The Last Garden in England(58)

“Very slick.”

“I’d like to see you try,” she called down.

“You’re doing great, boss,” Charlie called up. She rolled her eyes.

She battled her way up into the overhanging tangle of branches, cutting as she went. If he stood on tiptoe, Charlie could just barely hand her the tools she needed, with the exception of the machete, which she kept strapped to her right hip Indiana Jones–style.

Finally, she reached the lip of the wall, Charlie carefully passed the other ladder up to her. She dropped it down as best she could, trying to stay away from the foliage. Twice as she climbed down a branch stabbed her, and she managed to put her hand straight around a rose. If she hadn’t been wearing work boots and gloves, she would have been in a world of pain.

When finally her foot touched the ground, she looked up through the foliage and found she could only see slivers of sky through the overlapping leaves.

“How are you doing?” Charlie called, his voice coming through the thicket.

“Are you at the gate?” she shouted back.

“I just ran around. How does it look?”

She gazed around her, the scent of damp, rotting undergrowth perfume-like. “Like we’re going to need a pulley system to get whatever we cut over the wall.”

“Breaking the lock is still an option,” he said.

She peered around. “No, it’s not. I can’t explain it, but it just feels wrong.”

“Fair enough. See if you can cut a spot big enough for the both of us down there, and I’ll do what I can to bring the tools over,” he called.

She drew her machete, grasped a branch, and gave it a good whack. A half hour later, Charlie gingerly stepped from the top of one ladder to the other.

“I hate heights,” he muttered.

“I know, I know.”

He passed down a lopper and stepped down to join her with a sigh of relief. “So this is the winter garden.”

“Or Celeste’s garden.”

“Still wondering who Celeste is?” he asked.

“Everything gardeners do is intentional. We create order out of nature. If she called this Celeste’s garden, there was a reason,” she said.

“Wasn’t it written in someone else’s handwriting?” he asked.

“Yes, but Celeste must mean something for someone to add it to the drawings.”

“You could reach out to Professor Waylan,” Charlie suggested, naming an academic who had helped her in the past with some of her trickier research questions.

Emma’s forehead furrowed. “I think he’s still on his annual sabbatical north.”

Something of an eccentric, the professor cut off all communication when on sabbatical except for once a month when he picked up letters on a supply run into the nearest village.

“He won’t mind a letter from you. Everyone else, maybe, but not you,” said Charlie.

She nodded. “I’ll send him a letter and ask if he knows of a Celeste connection.”

Charlie looked around again, hands on his hips. “This is quite the jungle.”

“A fun challenge,” she said with a raised brow.

“We have different definitions of fun, you and I. For instance, ask me what I’m doing this weekend,” he said, pushing down a branch to make a cut.

“Let me guess. You’re taking the boat down one of the canals and then going to the pub.”

He shot her a look. “Okay, fine. What are you doing?”

“Hand me the loppers.” When he did, she chopped away a branch that had been jabbing her in the back. “There we go.”

“Emma, what are you doing this weekend?” he asked again.

“I was thinking about going to a garden center.”

He laughed. “This isn’t enough for you?”

“Actually, I was thinking about getting some pots. For Bow Cottage.”

He stopped. “You’ll just have to take it with you when you leave,” he said.

She smiled. “Then it’s a good thing that you own a pickup truck, isn’t it?”





? VENETIA ?


FRIDAY, 17 MAY 1907

Highbury House

Warm with clear skies

So much has happened today—tonight. I’m shaking with excitement like a girl.

I’ve never had a great sense for fashion. I have dresses for dinners in the evening. However, a ball gown is quite another thing. That is why, when I tugged a little at the lace sleeves of my best evening dress earlier this evening, a touch of worry flared up. I’d been to countless dinners, but this was not just dinner. There would be dancing afterward, the ballroom filled with women dressed in their very best.

I might have given an excuse and begged off Mrs. Melcourt’s dance had it not been for the promise of seeing Matthew. In the three weeks since he kissed me, we have seen each other only briefly and never alone. He takes tea with his sister every first Thursday of the month and he makes a point to walk the developing garden with her. Twice I thought I’d caught him watching me as I worked on the long border and he smoked cigars with Mr. Melcourt on the veranda, but I couldn’t be sure.

I wanted to not worry about Matthew and what he might think of me after our interlude, but I did care. Each kiss in my life had been a calculated risk, yet I was glad for the risk I’d taken with him. I could only hope he was as well.