The Forbidden Garden

“Let me help you,” he said and took her hands between his own. He kissed her knuckles before letting go. “Come with me,” he said and moved toward the bed.

Sorrel’s hand shook as she let him lead her across the room.

“Are you cold?” Andrew asked as he put his arms around her.

“No,” she said. Andrew’s chest was warm against her, and his skin smelled of vetiver and deep woods and possibility.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We shall be brave together, at least tonight.”

Andrew lifted her onto the bed and pressed her down into the pillows. Her hair was dark as the sky and smelled of the sea. As he brushed his lips over her collarbone, he tasted rosemary and salt. Her work-roughened fingertips spread against his back, her thumbs pressed into his ribs, her breath whispered at his ear, and Andrew was lost.

Sorrel shivered as Andrew moved over her. Her thighs trembled against him and she worried that he might stop. His touch was cautious, more than gentle, yet it reminded her how empty she had been, even in the midst of plenty. She felt tears building and let them fall as Andrew bent his forehead to hers.

“Don’t cry, little gardener,” he whispered. “I’m here.”

ANDREW WOKE TO find Sorrel at the window, one palm pressed against the glass that was now weeping with rain. The stars were gone and the night was dark under the clouds.

“Are you all right?” Andrew asked.

Sorrel turned, pulling Andrew’s robe tighter around her.

“You Brits have the best dressing gowns,” she said.

“You’ve made a survey, then?”

“A very small control group: one flannel, one cashmere, and this.”

Andrew’s robe was dark blue poplin with red piping. The pockets were baggy and on Sorrel the hem nearly brushed the floor.

“That old thing followed me from university. I can’t seem to let it go,” Andrew said. He sat up. “Will you come back to bed?”

“I should probably go back to the house,” Sorrel said. “There’ll be talk.”

“No doubt it’s already started. It’s past midnight. Poppy will have a water glass to your wall by now.”

“Graham will have the hounds out,” Sorrel said, laughing.

“Gabe is leading them with a flaming torch,” Andrew added.

Sorrel poked around in her head looking for regret, sharp as a sore tooth, or at least a bit of shame at her wantonness, but she simply couldn’t find anything but pleasure. She walked back to the bed and sat on the edge next to Andrew.

“What are we going to do with this?” she asked reaching over to stroke Andrew’s hair away from his eyes. He took her wrist and kissed it, as she had his.

“I think that we will savor this night. We will sleep in each other’s arms and let the world spin on without us,” Andrew said.

“Is that possible?” Sorrel asked. “Can we trust tonight, believe it, keep it?”

“Keep it?” Andrew asked. “I plan to repeat it, to build on it, turn it into days and days together.”

“Andrew, you’re new, I’m new, we’re both bumbling around here.”

“Bumbling, is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Andrew pulled Sorrel onto the pillow beside him. “Fancy a bit o’ bumbling, darling?” he whispered into her neck, then murmured, “Stay with me, please.”

In the end, Sorrel gathered her things and dressed in the bathroom. She pinned her hair back up, feathered her fingers across the bruise Andrew’s thumb had left on her shoulder and washed her face with soap that gave her skin a scented memory to sustain her on the way home.

The dawn was a golden thread on the horizon as Sorrel made her way back to the house. She’d had to be sharp with Andrew to keep him from coming along and now she was going to have to find her way to her room without a hand to hold. There was no one to see her as Sorrel slipped up the stairs, no one to hear her laughing into her pillow.

THE NEXT DAY, and the one after, Poppy dropped so many hints that Sorrel thought she might trip over them. It was only once Sorrel promised she’d make a full accounting in private that Poppy gave in and stopped prying. Since Gabe wouldn’t let her into the garden until all the soil was replaced, Sorrel and Andrew spent the mornings at the nursery in Middle Wallop. Naturally the name tickled Sorrel and she felt compelled to give Andrew a gentle shove every time he said it. Together they strolled through the tidy rows of plants and seedlings. Sorrel pointed and called out names that reminded Andrew of his boarding school Latin lessons. Three clerks in coveralls followed behind making notes and tagging each plant she selected. Andrew found himself smiling goofily as he watched Sorrel.

“This is absolutely brilliant,” he said as he juggled two flats of creeping phlox onto a trolley already loaded with hybrid tea roses and alliums not yet blooming, their flower heads tight green balls on long bobbing stalks.

“Honestly, I can’t remember when I’ve felt quite so useful,” he said as he tripped over a hose.

“Glad to hear it,” Sorrel said, her hand already waving at a stand of columbine. “We’ll need dockweed and elder,” she called out, “the nettle, too. Birch and yarrow, hawthorn and holly.”

“You are optimistic, aren’t you?” Andrew asked. “You seem very sure that the garden will be ready, and willing, to accept all these plants.”

“If I don’t get these plants in my hands now, it won’t matter.”

“Right, clearly,” Andrew said cluelessly.

“It’s too late for daphs and hyacinths, narcissus and violets, too. I’ll have to move fast with the sweet peas.”

Sorrel continued to steam through the rows until she came to the five-gallon pots of foxglove. There were no blooms yet, just a cluster of leaves and stems.

“Not this,” she barked and moved on to the monkshood and delphiniums.

“What’s wrong with that one?” Andrew asked. “I mean other than it looks like spinach run amok.”

“It’s poisonous and invasive and besides, it doesn’t show up in any of my research.” Sorrel’s voice was shaking as she lied. She hadn’t counted on seeing the plant that had been at the root of the Sisters’ troubles, and she certainly didn’t want to explain her aversion to Andrew.

“Hullo, you sound unsettled,” Andrew said, tapping her arm to slow her march.

“Pressed,” Sorrel said. “I’m feeling pressed for time.”

He stepped in front of Sorrel and bent his knees to come face to face.

“Sorrel, talk to me,” he said. “I’m not with you just for the bumbling.”

Sorrel burst out laughing, startling the nursery helpers who, it has to be said, were more than a bit afraid of her.

When she calmed, she told Andrew about foxglove, how its deadly beauty had brought tragedy and rancor to her town. Matty’s death was more than haunting; Andrew saw that to lose this boy to a Sparrow Sisters flower designed to mend hearts was sadness wrapped in awful irony.

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