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A pony cart is waiting for you at the vicarage door, ready to bring you to Sarvol House. Should you find yourself willing to abandon your current companions, I am in the walled garden, hoping to see you.
Please meet me there.
With all my love,
Your Scott
“He wishes me to join him in the gardens at Sarvol House,” Gillian told them. “Will you think me unforgivably rude if I leave before we’ve finished our tea?”
“Not at all,” Mater assured her.
“I will thinkScottrude,” Sarah said. “But that is my duty as his sister.”
Gillian was quickly provided with her bonnet and spencer. She slipped from the vicarage after a fierce and maternal hug from Mater and Sarah’s waving her off with a look of merriment.
A pony cart waited for her. And it was being driven by her father. He saw her situated without dropping the mien of Mr. Walker. But once they were up the lane and well on their way, he spoke with a warmth she’d not often heard these past years. “Mr. Sarvol thought this would be a good chance for me to talk with you without risk to either of us.”
“He is very thoughtful,” she said.
“He is, indeed.” Father drove the team at a sedate pace. “I am to depart in the morning for Yorkshire to begin my time atThimbleby. Mrs. Millard has been informed that a new butler is to be hired at Houghton Manor.”
“You are beginning at ThimblebybeforeMrs. Brownlow secures your replacement?” That worried Gillian.
“It was her suggestion—insistence,truth be told. I believe she wishes to see Mr. Sarvol secure in his footing sooner rather than later, as his future is entwined with yours.”
Gillian didn’t know when she would have another opportunity to speak with her fatheras her fatheron this topic. “How do you feel about our entwined futures?”
“I can see how happy you are when you are with him. And it is apparent to everyone how much he loves you. Your mother and I had that kind of connection.”
“I miss her,” Gillian said.
“So do I. And were she here, I know she would be as joyful for your good fortune in finding love as I am.” He brought the cart to a stop at the front of Sarvol House. They’d arrived without her realizing.
There might well be people watching the arrival, so she limited herself to being Miss Phelps interacting with Mr. Walker. He assisted her from the cart, keeping his demeanor that of a butler. But there was warmth in his eyes. It was subtle, easy to miss, but she saw it there. She suspected she would often see it in the years to come.
Though she had not spent as much time at Sarvol House as she hoped to eventually, she knew the way to the walled garden. It had captured her heart during her one brief visit there. She could so easily and so entirely picture it as it had once been and would one day be again.
She stepped through the open wrought-iron gate. With the trees having lost a great many leaves and many of the shrubs nothing but bare twigs, Scott was easy to spot. He sat on a bench down the path from the gate.
He stood as she approached, a look of love in his eyes that she knew was echoed in her own.
“I see Sarah didn’t hold you hostage,” Scott said as she approached. “I wasn’t entirely certain she would be cooperative.”
“She was very well behaved, though she does intend to declare you the rudest of brothers.”
“I have been duly warned.”
She didn’t stop her forward approach until she stood directly in front of him. “Why did you ask to meet me in the garden?”
“It felt fitting,” Scott said. “You taught me to see the beauty of nature, to see the possibilities even in a neglected spot such as this.”
She set her hands in his. “It will be beautiful again. I know it will.”
“When I first met you months ago, I had an estate in tremendous debt and two properties in need of repair, with no hope of sorting it all out. I was facing debtors’ prison and the inescapable fear that no one would be surprised by that failure, let alone miss me.”
She searched his face, knowing, sensing something of significance was happening.
“I was a lot like this garden, Gillian. Life had taken such a toll.” He pressed her hands to his heart. “I’d lost hope. I couldn’t see any future for myself. There seemed no reason to believe I had one. And then I met you.”
