There had been a foul-smelling creeper of some kind back in the jungle-like hallway. She started to turn away.
She saw it out of the corner of her eye. He swung the head of his walking stick down hard. Little bits of that snaky, spiney cactus went flying.
Her stomach turned to ice. She had no way to bluff past that act of violence, no way to smile it off. She had only one choice—to pretend she didn’t see it. She kept on turning to the door and marched away, even though her hands were shaking.
“It’s here,” she said. “In the hallway. Let’s seek it out, shall we?”
He was breathing heavily. “No. Let’s just get back to the others.”
He hadn’t meant it as a threat, she told herself. She’d irritated him, that was all, and once he’d passed the point of frustration, he’d snapped. The little cactus had been an unfortunate casualty of his anger.
They walked in silence—Bradenton unwilling to speak, and Jane unable to say anything more. They went back through the humid central hallway, opened the door onto the path. Genevieve and Geraldine were waiting for them, turned to each other, speaking in low, urgent tones.
“You saw it,” Geraldine said. “You saw it, and—”
At the sound of the door, they stopped talking. They turned as one and broke into twin smiles.
“My lord,” Genevieve said.
“My dear Miss Fairfield.” Geraldine stepped forward, her hands outstretched for Jane. “So good to see you once more. Thank you for returning her to us.”
“Here you are,” Bradenton said. “Ladies, I give you back your friend.”
Jane’s head was still ringing. Her hands were shaking. She could scarcely pay attention as the twins murmured polite invitations to the marquess.
“I don’t suppose you would like to join us on our further ramblings?”
She wasn’t even sure who spoke. No, she was thinking. No. Go away. Go away.
“Sorry, ladies.” He gave them a cool smile, one that didn’t touch his lips. “I’ve already been out for far too long. It was a pleasure, to be sure. Miss Johnson. Miss Genevieve.” He stared at Jane. “Miss Fairfield.”
Jane’s heart was still beating in hard, heavy thumps.
Genevieve pouted. “If you must,” she said. The two of them stationed themselves between Jane and Bradenton, watching him retreat down the path away from the greenhouse. A few steps away, he stopped and turned—perhaps to look at Jane. The sisters stood shoulder to shoulder, though, and if Bradenton had any particular message he wanted to send—a frown or a scowl—his visage was blocked by the twins. Geraldine lifted her hand and gave him a little wave.
Never had Jane been so relieved by their incessant flirtation. Her breath was finally beginning to slow when the sisters turned back to her.
They weren’t smiling. In fact, they were looking at her with something that she might have thought was concern, had it been on anyone else’s face.
Geraldine took a step forward. “Miss Fairfield,” she said, her voice delicate and musical—everything that a lady’s should be. “Miss Fairfield, we were watching through the window. We couldn’t help but notice…”
“What was it he said?” Genevieve asked.
Jane’s throat closed up. She couldn’t talk about it—not with these two, not with anyone. She couldn’t care about their foolish, misplaced jealousies.
God. He’d killed her plant. He’d been on the verge of hurting her.
“Nothing,” Jane said. “It was nothing.” Pray that they couldn’t see her hands shaking.
“Tell me, Miss Fairfield.” Geraldine reached out and touched Jane’s wrist. “When we decided to…befriend you, we agreed with one another that we would…take care of you.”
“After a manner of speaking,” Genevieve added.
Jane shook her head. “It was nothing. He showed me a plant. He said it made him think of me. Isn’t that…” Sweet. She’d been going to say it was sweet, but even she could not get that word out of her mouth.
Geraldine’s mouth tightened. She turned to her sister. “You’re right,” she said. “We have to tell her.”
What new horror was this? She couldn’t play games any longer.
“I have a headache,” Jane demurred. But Geraldine tightened her grasp on her wrist.
Genevieve came to stand by her side. “Miss Fairfield,” she said gently, “there is no good way to say this. Sometimes…” She looked over at her sister. “Sometimes, I think that you are…”
Geraldine gave a sharp nod. “Sometimes I think that you are not always good at understanding other people’s intentions.”
