“I don’t believe that for one minute,” Sorrel said.
“No, it’s true,” Andrew said. “I was in the picture by then, and I can tell you that while there was some sadness, and Fiona refused to come to her mother’s second wedding, for the most part everyone just got on with things.”
“See, that’s the problem with you people,” Sorrel said.
“What people?”
“People who are so privileged and overbred that they can’t even feel anymore.”
Sorrel’s eye’s sparked and Andrew saw what temper looked like on her. It was beautiful. Before he thought, before he let his own overbreeding stop him, Andrew leaned in and kissed her. It was a tender kiss, small, cautious, but not without passion. Sorrel stopped moving and while Andrew held her shoulders, she couldn’t seem to find the strength to lift her arms. He withdrew and searched her face for a reaction.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Andrew said. “I can’t explain what just happened. I really can’t.”
“I think you just kissed me and I sat here like a lump,” Sorrel said. The she put her hands on Andrew’s chest and kissed him right back. This time there was no hesitancy, and both parties were fully committed to the experience. It might have gone on—and further—had the distinct odor of burning bread not found its way out of the oven.
Andrew leapt up. “Bugger, shit, shit!” He hissed and grabbed oven mitts. “Delphine will have my balls.”
Sorrel began laughing and kept at it until she thought she might pee her pants. Andrew brought out the bread and found that it wasn’t quite as bad as he feared. Only then did he turn back to Sorrel who sat with her legs folded under her and a grin on her flushed face.
“That was some kind of language there, Reverend,” she said.
“I know,” Andrew said. “It’s one of my skills, swearing with gusto. I’m afraid I picked it up in boarding school and never did shake it.” He walked back to Sorrel with his arms out. “I am eager to take up where we left off, now that I’m certain I’ve not set the house afire.”
“Listen, Andrew,” Sorrel said. “This is . . .”
“No, don’t,” Andrew said. “Don’t say it was a mistake or you weren’t thinking or you think you’re a distraction for me because that’s just bollocks.”
Sorrel opened her mouth to say that, in fact, she hadn’t been thinking, at least not clearly, but that it was no mistake and that she hadn’t felt so delicious—that was the only word for it—in years. But Andrew seemed to be on something of a run and the only thing to stop him was to stand up, walk over and kiss him again. Which she did. Andrew put his arms around Sorrel, his oven mitts meeting low on her back.
“Ach,” he said and shook the mitts off. He pulled back and rested his chin on Sorrel’s white streak. “Please don’t let’s regret this.”
“Never,” Sorrel said. “I’ve regretted a few things in my past and I can safely say this will not be one of them. Besides, how do you know you’re not my rebound?” As she spoke, Andrew’s chin bobbed along and he began to laugh a rumbly, grumbly chuckle that tumbled out of his chest and into Sorrel’s heart.
“Well, then,” Andrew said. “Where were we?”
Naturally at that moment there was a great thunder of paws and boots as the dogs and Graham came in from the barns, and Sorrel and Andrew sprang apart.
“What ho!” Graham said with the kind of robust good spirits only found at Kirkwood Hall or in a pub on match day. “I see you’re taking a break in the action?”
Andrew explained that he’d been filling Sorrel in on Delphine’s history with the family and the tapestries. While he gestured with one hand, he kept the other behind Sorrel’s back and lightly stroked her spine.
“Ah,” Graham said as he picked at the crusty bits of the warm bread. “Now you know that I am, apparently, the scion of a family with deep, dark roots in stamping out the occult, or rather the innocents we believed were purveyors of such. Perhaps you should all hate me. I know I do every time I think of those damn things.”
“Oh, Graham,” Sorrel said and reluctantly, covertly extricated herself from Andrew’s touch. “How could we hate you?” She put her arm through Graham’s. “You’ve given me a purpose I haven’t had for a year now and you opened your home to me with such affection. What’s a little witch-hunting between friends?”
“Little Sparrow,” Graham said and patted Sorrel’s arm. “I do believe we have helped you spread your wings.” He turned to leave. “I’m going to release the girls upstairs from their den of inquiry, and we can all have something savory on that bread of yours, Andrew. You two”—Graham pointed at Andrew and Sorrel—“may go back to the delicate exploration of each other’s snogging skills.”
Sorrel and Andrew froze.
“Carry on!” Graham threw over his shoulder as he left. They could hear him laughing all the way to the stairs.
CHAPTER 9
Hyssop
It would take Gabe and three men two full days to dig out the spent soil in the Shakespeare Garden, time enough, as it turned out, for Sorrel to reflect on Delphine’s dinner and its aftermath. Sorrel couldn’t get into the garden while the team worked because each day she tried, Gabe came to the gate, now carefully widened to fit the JCB, and waved her off. They all wore kerchiefs over their mouths and noses, and Sorrel supposed she might have to do the same. As they dug and scraped and offloaded the powdery soil, great billows of dust and rust and popping fluffs of mold blew into the sky and settled over the walls. Delphine had warned her that the garden was trouble at dinner the night after Andrew and Sorrel kissed over burnt bread, but there was no way Sorrel could imagine the dark grit that seeped into her clothes and lay in cracks in her garden-hardened hands.
“I used to believe that garden could come back,” Delphine had said as she spooned out goat cheese soufflé. Andrew and Arthur passed the plates around, and Sorrel served a spinach salad bathed in garlicky, lemony dressing. Andrew’s second, more successful batch of bread sat all crackled crust and airy crumb on a slatted board in the center of the table.
“And now you don’t?” Sorrel asked.
“After Mathilde,” Delphine said and looked at Arthur. “I lost heart.”
“We didn’t talk about Mathilde,” Andrew said. “I didn’t have time and I didn’t feel free.”
Sorrel looked around at the three faces, each as downcast as the next.
“What have I missed?” she asked.