The room bloomed with warmth with the grin that he gave her, his cheeks rising to his eyes with the lift of his mouth, youthful and vibrant.
Much better.
“Good morning, Miss Cooper.” Yawning, he sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, with a cushion of space between them, and gestured to her book. “May I?”
She handed it to him, feeling his rough callouses brush against the smooth skin of her thumb, a ghost of a touch and then gone.
“What is so distressing about… Tanacetum parthenium?” He pronounced the Latin flawlessly. He glanced at the diagram before handing the book back to her. “Do you not like daisies?”
“No. I do.” Cassandra opened the book wide on her lap. “This is a wild variant, the common name is feverfew. It’s actually quite useful.” Her fingertip touched the page, and his eyes followed the movement. “As it sounds, it aids in fever when administered in a tea, though it would be better to steep it in an alcohol solution for even higher potency. Yarrow does the same thing, as does willow-bark, we used it to—” she stopped as he leaned his head on the window and yawned again. “I’m sorry. I must be boring you.”
“Not at all. I’m learning.” He brought his knees up to his chest and lounged against them, offering her a sleepy smile. Therehadto be something there. She couldn’t have been imagining it, not when his voice changed, low and sensuous. “Read to me.”
Her heart thumped rhythmically in her chest, so loud that he must have been able to hear it. She blushed. “You’ll fall asleep for sure.”
“Hm. There’s a thought.” He closed his eyes and sighed, his brow relaxed. “Tell me about yarrow.”
Cassandra flipped the page and began reading aloud, and as she spoke, his breathing deepened. His body relaxed against the window for a long while, to where she was sure he had fallen asleep. His hair draped over his eyes and she longed to reach forward and push it away, to get a good look at him, but with a puff of air, he blew it away from his face and his half-lidded eyes seemed to caress her own.
“You spend a lot of time in the garden.” He turned his head to gaze out the window, as if he could see through the fog. “Does it make you happy? Or is it something that youshoulddo?”
A wistful tug of nostalgia caught in the base of her throat, and she could feel another brick crumbling between them, giving space for honesty. When she spoke, she whispered.
“When I was six years old, Mama grew a tomato plant from seed in a glass jar.” She fidgeted with the edge of her shawl, anchoring herself. “She placed it in the window, and we all took turns watering it.” Cassandra smiled at the memory. “A speck in the soil that I couldn’t even see grew roots, and within a week it was too big for its jar. When we planted it in the ground, she taught me how to nurture it, and when I shared that first tomato with her—” She closed her eyes. It was too early to be maudlin. “There isn’t a great surplus of entertainment as far out in the country as we Coopers are. I may as well do something useful. And to answer your question, yes, Ilikegardening. I would like to pursue it further, there is so much that I don’t know.”
“Aspiring botanist.” His lips quirked. “Is it acceptable for a lady to crawl around on the ground and get dirt under her fingernails?”
“Soil,” Cassandra corrected. “What I should do is study flower arrangements. Did you know that each plant has its own meaning? If I were to send you a bouquet with feverfew in them, I would be wishing you good health. You can’t mix justanyflowers together. You could end up insulting someone.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He hid his smile behind his knees. “Aspiring botanist, floral linguist. What other interests do you have?”
She looked away from him and out the window, but she couldn’t see anything.
“You’re mocking me.” Closing her eyes, she struggled with the sting of embarrassment until she felt a tug on her shawl. Mr. Reeves waited until her eyes met his, and he spoke his next words like a vow.
“I would never.”
Cassandra clutched her hands in her skirt and looked away, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze.
“I’ll leave, if you like.” Shuffling, he reached into his pocket. “But before I go, I want to return something of yours.”
He brought forth a piece of parchment folded into a small square. In a sleight of hand, he moved it from his palm to his fingertips. His hand danced lazily in the air as he flipped it between his knuckles, from his thumb to his small finger and back, like a magician with a coin.
A red spot of wax took up the center of the square on one side.
“Yousealedit?”
“I wasn’t going to risk you calling foul.”
She made a grab for her diary page. Her shawl fell to the sofa behind her, but he pulled the page away, flicking it back into his palm and away from view.
“Do you have it on you all the time?!”
“Yes,” he said simply, as if she had asked him if he were wearingshoes.
“Why?”
“In case I see you.”
