Page 77 of The Wallflower Manifesto
Luckily, she did not have to choose, because she could hear her mother’s voice carrying over from the side of the house, from the rose garden, where Lacey Yardley frequently either chided or praised her famous English roses.
Today, she was chiding.
“Perk up, now,” she said with exasperation. “Whatever it is can’t be that bad!”
Millie felt herself already starting to chuckle, abandoning the approach to pick her way through the layers of fencing into her mother’s domain.
She found her quite the opposite of how she’d imagined her all the way here. She’d been dreading a chilly sitting room conversation, a stiff-backed exchanging of awkward news. Instead, here was Mama, straw hat tied under her chin, gloves to her wrists, and soil to her elbows, dressing down a plant like it was a particularly silly friend.
“There will be more rain,” Lacey Yardley said to the flowers. “You’d best get used to it!”
“Perhaps the truest thing ever said to an English flower,” Millie called, suddenly feeling much, much lighter.
Her mother turned, surprise giving way to a broad grin. The pruning shears, agents of woe and destruction, were dropped into the soil as her mother came bustling across the lawn with her arms wide.
“Millie!” she cried. “I didn’t think you were going to visit.”
And Millie didn’t resist the very dirty hug, because she wanted it. She wanted it more than her mother did, she thought.
Absurdly, her eyes filled and her chest heaved. It was ridiculous. She squeezed her mother back harder than she ought to have, and Lacey Yardley didn’t complain at all. But she did notice.
“My dear girl,” her mother said, pulling back with alarm. “Goodness, whatever is the matter? Come inside. Come inside before anyone starts chittering.”
They entered through the gardening hutch, a little room of glass and hooks where plants lived when it was cold or treacherous, or otherwise germinated when winter was in its final throes. There was a couch here, a tattered, ugly old thing that Millie foundherself shuffled onto, her mother dropping down next to her and tossing her gloves on a nearby bouquet bench.
“Has something happened, my Millie?” she asked carefully, reaching up with her hands, clean to the wrists and then filthy to the elbow, to stroke the tendrils of hair that framed Millie’s face.
She laughed and choked and sobbed all at once, shaking her head. “So, so very much has happened, Mama. But nothing is wrong. Nothing at all.”
“That’s good to hear,” said her mother, without a change in tone or a ceasing to her comforting ministrations. “I cry sometimes too. Just when I need to. It drives your father mad.”
Millie laughed again, this time without the other things muddled inside. “It does,” she agreed with a sniffle. “I’m so sorry I didn’t come earlier.”
“Oh,” her mother laughed, dropping her hands into her lap. “Is that why you’re upset? You’ve been living a dream with the countess, haven’t you? Seeing all the finest parts of London and the High Season. I wouldn’t have visited either!”
“The dowager countess,” Millie said with a raise of the eyebrows. “Claire’s the countess now.”
“Oh, that’s true, isn’t it?” Lacey said. “I’m still not used to it. My daughter is a countess? Absolutely madcap!”
“Mama,” she said as the courage began to find its way into her fingers and toes again, “how are the roses?”
“Oh, Millie, you never liked the roses.” Her mother laughed. “Hated them, in fact. But they are well, when they’re being sensible. The shift from spring to summer always makes them dramatic.”
“I was wrong,” said Millie. “This Season has given me a newfound appreciation for English roses. I realized I had misjudged them, after all. Especially yours.”
Her mother looked unconvinced. “Oh? And how did that happen?”
Millie took a gulping little breath and flexed her fingers and toes, testing for her resolve before she answered. “Mama, I think I am going to marry soon. Very soon. I have met someone.”
Lacey stared, her tawny eyebrows crawling up her face until they nearly brushed her hairline. “Have you?” she breathed. “Oh, Millie, I always knew you would have been better off with a more elegant chaperone. I knew it.”
“Mama, no,” Millie cut her off, chuckling and reaching out to squeeze her mother’s hands. “Not anyone from Society, I’m afraid. Someone rather common. Mr. Cain’s investigator.”
“Mr. Cain’s …” She trailed off, her brows retreating back to their usual height, but at an increased wrinkle. “The Scots fellow? The lanky one?”
“Yes,” Millie confirmed, feeling an odd flutter in her chest at even a threadbare description of Abe.
“Well!” said her mama. “How did that happen, then?”
