Page 107 of A Convenient Fiction

“And those trees?”

“Bitter orange. We use the blossoms for perfume, and the fruit and the branches, too.”

“What about those fields?” He directed her attention to a patch of land in the distance. There, the fields appeared empty. Nothing but clean, even soil raked into rows.

“Tuberose,” Monsieur Marchand said. “The bulbs are planted in the spring, and harvested in the summer. You can still smell the fragrance. Un doux parfum exotique.”

They walked out among the lavender bushes. Laura touched them with her hand, just as she’d used to do as a girl.

“There’s so many of them,” Alex said.

“There has to be. It takes a half ton of flowers to make six pints of lavender oil.”

“That much?”

“It’s worse with the roses. I prefer the lavender. It’s much easier, and the lavender water has always done well for us.”

He gave her one of his inscrutable looks. “Perhaps it will again.”

By the time they returned to their hotel room, it was early afternoon. Laura withdrew to the washroom to freshen up. It occurred to her that her new gown hadn’t been the best choice for venturing out into the flower fields. Her hem was dirty, and she’d snagged the silk sash at her waist on the thorny branches of a rose bush.

She washed her face and hands, and tidied her hair, before rejoining Alex. He was sitting in a chair near the window perusing some of the documents Monsieur Marchand had given them. When he saw her, he stood.

“Everything appears to be accounted for so far,” he said.

“That’s something.” She sat down in the chair across from him. “Did you mean what you said about reopening the distillery?”

He resumed his seat. “Do you object?”

“No. Not at all. I was merely surprised. I’d wondered if you mightn’t prefer to sell the place. Getting it running again will be costly.”

His eyes met hers over the top of one of the papers he was reading. “If we sell it, you’ll have no property left. Bramble Cottage is let, I take it?”

“From Squire Talbot.”

“Would you be content to have nothing?”

She might have asked him the same. Indeed, she was quite tempted to do so. But she didn’t ask. She feared she already knew the answer.

A gentleman of three and thirty didn’t spend decades of his life in pursuit of money only to give up that pursuit after a month of courtship and marriage. It was what had brought him to Lower Hawley—and what had brought him to Grasse.

“It’s disappointing enough to discover Weatherwax has sold the other properties,” he said. “We’d be foolish to dispose of the single one remaining.”

She smoothed her skirts, watching him from beneath her lashes as he returned to reading the documents. He was clad in tan trousers, with a matching waistcoat worn over a linen shirt. His cravat was loosened, his coat disposed of over the back of the nearby settee. He looked very much like he had on the beach at Margate. Roguish. Devil may care.

The only difference was now she knew him.

She knew the strength of him. The feel of his body as it covered hers. The silky thickness of his hair. The way he looked at her. The way he kissed her.

And yet, there was still so much about him that was unknowable. A secret, vulnerable part of him that made her vulnerable in turn.

“Were you very disappointed?” she asked.

Alex glanced up again. “I was. On your behalf.”

Laura supposed that was something. She held out her hand. “May I read through them?”

“Of course.” He handed half the stack of documents to her.