Jane stared at them, her mind reeling.
“And so maybe,” Genevieve said, “maybe you didn’t understand what it was that Bradenton was saying to you. And I don’t think you saw when you turned away—that look on his face, and the thing that he did.”
Jane had understood it. She had understood it perfectly well. That they had, too… She couldn’t let them see, couldn’t have this conversation. Hearing it from their mouths made his threats feel real in a way that she couldn’t explain. He wanted her hurt. He wanted her humiliated.
“But we did,” Genevieve said. “His intent was unmistakable, even through the window.” She took a longer, deeper breath. “We haven’t always been kind to you.”
What were they saying? What were they doing? It took Jane a moment to look into Genevieve’s eyes, to see that this wasn’t going to turn into some jealous tirade. The two sisters exchanged glances, and then nodded at one another.
“In fact,” Genevieve said, “since the first few weeks we knew you…we probably haven’t been kind to you once. We’ve been making use of your particular skills. I know this may be hard to hear, that you might not understand what we’re saying.”
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t say anything at all.
“But,” Genevieve continued, “please believe me when I say this—I do not think you should ever be alone with Lord Bradenton again. Not even for a walk in a garden with other people nearby. We haven’t been very kind to you, but we did promise when we started that we’d keep you from the worst of it. I can’t be sure of Bradenton’s meaning, but I refuse to stand idly by while we find out.”
“That was foul.” Geraldine folded her arms. “Extremely foul. I don’t care what nonsense you spout. That was outside the bounds of fair play. And given what Hapford told me of his conduct…” She made a disgusted sound. “No, Miss Fairfield. I should have spoken before now. You oughtn’t be alone with him.”
Jane didn’t know what to say. She’d expected the worst for so long that she didn’t know what to do when it didn’t come. Her throat was closing up. She hadn’t expected…this.
Genevieve touched Jane’s elbow. “Maybe you don’t understand this, either.” Her hands were gentle. “But no matter what—no matter how we’ve treated you in the past—we aren’t going to let anything happen to you. I promise.”
Jane let out a slow, shaky breath, then another. Then another one. She looked from side to side. The sisters were half a foot shorter than she was, but they seemed to loom over her. She wasn’t sure which of them saw the suggestion of tears in her eyes first, which of them moved closer, putting her arms around her.
“There, there,” Geraldine said. “There, there. It’s all right. It will be all right.”
She hadn’t known how much fear she had—how alone she’d felt—until they spoke. And now that they had—now that they’d broken through that barrier—there was no stopping the flood of emotions. Jane let out a gasp, and then another one. She had thought herself entirely alone, a wizened, puny, ugly thing of spikes deserted in a sea of sand. But when she staggered, Genevieve caught her.
“There, there,” Geraldine was saying. “There, there.”
“I’ve felt worse and worse with every passing month,” Genevieve said. “Dirty. No better than Bradenton. We’ve been awful, truly awful.”
“It was just so fortuitous,” Geraldine contin
ued for her sister. “You were the perfect excuse to drive Genevieve’s suitors away.”
Jane couldn’t help herself. She’d been angry, frightened, and then taken utterly by surprise. At that, she began to laugh.
“I don’t think she understands,” she heard Geraldine say.
Jane straightened. She took a deep breath and looked around her, at a world that she no longer quite understood. Then she exhaled slowly.
“Geraldine,” she heard herself say, “Genevieve, I have a confession to make. I haven’t been very kind to you, either. Not from the first few weeks.”
They stopped, their matching china-blue eyes widening.
“I…” She took a deep breath. “I’m this awful on purpose. I owe you both an apology.”
“Oh, no,” Geraldine breathed, stepping forward, a smile spreading across her face.
“Indeed.” Genevieve laughed. “Skip the apology. I’d rather have an explanation. This has to be good.”
