position to force Miss Adderton’s hand, just as she’d forced Cynthia out. But then why did Miss Adderton shake her hand before walking down Highbury’s drive? And why had the only letter that had arrived from London been addressed to her, not to Bobby? Miss Adderton wrote that she had enrolled in a secretarial college full of other women deemed unable to serve for whatever reason. She’d taken on hours with a volunteer ambulance unit in Willesden, where she’d found a flat. She was already making friends.

There was not one message for Bobby in the entire letter.

No. Diana may have made many mistakes in her life, but adopting Bobby was not one of them.

“Are you certain you don’t want to keep it, Robert?” she asked, nodding to the toy.

He shrugged in a way that she was learning meant he was embarrassed. “It was Robin’s favorite.”

Tears stung at the bridge of her nose. “Then you’re right. It should go into the box.”

Silently she packed the rest of the items on the table into the box. A red jumper she’d knitted for Robin two Christmases ago. A couple of his baby photos she had duplicates of. A set of tin army men who’d fought brave battles over the grass of the children’s garden. The spare key to the winter garden.

Her hand hesitated over a sealed envelope that lay to her right. Perhaps it was unwise for her to hide away the adoption papers, but she didn’t want them in the house where Bobby might come across them. He was her child now.

Carefully she placed the envelope inside the box, closed the lid, and latched it shut.

“Come along now. It’s time to bury our treasure,” she said, offering her hand to Bobby.

The two of them made their way out of her new office. In the hallway, a nurse and a soldier who had been flirting parted at the sight of her, making her smile. When she’d assumed the title of commandant, she’d ceased to be an object of curiosity who’d thrown a party and a wedding and had become an authority figure to be tiptoed around—with respect. With Matron’s guidance, she would show them that she could be trusted.

As they walked, soldiers making their way up and down the hall stopped to say hello to Bobby. He hugged close to Diana’s side but said a polite “Hello” to every one of them. When Father Devlin called to her from where he was sitting with a patient in Ward B, they stopped.

“Off to defeat the Nazis?” the chaplain asked.

“That was yesterday,” said Bobby.

After luncheon, Diana had taken him to the ramble for hide-and-seek. She hadn’t cared about the stained elbows of his shirts. Bobby had laughed. She’d laughed. It had felt like catharsis.