“Darling!” Sorrel laughed. “Darling Warburton!”
“Well, they could call me beloved but I’m saving that for you.”
Sorrel took a piece of focaccia and swiped up the sauce in her bowl.
“When did Delphine teach you to cook?” she asked, moving away from the chink in her guarded heart.
“After Stella married Graham, they often invited me out for weekends and summer break; I was still a teenager when they started seeing each other. When Arthur renovated the pub and opened the kitchen up to the bar area, I used to sit and watch Delphine cook. Eventually I drifted back, behind the bar and into the kitchen. I think I learned more just by observing than from any recipe she gave me.”
“I’m awfully glad you did,” Sorrel said. “Nettie is a very modern cook in some ways. She uses everything out of the Nursery and our garden: herbs, flowers, foraged bits and pieces. Her food is very beautiful, very clean.”
“I’m afraid mine is more about filling you up with buttery, cheesy goodness,” Andrew admitted. “I could learn a lot from Nettie.”
“Oh, Andrew, would you ever come to Granite Point?” Sorrel hadn’t dared to ask before. She didn’t have parents to impress, but asking Andrew to visit Ivy House and meet her sisters was still an intimate proposition. When Henry and Patience first got together, they used to sneak in and out of the house as if the Sisters hadn’t guessed at their connection, hadn’t scented the air for the desire that floated off Patience like perfume. She didn’t think she could possibly do that, the subterfuge, the fumbled kisses in a darkened hallway, not at thirty-eight, not now that Granite Point felt less and less like home.
“I would,” Andrew said. “I would come. Please ask me.”
As the light left the sky, Sorrel and Andrew finished their wine and picked at the berries he’d bought at the market. He’d scattered mint over them and the lightest sprinkling of sugar. They released their juices, turning both their lips rosy. It was the happiest either one of them had been in so very long that neither wanted to break the spell with further talk. Spring had suddenly given way to summer, and Sorrel’s time at Kirkwood was winding down just as quickly. They rose without a word, left the plates where they were, and went to bed, a line of daylight still touching the horizon.
Andrew found himself in the grip of an urgency he hadn’t felt with Sorrel before. Grown-up, that’s how he thought of them: too sensible, too experienced to flail about tearing clothes off one another. But tonight that was exactly what he needed, exactly what he did. And Sorrel matched his hunger as she pulled the tee over his head and he grabbed at the buttons of her shirt. His hands were trembling as he watched her kick her linen trousers off, leaving them in a wrinkled mound at her feet. Sorrel tugged Andrew closer with her fingers in his belt loops and he had to push her hands away to unzip his jeans.
“Good God, I am unmade by you, Sorrel,” he whispered into her hair. “I am restored and I am changed altogether. I hardly know myself and I will not stop knowing you.”
Sorrel pressed her temple into his hand but said nothing.
“Do you hear me, little gardener? I am yours now, please, please say you are mine?”
Could she say that? Could she let go of every careful tie with which she’d bound her heart, every blinder she’d donned over time so that she wouldn’t lose sight of her sisters? Simon Mayo flashed through her mind. They’d lost each other before they’d been found because neither one of them was willing to give up a piece of themselves to be part of the other. Sorrel would not make that mistake again.
Sorrel threaded her fingers through Andrew’s choppy hair and pulled him toward her. She laid her forehead against his. He smelled of the rye grass in the pasture, the rosemary by the chapel door, and the lemon zest he’d grated earlier. She could feel him take a deep breath and knew that if she didn’t speak, he would release her, not just on this night but forever. So she matched her breath to his and spoke.
“I belong to you, Andrew,” she said. “I have never been so sure of anything in my life.”
“That was my prayer,” said Andrew and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bed, which now lay in a stripe of clear blue light as the night fell and the moon rose.
IN THE MORNING Andrew and Sorrel woke together, he to drive into London and she to work in the garden. She could tell he was nervous by his return to clipped speech and short one-or two-word responses.
“I hope your meeting goes as you want,” Sorrel said uncertainly.
“Hmph,” Andrew said and picked up an empty garment bag. He looked at Sorrel. “What?” he asked. He was cross because he was nervous, and crosser still that he couldn’t control his nerves.
She pointed at the bag. “Just wondering about that,” she said.
“I need to collect my vestments while I’m in town,” Andrew said.
Sorrel nodded. “Do you go to a special shop?”
“No, Harrods,” Andrew said.
“You’re kidding!” Sorrel said.
“Yes, I am,” Andrew said without laughing. “The dry cleaners.”
He kissed Sorrel and then drew her into his arms.
“Sorry I’m distracted,” Andrew said. “Keep an eye on Wags, will you?” and he shouldered through the door.
Sorrel heard the car start up with a growl. She sat back down and finished her coffee, aimlessly running her foot over Wags’s smooth back. Andrew’s departure jarred her more than she had expected, and she found herself unenthusiastic about the garden this morning. There was nothing for that but to dig in so Sorrel gave Wags a last pat and headed out.
GABE WAS SORTING the Tudor bricks on a large tarp when Sorrel arrived. He looked up with a small smile and handed her the paper cup of tea.
“Morning,” Sorrel said, “How’s it looking in there?”