The women walked for hours, talking, scarcely looking at the plants around them.
“You see,” Genevieve said solemnly as they finally came to the end of their time together, “I don’t wish to marry. Every time I think of a man pawing over me, I just start to panic.”
Geraldine patted her sister’s arm. “Mama says she’ll grow out of it. But Geraldine and I do everything together. We had our first menses on the same day. It’s foolish to imagine that this will change when we’ve always differed on this score. So I am supporting her out of sisterly solidarity until she’s of age.”
“It’s such a shame.” Genevieve sighed. “I’d make such a marvelous wife, if I could marry the equivalent of her Hapford. I’d so love to spend my husband’s money on charitable works. Instead, I shall be forced to economize. So she’s going to have all the babies. And I shall spoil them and be the exciting, wicked aunt. I shall give them sweets until they’re all riled up, and then hand them back to the nurse and be on my way.”
“You were such a godsend,” Geraldine said. “We’ve always done everything right until now. Genevieve was so afraid that she’d be lambasted into accepting some reasonably ordinary gentleman, and being miserable all her life. And then we met you. All we had to say was, ‘Oh, no, we couldn’t possibly attend without our bosom friend Miss Fairfield,’ and suddenly our invitations dwindled. It was so fortuitous.”
It had been fortuitous for them all. Now that they’d spoken about it, it had planted the roots of something warm and real in the remains of their previous cold, twisted friendship.
“Tonight, then?” Geraldine asked, almost two hours later as the ladies came back up to the entrance of the gardens.
Mrs. Blickstall was waiting for Jane, seated at a bench near the entrance. She glanced up, but if she found anything odd about the fact that the ladies were walking arm in arm and smiling at one another with genuine pleasure, she didn’t say it.
Genevieve kissed Jane’s cheek, and then Geraldine leaned in and did the same.
“Things will be better now,” Geraldine whispered. “For all of us. You’ll see.” They waved goodbye.
Mrs. Blickstall stood to go.
But somehow, leaving seemed wrong. Jane wasn’t sure why until she remembered what she’d left in the greenhouse. She’d pretended at the time that she hadn’t seen what had happened, but some part of her still saw that shattered plant out of the corner of her eye.
“I need a little longer,” she said.
One lovely thing about bribing her chaperone was that Jane always got her way. Mrs. Blickstall shrugged and subsided into her seat. Jane walked back into the gardens, down the path alongside the brook, back toward the greenhouses.
She was a blight. A poison. A pestilence. She was the enemy of all proper conversation. Grown men would rather be mauled to death by lions than converse with her.
She’d hated everyone for the jests they’d made at her expense.
So when had she started believing them? That she was a plague, that nobody could truly like her? That every word out of her mouth was a burden for others?
She came to the greenhouses and headed back to the desert room. She opened the door, hoping her memory exaggerated the damage. But no. That poor little plant was still in pieces. Bradenton had hit it so hard that it had split all the way to the root.
But it wasn’t a blight or a pestilence. It was just a plant, and it didn’t deserve to die.
Jane didn’t know how to go forward, how to remake the person she had become. She was never going to be like Geraldine or Genevieve with smooth manners and perfect skin. She would always talk too much, say the wrong things, wear the wrong clothing. But maybe…
Maybe things really could change. A little.
And she knew the first thing she needed to do.
Jane had to rap on three doors before one opened at her knock.
Beyond the doorframe, Jane saw a glassed-in room and tiny plastic pots of little seedlings. A woman in a dark dress, covered by a navy smock, her hands in dirt-stained garden gloves, stood at the door. Her eyebrows were raised as she contemplated Jane. She took in Jane’s gown—bright orange-and-cream, with fussy cherubs on her skirts—and those eyebrows went up even farther.
“Well?” the other woman asked. “What is it?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Jane said. “But I was walking in the greenhouses and…there is this cactus. Something happened to it.”
