Mindful of his condition, Garrett kept the kiss careful and light. His lips were dry, hot, but not from fever . . . it was the clean, healthy male warmth she remembered so well. She couldn’t help opening to the softly urgent pressure, detecting the hint of sugared tea and the beguiling taste of him . . . oh God, she’d never thought to have it again. His mouth slanted more firmly over hers, dark erotic pleasure wrapping around her senses like velvet. She tried to end the kiss, but his arms wouldn’t loosen, and she didn’t dare risk hurting him by pushing at his chest. One minute swooned into another, while his lips caught at hers with soft, seductive bites.

Flustered, Garrett twisted her mouth away long enough to gasp, “For heaven’s sake, you were near death a matter of hours ago.”

His lashes half lowered as he stared at the base of her throat, where a frenetic pulse beat. A leisurely fingertip investigated the slight hollow and stroked tenderly. “I’m on a bed with you. I’d have to be dead not to rouse to that.”

Garrett darted a quick glance at the partially opened doorway, mindful that a passing servant might see them. “Raising your blood pressure could literally kill you. For the sake of your health, any and all sexual expenditures are forbidden.”

Chapter 20

It took Ethan approximately a fortnight to seduce her.

Garrett had written out a precise schedule for his recovery. On the first day, he would be allowed to sit up in bed, propped on pillows. On the fourth or fifth day, he could leave the bed and sit in a chair for an hour, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. It would take a month, she informed him, before he could walk about the house unassisted.

The two of them were, for the most part, left to their own devices, as West was occupied with problems that had gone unaddressed during his stay in London. He was busy with tenants and their land improvements, as well as supervising the use of some newly purchased machinery for haymaking. Usually he left the house at sunrise and didn’t return until dinner.

In the absence of Garrett’s usual responsibilities, there was more leisure time to fill than she could remember having even in childhood. She spent nearly every minute with Ethan, who was recovering at an astonishing rate. His wound was healing and closing without any trace of infection, and his appetite had returned in full measure. The delicate invalid offerings sent up from the kitchen—beef tea, blancmange, jellies, and puddings—had been roundly rejected in favor of regular food.

Ethan slept a great deal at first, especially since the opiates Garrett administered for pain made him drowsy and relaxed. During the hours he was awake, she sat by his bedside reading Hamlet aloud, as well as the most recent editions of the Times and the Police Gazette. Garrett found herself bustling about in a state of barely contained joy, doing small things for him, straightening the covers, monitoring everything he ate and drank, measuring out tonic in neat little cups. Sometimes she sat at the bedside just to watch him sleep. She couldn’t help it—after having nearly lost him, she took intense satisfaction in having him safely in bed, clean and comfortable and well-nourished.

Ethan must have found her attentions smothering—any man would have—but he never said a word. Often she caught him watching her with a faint smile as she busied herself with little tasks—reorganizing her supplies, rolling freshly sterilized bandages, misting carbolic spray around the room. He seemed to understand how much she relished—needed—the feeling of having everything under control.

During the second week, however, Ethan became so restless from confinement that Garrett reluctantly allowed him to leave the bed and sit outside on a small second-floor terrace overlooking the vast estate gardens. With his shirt removed and his wound lightly covered with gauze, he lounged like a tiger, dozing and stretching in the sun. Garrett was amused to notice a few of the housemaids gathering at an upstairs parlor window that afforded a view of the private terrace, until Mrs. Church came to shoo them away. One could hardly blame them for wanting a glimpse of the half-dressed Ethan, with his dark good looks and superb physical build.

As one lazy sun-washed day followed another, Garrett was forced to accommodate the relaxed pace at Eversby Priory. There was no other choice. Time moved at a different pace here, where the manor’s thick walls had once housed no less than a dozen monks, and the fireplaces in the common rooms were large enough to stand in. The clamor of locomotives on railway tracks, omnipresent in London, was rarely heard. Instead there was the sound of chiffchaffs and warblers in the hedgerows, the chiseling of woodpeckers in the nearby forest, and the whickers of farm horses. Distant bursts of hammering and sawing could be heard as carpenters and craftsmen worked on the south façade of the house, but that was a far cry from the tumult of London’s public construction works.

There were two daily mealtimes at Eversby Priory: a hearty breakfast and a hedonistic dinner. In between, an artful miscellany of leftovers was arranged in a sideboard buffet. There was no end of cream, butter, and cheese made from summer grass milk. Juicy, tender bacon and smoked ham were served at nearly every meal, either on their own or chopped into salads and savory dishes. There were always abundant vegetables from the kitchen garden, and ripe fruit from the orchards. Accustomed as Garrett was to the quick and Spartan fare at home, she had to force herself to eat slowly and linger at the table. In the absence of any schedule or responsibilities, there was no need to rush.

