“Of course, Darling,” I say, voice gruffer than before. “You’re a delight. My family is lucky to have you here to calm the corgi hordes and keep me out of trouble.”
She arches a brow. “Oh, I don’t know about that. We seem to have a knack for trouble.”
“True.” I loop my arm around her shoulders. “But at least there aren’t any paparazzi here to take pictures this time.”
“No, just your grandmother,” she teases.
We slip away from the hubbub of the front rooms, and I guide her through one of the homes that shaped me. The Featherswallow country estate, with its grand history and faded furnishings, is my personal favorite, but I have so many fond memories of “The Little House,” as Grandmother calls it.
Of course, it’s anything but “little,” only little by comparison to the Plimpton manor home in Cornwall, and fifteen minutes later, we’re just getting to the back of the first floor.
“This is where I got drunk on Edward’s eighteenth birthday,” I say as we move through the warmly lit library. “I was only thirteen and terribly jealous of the big boys having their first pints.” I motion toward the window seat. “Then I was terribly sick over there, and Grandmother was terribly mad. But she didn’t tell my parents, for which I was grateful. She just made me clean it all up and go for a long, vigorous walk with her the next morning while I was hideously hungover.” I shudder at the memory. “Scared me away from alcohol for years.”
“Wise woman,” Emily murmurs, pulling in a deep breath. “It smells so good in here. I love the smell of old books.”
“Me, too, but I love the smell in the next room even more.” I lead the way around the corner, down a short hall, and into the glassed room where I played dinosaur hunter as a child, prowling my prey through the flowers and ferns.
The solarium unfolds before us, dark beneath the winter night sky. But even in December, it’s warm and muggy, humid with the breath of hundreds of plants. Orchids climb the walls. Palms brush the ceiling, and roses perfume the air with memories of summer.
“Oh, wow,” Emily breathes. “This is…”
“Mad? Excessive? A violation of heating efficiency standards?”
“Fantastic,” she finishes firmly. “It’s like stepping through the wardrobe into another world.”
She wanders deeper into the urban jungle, still carrying Nuggy like a spoiled baby. She stops next to a particularly large fern, studying its sprawling fronds in the moonlight. “I don’t pretend to know a lot about plants, but this looks old.”
“It is,” I say, doing my best to ignore the fact that she’s stopped beneath one of the many sprigs of mistletoe Grandmother has hung around the house every year.
Mistletoe isn’t reason enough to break the rules…
Is it?
“That fern was planted by my Great-Great something Aunt Cordelia,” I say. “It’s over two hundred years old.”
Emily turns to me, her eyes huge. “No way.”
I lean against the potting bench on the wall. “Yes, way. Cordelia had quite the green thumb. She was also beautiful, brilliant, and an exemplary horsewoman. Half of London was in love with her, and it was assumed she’d make a spectacular marriage.” I lower my voice dramatically, “Before it all came crashing down.”
“Oh no,” Em says in an equally dramatic tone. “What befell the poor woman!?”
“Her reputation was ruined by a lecherous earl with wicked intentions.”
“Oh no, not a lecherous earl with wicked intentions!”
“We joke, but it really was quite awful. Apparently, in early summer, 1814, at the first ball of the season, Cordelia shared a kiss with the Earl of Swythemore. They were out in his rose garden, alone, safe from detection…or so they must have thought.” I step closer as I whisper, “But by morning, the gossip was everywhere. Someone had seen them in each other’s arms. The news spread through the Ton like wildfire. Within days, it had become a massive scandal, and Cordelia was on the verge of ruin. The only way to salvage her reputation was for the Earl to propose marriage.”
Emily’s eyes narrow. “Come on, Earl, don’t drop the ball.”
“Oh, he dropped the ball. Dropped it big time,” I confirm. “He claimed she’d thrown herself at him, hoping to trap him into matrimony, and he was simply an innocent victim of herfeminine scheming. Classic ‘he said, she said,’ but that was all it took to ruin a woman in 1814.”
“It’s about all it takes now,” Emily says with a roll of her eyes. “But at least we can work to earn a living these days.”
“Indeed,” I agree, “Thankfully, Cordelia’s father was a good egg. He didn’t force her to marry one of the less appealing fellows she would have been able to land in her disgraced state. He allowed her to live here, with him, and arranged for her big brother to take care of her after he passed. She spent her entire life behind these walls, rarely leaving the house after her disgrace. But it wasn’t all bad.” I glance around us. “This was her haven. She became a skilled botanist. Created some beautiful hybrid roses and a strain of wheat that was resistant to mold.”
Emily sighs as she sets her sleeping charge down on the potting bench. Nuggy snuffles before sprawling into a full sploot and continuing to catch up on her beauty sleep. “Well, that’s good, but… Damn, being a woman has been pretty shitty for most of recorded history.”
I nod. “It has. The patriarchy’s a beastly business. Especially here, and especially in the 1800s. I like to think I would have been a decent sort, but noble men really could get away with murder back then, so…” I exhale a soft laugh. “I probably would have been a terrible rake who gambled the family money away at my club and ravaged innocent young ladies in gardens.”
