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Patience rose to her feet, brushing the dirt from her skirts. “Ah, Lady Chastity, welcome back. He did, can you imagine? Are you moving back in?”
“Yes, if that is agreeable? Did I give you and Dorian enough time to get acquainted after the wedding?”
“Of course!” said Patience, a little breathless. “I didn’t mean to force you out of your own home. You were always welcome to stay.”
“It’s tradition, I think,” said Chastity, a little shyly.
Her gaze dropped to the tiny leaves on the roses, such a striking contrast with the rest of the dark and overgrown garden.
“Dorian hasn’t let anyone touch the garden since he became duke twelve years ago,” said Chastity with a slight wrinkle between her brows. “How did you manage to convince him?”
Patience chuckled. “He is a kind man deep down.”
Chastity studied her with a puzzled look in her intelligent eyes. Patience decided not to elaborate on what it actually took to have Dorian agree to this…her bare buttocks, his hand, and oh dear God…
“Are you interested in roses?” Chastity asked.
“I am, indeed. It’s been my project the past six years. I’ve been trying to create a new variety of roses that would be both beautiful and resistant to disease. I brought these with me from home.”
Chastity’s eyebrows rose. “Are you a botanist?”
“I suppose I am,” said Patience with a shy smile.
“How marvelous! Never did I expect to have a new sister who’s a fellow scientist. Tell me more.” Chastity’s eyes burned with enthusiasm, and a genuine smile lit up her face. It was the first time Patience had seen her smile.
Patience’s own spirits soared. With her husband being such an enigma, she ached to have a true friend, like Anne. Chastity was her new sister. Like Dorian, she seemed aloof, cold, and distant, but maybe she had a good heart, too.
“Well,” Patience began, excitement filling her with lightness, “I started by selecting two rose varieties—the gallica rose, known for its hardiness and disease resistance, and the damask rose, prized for its beautiful, fragrant blooms. I decided to artificially fertilize them.”
Chastity clasped her hands. “Artificially fertilize them? How did you come up with that idea?”
Patience smiled, pleased to discuss her innovative technique. “I was inspired by a book my brother brought from Oxford. He brought several, to refresh our limited library, and there was one talking about the reproduction process of plants. From it, I wondered what would happen if I combined two varieties of roses by pollinating them before they pollinated themselves. I wondered if, like animals, the resulting plants might have the combined traits of both parents. A theory, of course, but I wanted to experiment and see what happened.”
“Intriguing,” Chastity murmured, her eyes alight. “All we know is that plants reproduce by pollination and that bees and other insects contribute to it. I suppose a person could do that themselves, though the results would be unknown. This is certainly a novel approach!”
“Yes, it is possible, but it took me several experiments to get it right. I found out it needed to be cold like in winter for them to germinate and grow. Not all of them took, but these did.” She proudly gestured at her roses. “Bloomed two years ago for the first time.”
“Remarkable,” Chastity mused. “And have you been noting the performance of these hybrids?”
“Indeed I have,” Patience said, her face glowing with pride. “I’ve been monitoring them since the very beginning. The results have been outstanding. They showed greater disease resistance than their parents, and the flowers are simply stunning.”
Chastity leaned in, studying the meticulously recorded data. “This is impressive work, Patience. The level of detail in your observations, the innovative approach…it’s quite brilliant.”
Patience basked in the praise, feeling a surge of validation. “Thank you, Lady Chastity. That means a great deal. I must say, my sister Anne’s eyes always glazed over when I talked to her about them, even though she’s a mathematician herself. Talk to her about equations, the number pi, or number theory, and she lights up. It’s the first time that I’ve spoken to someone who shares my enthusiasm.”
Chastity chuckled. “I quite understand that. When I talk to Dorian about my medical experiments, I get a similar reaction.”
An understanding of a shared passion ran between them, and a jolt of joy made Patience’s stomach do a happy lurch. Medical experiments? Fascinating! She had just opened her mouth to ask about them when Chastity’s expression grew serious.
“There’s just one thing, Duchess. I may be wrong, but you haven’t mentioned a control group. Have you been noting the performance of the original gallica and damask varieties alongside your hybrids in the same way?”
Patience’s smile faltered, a sinking feeling settling in her stomach. “I…I have some data on them, but I haven’t been as systematic. I was so focused on the hybrids…”
She trailed off, realizing the gravity of her mistake. Without a control group, how could she be certain that the improved disease resistance was due to intentional fertilization and not just natural variation?
Chastity sighed, not unkindly. “It’s an understandable oversight for a beginning botanist. But for your findings to be truly meaningful, you need that baseline comparison. Without it, your conclusions could be just a coincidence.”
Patience nodded, feeling a hot flush of shame wash over her. She had been so caught up in the excitement of her hybridization successes that she had neglected a fundamental aspect of scientific inquiry.