While Ethan slept in the afternoons, Garrett fell into the habit of taking a daily walk through the estate’s formal gardens. The summer-flowering beds had been beautifully maintained but intentionally left just a bit disheveled, lending offhand charm to the otherwise disciplined design.

There was something about being in a garden that made thinking easier. Not just regular thinking, but the kind that went a few layers down. This, she mused on her walk one day, was why Havelock had advised her to go on holiday.

As she passed a bronze fountain of frolicking cherubs, and a bed of chrysanthemums with curled and tangled white blossoms, she recalled something else Havelock had said on that occasion: “Our existence, even our intellect, hangs upon love—without it, we would be no more than stock and stones.”

Now she had done both things he’d advised: gone on holiday—although it certainly hadn’t started that way—and found someone to love.

How extraordinary this all was. She had spent most of her life running from the guilt of having caused her mother’s death, never slowing enough to notice or care what she might be missing. This was the one thing she’d never bargained for. Love had appeared mysteriously, taking root like wild violets growing in the cracks of city pavement.

Havelock would probably caution her that she hadn’t known Ethan long enough to be sure of him, or of her own feelings. Most people would say it had happened too fast. But there were a few things about Ethan Ransom that Garrett was absolutely certain of. She knew he accepted her flaws as readily as she did his: they could do that for each other when they couldn’t do it for themselves. And she knew he loved her without condition. They had each arrived at a crossroads in life, and this was their chance to go in some new direction together, if they were brave enough to take it.

On the way back to the house, Garrett took a detour on a winding path that led to the estate’s kitchen gardens and poultry house. Instead of the standard shed with an attached wire pen, the Eversby Priory chickens lived in a poultry palace. The central brick-and-painted-wood structure was topped with a slate roof and openwork parapets, and fronted by a colonnade of white pillars. Two wings curved outward from the main building, encompassing a paved court and a small pond for the birds’ use.

Garrett walked around to the back of the building, where the wire exercise pens had been planted with fruit-bearing trees. At one of the corner posts, an elderly gardener was standing and talking, while a younger man sat on his haunches to mend a fencing panel.

The younger of the two was big-framed and very fit, his hands deft as he spliced broken wires together with a pair of pliers. Even before Garrett saw the face beneath the battered hat, she knew it was West Ravenel from the deep resonance of his voice.

“God help me, I don’t know what the damned things need,” he was saying ruefully. “Try taking them out of the cold frame and putting them back into the glasshouse.”

The gardener’s response was muffled and fretful.

“Orchids.” West made the word sound like a profanity. “Just do what you can. I’ll shoulder the blame.”

The older man nodded and shambled away.

Noticing Garrett’s approach, West rose to his feet and made a motion of touching his hat brim respectfully, pliers still in hand. Dressed in work trousers and a rumpled shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, he appeared far more like a salt-of-the-earth farmer than a pedigreed gentleman. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

Garrett smiled at him. Despite West’s high-handed act of dosing her tea with valerian, she grudgingly acknowledged that he’d been well-intentioned. Now that Ethan was recovering so well, she had decided to forgive him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ravenel. Please don’t let me interrupt your task, I just wanted to have a look at the poultry house. It’s quite spectacular.”

West ducked his head to blot his perspiring face on his upper shirtsleeve. “When we first took up residence at Eversby Priory, the poultry house was in far better condition than the manor. The order of precedence around here clearly favors hen over human.”

“May I ask what the pavilions are for?”

“Laying nests.”

“How many—” Garrett began, but was startled into silence by a fury of sound and motion: a pair of large geese were rushing at her with wings outspread, hissing and honking and making earsplitting whistling sounds. Even though the aggressive birds were on one side of the fencing and she was on the other, instinct caused her to jump back.

Quickly West interposed his body between Garrett and the irate creatures, gripping her arms lightly to assure himself of her balance. “Sorry,” he said, his blue eyes alive with amusement. He turned to the geese, warning, “Back off, you two, or I’ll use you both for mattress stuffing.” After he guided Garrett a bit farther away from the fence, the geese quieted but continued to glare at her. “Please forgive the ill-mannered beggars,” West said. “They’re hostile to any stranger who isn’t a chicken.”

Garrett straightened her straw sunbonnet, which was little more than a flattened circle with a small knot of ribbons and flowers at the side. “Ahh, I see. Guard geese.”

“Precisely. Geese are territorial, and they have keen eyesight. Whenever a predator comes near, they raise the alarm.”

She chuckled. “I’ll vouch for their effectiveness.” As she meandered along the enclosure fencing, taking care to keep her distance from the suspicious geese, she said, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with the gardener. I hope you’re not having difficulty with Helen’s orchids?”