“Would you like to talk about the garden instead of this topic?” he asked.
Her hand lowered and she stared at him a beat. Then she nodded. “That would be best.”
“It was your mother’s project, yes?”
She seemed to be struggling to gather herself. “Yes. She was not the kind to be satisfied with just hosting parties and managing the household. She liked a project and the garden was hers.” A shadow of a smile tilted her lips, and Morgan caught his breath. She was even lovelier when she wasn’t bracing for some unknown attack.
“She is not still with you?” he asked.
She bent her head. “No. She died long ago and the garden fell to the wayside. But I found her plans not that long ago, Mr. Banfield. I wish to execute her vision.”
He nodded slowly. Here he’d thought they were just talking about planting a few shrubs or clearing a space for a fountain. What Elizabeth actually wanted was far more personal.
“Why don’t we meet in the morning and walk through your garden?” Morgan asked. “I’ll better understand your wishes if we are standing in the middle of the space. Bring those plans if you can, so we can review them. Afterward we can talk more about it.”
She stared up at him, holding his gaze like she was trying to determine something about him. Finally she said, “Very well. I rise earlier than the household. Shall we say eight?”
Morgan flinched. His life in London often had him lounging abed until luncheon. But he supposed those days were over if he were going to take on the duties of a man of affairs. He might as well start getting used to it.
“Eight o’clock in the garden,” he repeated.
She worried her lip and then began to edge away from him, tiny side steps. “I should—I should rejoin the party. Until tomorrow, Mr. Banfield.”
“Until tomorrow, Lady Elizabeth.”
He watched her go, her hands shaking as she walked away. She slid up beside the Duchess of Brighthollow, almost hiding behind her and Katherine, but not really participating in their conversation. But Morgan felt her eyes move to him from time to time.
He felt her watching. And he wondered what would happen when they were well and truly alone together.
Chapter 6
Lizzie stepped down from the terrace steps into the garden and drew in a deep breath of the clean air around her. She loved the smell of her mother’s garden, she always had. It was roses and honeysuckle, wet green leaves and earthy soil. The scents she always associated with a woman long gone, but never forgotten. Now when she took them in, tears pricked her eyes.
But she was not going to let Morgan Banfield see that moment of vulnerability, so she blinked the tears away, pushed her shoulders back and took a few steps down the path into the garden. She looked around for him, peering around bushes and into nooks and crannies, but he was nowhere to be found.
She huffed out a breath. “Probably lazing around like the true rake he is,” she muttered as she moved toward a flat stone bench beside her favorite statue in the garden. She smoothed the wrinkles from the folded plans and then stepped back to look over them.
“You are very serious.”
She jumped at the deep voice right at her elbow and pivoted to find Morgan standing there, looking down at her. He was informal in another white shirt rolled to the elbows and a black waistcoat. His beard was neatly trimmed and it looked soft this close, like it would feel good against bare skin.
She blinked and took a step away from him. “You startled me,” she gasped, trying to find breath when there seemed to be none left.
He smiled and her heart stuttered even though she knew it shouldn’t. He had a truly lovely smile because it felt so genuine and warm. Like it pulled her in. She didn’t want to be pulled in. Being pulled in was dangerous, as dangerous as noting that woodsy smell of him or the fact that his warmth curled around her when he stood so near to her.
“We did say eight o’clock, my lady, did we not? Unless you wagered I would not make it.” He arched a brow in challenge.
She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but then she shrugged. “I did guess you might have forgotten our meeting. I suppose that was an unkind assumption, I apologize.”
“You needn’t,” he said with a low chuckle that seemed to make its way into her bloodstream. “I am a bad bet, my lady. You might have been right more than half the time.”
She worried her hands together before her, uncertain how to respond to his playful magnetism. Part of her wanted to laugh. He brought that out so easily. But…it felt dangerous to do so.
He seemed to sense her discomfort and stepped away, granting her space as he turned around in a circle to look about him. “It’s already a beautiful space,” he said.
She nodded. “My favorite on the estate, truth be told. This spot in particular.”
He focused his attention on the little nook where they stood. “Let me guess, you curled up on the bench where you’ve laid your designs and read before the statue.”
She couldn’t help her smile then, for he had guessed entirely right and it brought her back to long, lazy days where she’d done just that. “Persephone and I shared a great many stories, yes.”
His eyes widened a little and he looked a bit closer at the statue. Lizzie found herself watching him instead of following his gaze. He took in the lines of the marble young woman’s face, beautiful and soft as she glanced downward with an almost coquettish smile.
“Persephone, eh?” he said, his voice a little rougher now. “I would not have pegged you for a devotee.”
“She made the god of the underworld love her,” she said softly as she shifted her attention from him to the statue she had long loved. “She found the good in Hades. And according to legend, she is the reason for all these flowers and trees. Life and death, light and dark. What is not to like?”
She felt him watching her, and she shifted beneath the sudden regard. Heat suffused her cheeks and she caught her breath as she lunged toward the plans. “At any rate, I have my mother’s designs. Now that you are in the space, perhaps we can discuss them at greater length.”
He did not follow her for a moment. She still felt his gaze on her back and she waited for him to say something more about the statue or the myth or anything else that would peel away a layer she’d wrapped around herself for protection.
But he didn’t. Instead, he stepped up to join her. He leaned in, examining the plans carefully. “Hmm, yes, I see. She wanted to change the plantings. Moving the bushes and trimming them should be easy enough. Now what about this?”
He pointed to a gazebo that was to be built in the far corner of the garden, right beside the exit of the hedge maze and near the place where the garden met the long, rolling hills of the remainder of the estate grounds.
“What about it?” Lizzie asked.
“Why not move it?” he pressed, skimming his index finger across the plans gently. He seemed to be trying to divine a location and then he settled on the opposite side of the garden. “Here. It makes more sense with the path line.”
She scowled and reached out to push his hand away. “No.”
He straightened up and stared at her. “No? Just no?”
She folded her arms and glared at him. “We—we are not altering the plans, Morgan.” She caught her breath at the inappropriate slip of the tongue. Had she truly called him by his Christian name? What was wrong with her? “Mr. Banfield.”