might trip over him? She ought to offer an apology, but given his brusque reaction to the accident, he might not deserve one.
Alice groaned and settled for rolling over, instead. The first thing she saw was the top of the statue she had been attempting to view from the front. The figure was that of an imperious-looking woman, pointing almost directly at where Alice lay. She blinked.
A face appeared above her, alarmingly close. “You aren’t one of the duke’s daughters.” He spoke almost gruffly, as though he disapproved of her anyway.
Thank heavens her spectacles remained in place. They allowed her to clearly make out every detail of the man kneeling at her side. He was a handsome fellow, despite the smudge of dirt across his cheek. He had black hair that fell across his forehead almost into his forest-filled eyes. His face was narrow, his lips wide, and a rather endearing little cleft marked the bottom of his chin.
All her female cousins from the tender age of fourteen to three and thirty would take notice of this man.
“Are you injured?” he asked, his black eyebrows pushing together. “Addled?”
Alice sucked in a breath. “I do not think so.”
He nodded and extended a hand to her. He wore thick leather gloves, well-scratched and dirty. Alice took the offered hand, and with a swift movement he pulled her to her feet. While she was taller than Society considered fashionable, this man still had half a head on her in height.
“You ought to look where you are going.” He abruptly turned away from her. The man released a long-suffering sigh. “It’s gone. An absolute perfect specimen.”
Narrowing her eyes, Alice glanced down where she had landed and crushed more than a few flowers. “There are many unhurt. Perhaps you might find another.”
“Another. I suppose that will have to do.” He sighed and stripped off his leather gloves, dropping them into an open wooden box filled with odd tools.
Though his accent was educated, not the same which she had caught sound of from the servants, his rough style of dress seemingly marked him as under the duke’s employment. The box on the ground as someone who worked outdoors, with his hands. Botheration. Had she stumbled over a groundskeeper?
Alice twisted the ring around her right thumb with the fingers of the opposite hand. “Are there more beds of narcissus?”
“Hm?” His gaze left the ground to meet hers. “Narcissus?”
She gestured to the white and yellow flowers. “Are there more elsewhere in the castle’s gardens?”
“Yes.” He looked down at the flowers again, his shoulders slumping forward beneath his dirt-smudged coat. “I suppose finding more of that particular type of flora might lead me back to the Pieris napi. Though I cannot say I have seen those two coincide often.”
Alice could identify many flowers by their common names, but his Latin immediately showed the state of her ignorance. Did gardeners usually refer to flowers in Latin? Perhaps he had a better education than most servants, which explained his lack of the local accent. Perhaps he was someone’s younger son, who had found himself in need of employment beneath the status he had once enjoyed. She knew well enough that an adequate education might not lead to a favorable position in Society.
“I do apologize for disturbing you. I am afraid I was not paying attention in my hurry.” A butterfly fluttered in the breeze, coming nearer the gentleman’s shoulder.
He cocked one of those dark eyebrows at her. “A hurry? In a garden?” He finally seemed to give notice to her, his eyes sweeping up and down her frame in a cursory manner.
She reached up to tuck the hook of her spectacles more firmly behind one ear, sneakily ensuring her unruly curls had stayed in place during her fall. Though she wore no bonnet or gloves, Alice knew she appeared respectable enough.
“My name is Miss Sharpe. I’m the new governess to Her Grace’s children. I thought to take in the gardens, but my time is short. I must return to the schoolroom.” She gripped the side of her skirt, a sudden and dreadful thought coming to her. “I hope I did not venture out of bounds. No one said whether or not I could explore the gardens—” She cut herself off, recalling well enough how often her aunts had warned her against “prattling on and on.”
The man tipped his head to one side at the same moment the little green and white butterfly—or was it a moth?—landed upon his shoulder. The effect