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finger along one of the waxy-looking flowers, and
watched it quiver alarmingly. It was a miracle the plant had
reached her safely, because it didn’t look strong enough to endure
a good gust of wind, let alone confinement in a box. “Uncle Matthew
would have known what to do with it,” she whispered sadly. “I just
don’t have a clue, I am afraid.”
    Ben
looked at her with a frown. “I thought the beautiful garden here
was down to you?”
    The
beautiful, well-tended gardens at Brantley Manor were renowned
throughout the area for being the most stunning for miles around.
Many of the plants visible from the road were varieties that were
not popular in the area, but added to the wonderfully vibrant
display that often made people travel for miles just to be able to
witness the spectacle.
    “It is,
but this plant variety isn’t anything likely to be found in our
gardens,” she sighed. “My garden,” she corrected. “It is just too
delicate.”
    Ben had
to agree, he couldn’t see something as fragile lasting for more
than five minutes in any English country garden.
    “What is
it?”
    Beatrice
studied it closely. “I have no idea. I haven’t seen anything like
it before.”
    Ben
sighed and watched Beatrice pour the tea. “Maybe it was something
he was working on. Maybe one of his associates, or friends, left it
for him not knowing that he is no longer with us.”
    “Maybe,”
she nodded. “I really have no idea.”
    “Is he
likely to have notes about it in his study?”
    Beatrice
looked at him frankly. “I really cannot say. Uncle Matthew was
eccentric and really kept himself to himself. He came out for
meals, and to go to church on Sunday but, other than that, he was
always in his study. I never really got involved with his botany
work. Whenever I ventured in there I always got shouted at because
I inadvertently disturbed something Uncle Matthew deemed precious.
Maud always left his tea trays on the floor outside his door. More
often than not, it went cold and remained untouched, but she left
it there anyway, just in case he remembered that he wanted a
drink.”
    To Ben,
Matthew Northolt sounded like an incredibly selfish man; or a mad
genius. He couldn’t understand anyone wanting to ignore Beatrice at
all, especially when she was living in their house. If he ever got
to a point in his life when he had such a wonderful woman like
Beatrice in his home, the last thing he would do was practically
ignore her.
    He took
the opportunity to study her while they drank their tea. She had
started to dry out a little now that the room had started to warm
up. Her damp hair had started to curl into ringlets which bounced
against her face whenever she talked, or moved her head, and it
merely added to the fine, porcelain beauty of her face. His fingers
itched to stroke that velvet cheek to see if it really was as soft
as it looked, but he kept them wrapped tightly around his tea cup
instead. To sit beside her now was a stroke of good fortune. The
last thing he wanted to do was push his luck, and frighten her by
trying to touch her.
    He tried
to remind himself that he was a gentleman, and so should behave
like a gentleman. It would be foolish to attempt to seduce someone
who was injured and needed his help in her hour of need, not his
lechery, but it was damned difficult given that the memory of her
lush curves pressed tightly against him hovered in the recesses of
his mind and refused to be ignored.
    “I
cannot remember seeing anything like this before either outside or
in the conservatory. I am sure that I would have remembered,” she
murmured.
    She
studied the single slender stalk that barely held on to several
heavy flowers, all of which were the same cream colour, which
darkened to a golden yellow the closer it got to the stalk. Its
heady scent reminded her of honeysuckle mixed with chocolate,
tainted by the cloying odour of Mr Tinder’s sweet shop.
Individually, they were wonderful scents she usually