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I turn around so fast I practically give myself whiplash. Then I take two steps back, not out of fear but out of genuine, utter and complete surprise.
There’s a guy in the greenhouse.
Not the old caretaker, Mr Morton, or Colonel Owen, the beadle who lurks the grounds at night to catch students trying to sneak around. It’s a guy—a real guy.
He can’t be more than a few years older than me. He’s bulky and dark-haired and wearing a T-shirt and dirty black pants and hard gloves. His hair is damp with sweat and there’s dirt smeared on his cheeks and arms. He’s holding a rusty pair of shears in one hand.
For a second, we just stare at one another without saying a word. He stares me right in the eyes, not saying anything. His eyes are a light, piercing grey. His expression is curious, almost amused.
I narrow my eyes. “Who are you?”
“I’m Noah. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Someone died and made you the king of the greenhouse?” I snap.
He shrugs. He doesn’t even seem annoyed that I’m being rude. A Spearcrest guy would say something sarcastic, dark, or vaguely threatening. A Young King would definitely not let my insolence slip.
But this is no Spearcrest guy. It’s clear from the clothes he’s wearing, his short, choppy haircut, his coarse accent, and the fact he’s doing—of all things—manual labour.
I draw a little closer to him, peering at him. He’s actually pretty good-looking, with good bone structure, grey eyes, nice thick arms. But there’s also a half-faded bruise near his mouth, and it looks like his nose might have been broken because there’s a slight dent in the middle of it.
“I need roses,” I say, looking insistently into his eyes.
He points vaguely to another corner of the greenhouse. “That way.”
I raise my hands, showing him my pretty fingers and impeccable nails. “Can you cut them for me? I don’t want to hurt myself on the thorns.”
“Sure.”
He sets his shears aside and reaches into a box of tools for a pair of secateurs. Then he walks away and I follow, watching him as he walks. He’s not that much taller than me, but he has a nice figure: broad shoulders, big arms, tapered waist and hips.
Staring at the nape of his neck, I call out, “I’ve never seen you here before.”
“I only work here on weekends,” he replies.
“Since when?”
“September.”
So he’s been working here for a few months. I can’t believe I’ve never seen him before. Does anybody else at Spearcrest know about him? I hope not. I feel a bit like a girl in a kid’s book who’s just discovered a magical creature in the cupboard and doesn’t want anybody else to know about it.
“Do you live near Spearcrest?”
“Yeah,” he says.
He stops by the rose bushes. They are sublime: gorgeous blooms in shades of cream, pink, peach and red. They are perfect for my look. He points at them.
“Which ones do you want?”
“Um… a few of each colour.”
He nods and gets to work: pinching the stems near the flower and cutting low, making me a perfect bouquet with long stems—exactly what I need. He works in silence. Even though I have a million questions I want to ask, he seems to have none to ask me.
Which is frankly a little irritating, given I’ve just turned up in the greenhouse in tiny pink pyjamas, a massive trench coat and a vintage Dior silk scarf.
This is the kind of scenario scandals are made of. Gorgeous young heiress semi-naked under her coat, dimly lit greenhouse in the dead of night, burly mud-streaked labourer.
In this scenario, the labourer wouldn’t be able to contain his beastly lust for his beautiful social superior. He would want to touch her all over her Chanel-scented skin with his big dirty hands, throw her over the counter to stifle her protests with his mouth, roughly spread her legs to—