The woman did not look impressed. “It is a cactus,” she said. “They usually look like they’re dying. That’s normal.” She started to close the door.
“No, wait,” Jane said. “It’s been broken to bits. It looks like a boy hit it.”
The woman looked up and sighed. “Oh, very well. Maybe I should have a look.” She turned away, rummaging among items on a metal shelf until she found a small pot, a set of shears, and another pair of gloves. “Let’s go see this cactus.”
Jane trotted down the hall. She’d expected to find an old, hoary gardener, or a young man with calloused hands and a broad accent. But this woman, by her cultured tones and the stiff, starched fabric under her gardening smock, seemed to be a well-bred lady.
“I’m surprised,” Jane said. “I hadn’t thought that the Botanic Gardens would hire a lady.”
“Hire?” The woman huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I volunteer.”
The other woman hadn’t spoken a sentence longer than a handful of words and did not give the air of being particularly talkative. “Of course,” Jane said. “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for. “It’s in here.”
“I know,” the woman replied. “There’s only one greenhouse for the desert succulents.” So saying, she swept into the room. With her smock, she reminded Jane of a nurse—aproned and gloved and ready to fix any ills. Her eyes lit on the plant that Bradenton had destroyed. The center had been smashed to bits, and the little spiky green tentacles lay about it, hewn off.
The lady stopped. “Oh,” she crooned, in a far different voice than the steel-laden one she’d used to converse with Jane. “You poor, poor baby.”
She gathered up the clay pot almost tenderly and gently poked through bits of broken cactus.
“Can you save it?” Jane asked.
“It’s a cactus,” the other woman replied absently. “They grow in deserts. They’ve evolved to withstand sun and slicing sandstorms.” She sounded proud. “You can kill a cactus, but it takes a sustained effort—consistent overwatering and the like. This piece of vandalism?” She shrugged. “This is just an act of propagation.”
So saying, she scooped up a little sand into the smaller pot she’d brought with her. She trimmed the damaged cactus, removing the broken tentacles, piling them on the ground as she worked.
“There,” she finally said. “Now we get to the fun bit.” She picked up the green tentacles and poked them back into the soil. “First there was one cactus, now there are seven, eight…” She took the last piece and stuck it into the pot that she’d filled. “Ni
ne.”
“What? That’s it? No water, no special potions?”
“It’ll take a few months for them to take root,” the woman replied. “Water them only when the sand is dry. But yes, as I said. The cactus is a hard plant to kill.” She handed the pot to Jane. “Here. For you.”
“Oh my goodness,” Jane said in surprise. “Can you do that? Just give me a cactus like that?” She frowned and looked at the woman. “Wait. You’re only a volunteer. You can’t.”
“If you walk out the doors with it, you’ll own it nonetheless,” the woman replied. “I had not thought that the intrepid Miss Jane Fairfield would balk at a little thing like ownership.”
“How did you know my name?”
“I’m Violet Waterfield. The Countess of Cambury.” She looked expectant.
Jane blinked at her. “Pleased to meet you, my lady.”
She seemed nonplussed. “You don’t know who I am? Oliver always does forget the honorary members.” She held up her left hand in her glove. “Brothers Sinister? Oliver, Sebastian, Robert?”
“Oliver. Do you mean—”
“Of course I mean Oliver Marshall,” the woman said.
“How did you know—”
The countess smiled mysteriously. “I know everything. That’s my duty in our little group.”
“I see,” Jane said puzzled. “What a lovely vocation.”
“Vocation?” Another huff. “Of course not.” There was a particularly self-satisfied smile on her face as she spoke. “I volunteer.”
Chapter Ten
Jane’s mind was still whirling when she entered her sister’s room late that night.
For years, Emily had been her only confidante, the one she told all her troubles. Now, over the course of the past few days, Jane had gathered a host of secrets she couldn’t tell her sister.
There’s this man. He was thinking about humiliating me, but never mind that—let me tell you about the Johnson twins.