Page 97 of A Duchess for his Family

“Read it in a book.” There was unmistakable satisfaction in the gardener’s voice. “Sensible, this lady. Leaves a man room to test the thing before pride gets in the way. Narrow shafts, not enough to disturb the whole bed. Filled them with gravel and cinders, then worked leaf mold into the surface.”

He bent and touched one of the small plants with a care that transformed his weathered hand.

“Delphiniums at the rear. White stocks before them. Pinks along the edge. All holding.”

Benedict stared at the new growth. Sophia had been mistress of Rivermere for scarcely more than a month. Yet she had entered a garden tended by a man with decades of knowledge, listened to him, noticed what others had overlooked, and offered an answer without presumption. More astonishingly, Mr. Wilkes had accepted it. Mr. Wilkes did not accept advice. He tolerated weather because arguing with it had proved ineffective.

“She was uncertain,” the gardener added gruffly. “Kept saying she might be mistaken.”

“But she was not.”

“No.”

A strange warmth spread through Benedict’s chest. He thought of Sophia reading beneath the nursery candlelight, of her quiet attention whenever Amelia spoke, of the fierceness with which she defended Marjorie’s right to adventure. She noticed hidden things: fear beneath severity, sadness beneath silence, clay beneath apparently good soil. Then she found a way through them.

“Uncle Benedict!” Marjorie’s voice carried across the garden. “We have found the treasure!”

“Not the treasure,” Amelia corrected from somewhere behind the hedge. “Only a clue.”

Mr. Wilkes’s gaze fell to the golden spade still in Benedict’s hand. His eyebrows rose. Benedict looked down at it.

“The treasure hunt requires equipment.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Mr. Wilkes’ expression remained perfectly respectful. It was considerably worse than laughter.

Sophia appeared at the end of the path. Sunlight touched her brown hair, and her face brightened when she saw him.

“There you are. We thought we lost you.”

Benedict glanced once more at the green shoots.

“No,” he replied quietly. “I merely discovered something.”

Sophia followed his gaze toward the flower bed. Understanding softened her expression.

Before he could speak, Marjorie emerged from behind the hedge. “You are meant to be hunting treasure, not flowers.”

Benedict looked at Sophia. For one bewildering moment, he could not help thinking he might have found something far more valuable than Marjorie had hidden.

He tightened his hand around the ridiculous golden spade.

“Lead on,” he said.

Sophia found the final clue beneath a stone urn in the quietest corner of the garden. At least, she believed it was the final clue.

Marjorie’s map had already led them through the rose walk, behind the summerhouse, and into a patch of shrubbery where Benedict discovered that dignity offered very little protection against cobwebs. Amelia and Marjorie had now gone ahead to investigate the sundial, leaving Sophia and Benedict to search the narrow lawn beside the old garden wall.

The place felt hidden from the rest of Rivermere. Ivy climbed the warm red brick, and long grass softened the edges of the path. The air smelled of leaves, sun-warmed stone, and the faint sweetness of honeysuckle.

Sophia crouched beside the urn. “I see something.”

Benedict stood behind her, still carrying Marjorie’s painted golden spade.

“Is it treasure?” he asked.

“A folded piece of paper,” she replied.

“Then it is almost certainly another instruction directing us elsewhere.”