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"Vast!" He turned them onto a narrower path between two raised beds. "The plains stretch beyond the horizon. You can walk for days, and the landscape does not repeat itself. Wildebeest travel in herds so large the ground trembles, and baobab trees grow wider than houses. I spent a month charting the river systems and barely scratched the surface."

"Did you encounter communities there as well?"

"Several. The hospitality was overwhelming. A family shared their evening meal with me on my first night, and when I tried to offer payment, the matriarch laughed and told me food was not something one purchased from a guest."

"Adelaide would like that sentiment," she said with a quiet smile.

"I suspect she would."

They reached the far section of the conservatory, where the air turned cooler. Here the beds held hardy northern flora: low-growing plants with thick, waxy leaves, suited to cold coastlines and short growing seasons. A cluster of small, pale flowers grew along the edge of the nearest bed, their petals almost translucent in the filtered light.

Julian stopped. Without a word, he drew a small folding knife from his waistcoat and cut a single bloom from its stem. The flower was delicate, its petals white-edged with the faintest blue, no larger than a shilling.

He turned to Adelaide and held it out.

"For you, my duchess."

A soft flush crept across her cheeks. She took the flower from him, her fingers brushing his as she accepted it. Raising the bloom to examine it, she turned it slowly, studying the fine veining in the petals with the same focused attention she brought to every specimen she cataloged.

"It is lovely," she murmured. "What is it?"

The words died in his throat.

Thomas's voice, clear, bright, and alive, echoed in his mind. The memory hit Julian with the force of a door thrown open in a storm. Thomas crouched beside a rocky outcrop on that cold Nordic hillside, his specimen net forgotten in his hands, his face split wide with a grin. He held up a cluster of seeds in his cupped palm, laughing with the unguarded delight of a schoolboy who had found treasure:

'Julian, look at these. We must bring them home. Adelaide will have never seen anything like this.'

Thomas had been twenty-three—two years from his death. His enthusiasm had been so ordinary, so utterly lacking in self-consciousness, that Julian had not even looked up from his sketchbook when he agreed.

Julian turned his face away. He stared into the dense greenery along the conservatory wall, gripping the edge of the stone bed until the rough surface pressed into his palm. The warmth of the glasshouse suddenly felt stifling.

"Julian?" Adelaide's voice reached him from close by. "Are you all right?"

He did not trust himself to speak. Keeping his gaze fixed on a climbing vine three feet ahead, he watched a single bead of condensation run down a broad green leaf and fall to the stone below.

"Julian?"

"The bloom is a Silene acaulis," he said, his voice coming out flat. "Nordic origin. It grows above the tree line in Scandinavia."

"You have gone rather pale."

"The heat in here can be oppressive. I am quite well." He released the stone edge and straightened his posture. "Shall we return to the house? Dinner will be served shortly, and I promised Mrs. Rutherford we would not be late."

Adelaide studied him for a moment. He felt her searching gaze on the side of his face before she looked down at the small flower in her hand.

"I shall press this tonight," she said quietly. "It deserves a proper page."

They walked back along the stone path together. Adelaide carried the Nordic bloom with the same careful tenderness she had shown for every specimen in his collection. Julian walked beside her, his jaw set and his eyes fixed ahead, carrying a dead man's laugh in his chest where it would not stop echoing.

"Shall we?"

Julian rose from the dining table and extended his hand. Adelaide looked up from her dessert plate, where a single slice of almond tart remained untouched, and set her napkin aside. She placed her fingers in his without a word.

He led her through the hallway to the library, where the hearth had been built up high. The fire cast a warm orange glow across the room, catching the gilt spines of books and the scattered edges of field notes spread across a low table by the chimney breast. Plush cushions had been arranged on the carpet beside it, and two open journals lay face-down among the loose pages.

"I see Mrs. Rutherford has been busy," Adelaide observed, lowering herself onto the cushion nearest the fire. Her skirts pooled around her as she settled cross-legged, looking entirely at home among books and botanical papers.

"Mrs. Rutherford holds firm opinions about how the library ought to be used."