Page 59 of A Duchess for his Family

“You embraced it.”

“It was falling.”

“It began falling after you embraced it.”

Mr. Wilkes spoke without looking up from the border he was tending, his voice carrying the weary disapproval of a man unfairly burdened with the world’s foolishness. He knelt on one knee on a worn leather pad, loosening the soil around a row of young plants with a narrow hand fork.

Sophia noticed, however, that he had already moved his basket from the path so Marjorie would not trip over it. A pair of small gardening gloves rested upon the low stone wall, one pair for each girl, and beside them lay a little bunch of sweet peas tied with string.

A man who disliked visitors, Sophia thought, did not generally prepare flowers for them.

Mr. Wilkes was slight and stooped, with silver hair beneath an old felt hat and hands permanently marked by soil. His coat had once been brown, but years of sun, rain, and honest labor had faded it to a color known only to gardeners. When Amelia approached him, his stern expression softened for half a moment before he evidently remembered he was displeased with the whole of creation.

“Good morning, Mr. Wilkes,” Amelia said.

“Morning, Miss Amelia. You are late.”

“It is only ten minutes past nine.”

“Flowers do not keep drawing-room hours.”

Mr. Wilkes rose slowly to his feet. Sophia waited while he brushed the earth from his knees. The garden spread around them in orderly abundance, bordered on one side by warm red brick and on the other by clipped yew. Roses climbed the walls in heavy clusters of cream, pink, and deepest crimson. Foxgloves stood in purple and white towers among clouds of lady’s mantle, while bees moved lazily between lavender, thyme, and catmint.

For the first time since arriving at Rivermere as its duchess, Sophia felt she had entered a part of the estate that did not expect anything of her. Flowers did not curtsy. They did not call her Your Grace and wait for an answer of consequence. They simply grew, or refused to, as the case might be.

“Mr. Wilkes,” Amelia said, with quiet ceremony, “this is the Duchess of Rivermere.”

Sophia resisted the impulse to glance behind her. The gardener removed his hat. “Your Grace.”

Sophia smiled uncertainly. “Good morning.”

Mr. Wilkes replaced his hat and regarded her with an expression suggesting that duchesses, while not necessarily troublesome, ought to prove themselves before being permitted near the roses.

“This is the old rose garden,” Amelia told Sophia. “Mr. Wilkes planted most of it.”

“The flowers planted themselves,” he corrected. “I merely prevent people from treading upon them.” He looked pointedly at Marjorie.

“I have not trodden upon anything today.”

“The day is young.”

Marjorie gave Sophia a long-suffering look. “He always expects the worst of me.”

“I expect experience to repeat itself.”

Sophia hid a smile and moved closer to the first bed. The roses there were not the perfectly shaped, fashionable blooms she had often seen arranged in drawing rooms. Their petals opened more loosely, some cupped, others almost flat, their beauty irregular and generous.

She leaned toward one of the darker bushes.

“Is this Rosa gallica?”

Mr. Wilkes turned to her. “It is.”

“The darker variety?”

“Officinalis. The apothecary’s rose.” The answer came more slowly than before, as though he expected a polite compliment and instead received a password.

Sophia bent nearer to the deep crimson bloom. Its fragrance was rich and almost spicy beneath the sweetness, very different from the paler climbing roses trained against the wall.