Derek raised his eyes, perplexed. “Not at all. That’s for the children. I want to give Peter and Nell everything Mary wanted them to have.”
She would have wanted them to have more time with their father, Emma thought, but she said nothing. She had no right to tell Derek how to run his life.
“Well, anyway, thanks.” Derek’s gaze lingered on Emma for a moment, then he rose to his feet, stuffed the handkerchief into his back pocket, and returned to stand before the fire. “Funny, really,” he said, folding his arms. “I like Grayson enormously and I don’t care a fig for Susannah. Yet all I can think about is protecting her from him. It’s because she’s helpless, I suppose.”
“As helpless as we are,” murmured Emma. Clearing her throat, she added quickly, “I mean, there’s not much we can do to protect her, is there?”
“Not unless we can talk with her, find out if she has anything we can show to the authorities.” Derek turned to stare at the fire. “Kate said she was due back in three or four days? Not sure what we should do. Let me think about it.”
“I will, too. In the garden.” Emma got to her feet. “Derek,” she said hesitantly, “if you’re not doing anything else, I could—that is, Bantry and I could use some help out there.”
“I know,” said Derek, his eyes still on the fire. “Nell told me. Unfortunately, I’m still looking for Grayson’s bloody lantern.”
15
As it happened, a mild pulmonary infection kept Susannah in the hospital for ten days. During that time, her head injuries improved steadily and her memory began to return, though it was sketchy and incomplete. She recognized Grayson and called him by name, but Kate’s existence seemed to have, literally, slipped her mind. Overall, however, she seemed to be well on the way to recovery. Kate called every day with a progress report, which Mattie cheerfully passed along to Emma every morning.
Kate’s public-relations campaign and Newland’s cordon of watchers seemed to be paying off. Reporters who showed up at the gates were politely informed that His Grace would answer questions or pose for pictures at his hotel in Plymouth. The few who sneaked in over the walls were escorted from the grounds before they’d gotten halfway through the woods.
Still others tried their luck in Penford Harbor, where they were met not by resentful silence but by an avalanche of monologues. The Tregallis brothers regaled them with fishing stories, Herbert Munting lectured them on chickens, and Jonah Pengully grumbled about everything under the sun—except the one thing the reporters wanted him to grumble about. Like the other villagers, Jonah refused to say a word about the duke.
“It was brilliant,” Derek enthused when he returned from a foray into the village. “Like watching a football match. Every time Grayson’s name came up, Jack tossed the story to James, who booted it to Ted, who slipped right back into some flummery about cod-fishing.” The village team won the match hands down, routing the visitors without giving up a point. The newspaper coverage slowed to a back-page trickle.
Nanny Cole continued to supplement Emma’s wardrobe with dresses in fine-wool, velvet, and hand-printed silk, hand-knitted sweaters in slate blue and dusty rose, two more pairs of trousers, and a third gardening smock. By the end of the ten days, Emma felt as though she’d acquired a private couturière, and Mattie shared her delight, pointing out details of workmanship that Emma never would have noticed. Emma’s sole attempt to express her gratitude in person was met with a gruff “Stop being a ninny and get out of my workroom.” After that, Emma simply made sure that the workroom was graced with fresh flowers every day.
She and Bantry spent long afternoons in the library, making up plant lists and discussing what would go where in the chapel garden. Bantry would use only rough copies of Emma’s sketches, insisting that the duke would want to frame the originals, and he agreed with Emma’s strong intuition that everything planted in the chapel garden should come from the other gardens of Penford Hall. “The dowager duchess would’ve wanted it that way,” he said approvingly. “And we’ve plenty of plants to choose from.”
It was an understatement, as Emma soon learned. The garden rooms in the castle ruins were as varied and as well tended as any Emma had ever seen. The rock garden was a swirling pastel watercolor—sky-blue primroses and white candytuft, purple lobelia and rosy-pink soapwort. The candytuft and primroses, Emma thought, would look wonderful edging the flagstone walk and the reflecting pool.