How was a woman supposed to fight against that?
“Olive!” A group of her friends spilled out of the castle door.
The le Ducs talked over themselves to fill her in on everything that had happened since she’d last seen them four short days ago, and to beg her to join them on the activities they had planned for the next week.
“I wish I could,” she laughed, careful to cover her mouth with her hand. “Papa needs me at home. I’ll have two new horses to train. It will be chaos.”
“Don’t believe her,” Sébastien said to Elijah. “The last time I raced against one of her ‘untrained’ horses, I could barely see the track through all of the dust she left behind.”
“I promise to avoid races,” Elijah murmured.
As the group continued on their way down the street, Mr. Thompson, the castle solicitor, waved from just inside the archway. “Miss Harper! Have you a moment to discuss the hacks?”
Olive slid a glance toward Elijah. She’d rather not deal with business in front of him.
“I can call in this afternoon around four,” she offered.
“Splendid.” The solicitor beamed at her. “Happy Christmas!”
Olive started to give him her usual close-lipped smile, then remembered she’d smiled at Elijah and the world hadn’t ceased turning.
She hadn’t been brave enough to smile at a big group of friends all at once, but Mr. Thompson was one person. Just like racing horses: the only way to win was to try.
“Happy Christmas.” She gave a tentative, full-toothed smile.
“And to you, too, sir,” Mr. Thompson said to Elijah, without seeming to notice Olive’s teeth at all.
With that, he disappeared into the castle.
“Er,” said Elijah. “Should we follow him?”
Olive’s smile widened. The castle hadn’t crumbled down about her. Perhaps shehadgrown into her features.
Or perhaps, to the right people, they didn’t matter.
“We’re not going in,” she informed Elijah. “We’re going around. Follow me.”
This was an even bolder risk than smiling at the solicitor. She was leading Elijah not to the ice-skating pond or the crowded amphitheatre, but to the enormous glasshouse at the rear of the castle.
“Aconservatory?” He stopped inside the doorway, his expression as delighted as a child on Christmas morning. “This is spectacular!”
Of course it was.
Olive hadn’t feared Elijah wouldn’t like it.
She’d been certain hewould. And by showing it to him, she was giving her lifelong enemy a reason to spend more time in Cressmouth.
A decision she would live to regret if their fledgling friendship ended in disaster.
“Are thosestrelitzia reginae?” He dashed over to inspect a plant shaped like a tropical bird.
Olive had meant to introduce Elijah to the glasshouse and leave him there, but his exuberance was contagious. She let him drag her from pretty pink plant to funny orange plant, showing off ahydra-something here, and ahorte-something there.
If she’d been impressed by his grasp of equine musculature, she was bowled over by the depth of his knowledge about... apparently every leaf and stem in the entire conservatory.
He intercepted a passing footman. “Why are thepolypodiopsidanearest the windows, and thecactaceaefurthest from the sun?”
“I’m a footman,” said the footman. “I just shower them with water once a day.”
