Page 8 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

“But if this is a bad time…” She took a step back, and he finally seemed to come out of whatever trance he’d been under.

“No, no, not at all. I was just expecting someone older.”

His voice was as attractive as the rest of him, low and deep with a resonance that seemed to settle low in her stomach. Unfortunately, his words were considerably more disappointing.

“I assure you I am more than qualified.” This time she didn’t have to put any effort into keeping her voice cool.

“I don’t doubt that for a minute.” He flashed her an all-too-charming grin. “My apologies. I seem to have gotten off to a very poor start. Please, call me Garrick.”

She wanted to refuse. She really did, suddenly suspecting that keeping some formality between them would be extremely helpful to her peace of mind. But refusing would be impolite, and politeness was another trait that had been trained into her. She compromised on a half nod, and returned to the reason she was there.

“What can you tell me about the grounds?”

“Why don’t I show you?” He gestured at the surrounding landscape as he stepped out of the house.

She turned to follow the gesture, and for the briefest half second, he put a guiding hand on her back. A huge, warm hand that she was definitely not going to think about and didn’t immediately miss when it was gone.

“As you can see,” he said with barely a pause, although something in his voice had changed, “it was originally divided into a series of garden rooms. Somewhat more formal near the house and growing wilder towards the edges of the property.”

“If you want formal⁠—”

He disagreed immediately. “No, it was never formal. Just more organized. My mother designed the gardens to be lived in.”

“Your mother?”

“She loved them,” he said quietly. “That’s mainly how I remember her. Out here on her knees planting things, or cutting roses for the house, or full of excitement for a new plant she wanted to try.”

“Is she still around?” she asked, then winced at the awkward question.

He shook his head. “No. She’s been gone for twenty years now, and after she died, my father just…” He waved a hand at the overgrown sprawl surrounding them. “He stopped caring.”

His face was expressionless, but something in his voice made her wonder if the gardens weren’t the only thing his father had stopped caring about. She cleared her throat and directed her attention back to the purpose of her visit.

“I can see it looks like a lot of the underlying structure is still here.”

“It has good bones.”

“Then let’s see what else we’ve got.”

They spent the next half hour touring the grounds, her excitement growing with every discovery. A few places had been taken over by invading weeds—actual weeds and not the decorative kind—and a few plants absolutely had to come out. There were considerably more that needed a severe pruning, but beneath all that were the remains of a truly magnificent garden.

The first thing she found was a wall that wasn’t one. What had looked from the terrace like a long green bank turned out to be a boxwood hedge that hadn’t been clipped in twenty years. She pushed her arm in to the elbow, and her hand emerged into open air on the other side.

“It’s hollow.”

She worked her shoulder in, and then shoved. The box gave way with a dry crackle and its distinctive cat pee odor. Inside it was a long green corridor bigger than her kitchen, floored with twenty years of dead leaves over old brick, the branches arching up and meeting overhead.

“They go hollow when they’re old,” she called. “Nobody believes me. Come and see.”

A shadow filled the gap she’d made. Garrick had crouched down and got his head through, and nothing else was going to fit without taking out half the hedge.

“I remember when this was a walkway,” he said, and something in his voice made her look down at the brick instead of his face. The brick paving ran straight through the boxwoods and out the far side. The box must have been an arch over the path back then.

“I can restore it,” she said. “Not this year. I’d take a foot off the top and a foot off each side and it would look like a crime for two summers. But you’d get the arch back.”

He gave a quick decisive nod. “Then put it back.”

She didn’t tell him that she hadn’t taken the job yet.