“She’s made him move something. I heard her complaining about the bees. There!” she cried triumphantly as they reached a bed entirely stripped of the bergamot it had once contained. “He hasn’t replanted yet.”
“Of course not, in this heat. If you knew anything about gardening, Miss Desmond—”
“I don’t need to know anything.” She turned shining eyes upon him. “Because she knows nothing of ancient Greek horticulture. We’ll tell her it’s an experiment.”
She dragged Jack off to the potting shed, where, after a brief discussion with the distracted gardener, they possessed themselves of a few tools and several healthy seedlings.
After a brief argument, Jack dug the hole. Miss Desmond placed the book in its grave, waited until he had thrown some dirt upon it, then began stuffing plants into the loose soil. Jack knelt beside her.
“They’ll die,” he said, eying the seedlings. Some were packed into dirt so deeply that only the very tops showed. “It’s too hot and I’m sure you’ve done it wrong.”
“Then we’ll blame it on the Greeks.” Miss Desmond thrust a stray lock of hair back from her face.
It was very hot, indeed. The air was as thick as new-churned butter. Mr. Langdon had removed his coat, but his waistcoat was plastered to his shirt, which was stuck to his skin. He noted that Miss Desmond had rubbed a dirty smudge onto her right cheekbone. He was about to offer his handkerchief when he saw a bead of perspiration trickle down from her temples past the smudge, along her slender white neck, past her collarbone and on down until it disappeared at the edge of her bodice. The air must have grown heavier still, because Mr. Langdon suddenly found it quite impossible to breathe.
Miss Desmond looked towards him then. Her eyes widened slightly and her cheeks began to glow faintly pink. She scrambled up very quickly. Too quickly, apparently, in the heat, because he saw her hand go to her head as she began to sway.
Jack rose hastily. “Miss Desmond, are you ill?” he asked, putting out his hand to assist her.
“No,” she said, backing away. “Just dizzy for a moment. I—”
She did not complete the thought because she tripped on the trowel and lost her balance.
Fortunately, she stumbled forwards instead of backwards, and Jack was able to catch her before she fell. Unfortunately, once he’d caught her, he was presented with an interesting example of the mind-body dichotomy. His mind told him to let go of her. His hands clasped her upper arms more firmly. Then his gaze locked with hers and, drawn like the tides to the moon, his head bent slowly until his lips met soft ones, tasting slightly of salt, and while his brain watched, horrified and helpless, he kissed her.
Mr. Atkins had no business in the garden. Though Desmond had put him off in his usual urbanely evasive way, Lady Potterby had made plain her disapproval of the publisher’s unexpected visit. Naturally she would not approve. He carried with him that distasteful aroma of the City which only aristocrats could discern. No doubt she thought him a mushroom, presuming upon a chance acquaintance with the Desmonds in order to encroach his way into noble households.
Mr. Atkins could not afford to be thin-skinned, however. He had delayed his departure well beyond the limits of her ladyship’s patience because he must leave empty-handed, which meant he would be ruined, and he was as reluctant to face ruin as any more sensitive fellow.
He had stolen into the garden because he was grasping at straws. Why had Mr. Langdon clutched that curious volume to his breast as though it were his firstborn? Why had Miss Desmond been so eager to hustle the young man out of the house?
Hoping desperately that the answers to these questions would somehow lead him to the manuscripts, Mr. Atkins trespassed quietly past the herb garden and on towards the perennial beds. There he found the puzzle solved and his hopes dashed. In short, he caught sight of the pair at the precise moment in which Mr. Langdon was confronting the mind-body dichotomy.
Mr. Atkins’s head began to throb as he turned and headed back to his gig—and, he was certain, bankruptcy.
Miss Desmond was not altogether shocked at first. She had seen the same hot light before in other men’s eyes. Though she was surprised to see it in Mr. Langdon’s, she’d sensed what was coming and instinctively backed away. The trouble was, this sober young man had an uncanny knack for leading her to step wrong—today quite literally.
Once she found herself in his arms, she’d decided she might as well let him steal his kiss—only because she was curious—and thereafter reward him with severe bodily injury. These admirable intentions had been delayed of execution because the first tentative touch had softened her stony heart. He was too shy to really kiss her, poor man. In a moment he would