my neighbors to obtain them. That is a tactic I reserve for only one neighbor in particular. Please accept these small offerings with my utmost and sincere admiration.
Although it may be presumptuous of me, I will admit to hoping you may choose to save these herbs for a garden at the townhome next door. I am given to understand the gentleman who lives there is quite hopelessly in love with you.
With undying affection,
Tom
P.S. The lock on the garden gate is still broken. You are more than welcome to trespass.
Hyacinth blinked. Tears were in her eyes—again—and she was once more the watering pot. She could scarcely see the words through her desperately blurred vision. Surely she had misread?
She had not truly read that one, beautiful, elusive four-letter word. Had she?
With another incredulous laugh at her own foolish antics, she dashed at her tears with the back of her free hand. But when the mistiness had cleared, the words were still there. Still written in Tom’s bold script. Still signed in his hand.
Still telling her he was in love.
With her.
The note floated from her suddenly numb fingers. Hyacinth could scarcely breathe. Could hardly think. But before she could further contemplate the astounding confession he had made—albeit written rather than spoken—Lady rushed forward and took up the note in her little mouth. To Hyacinth’s horror, her companion began happily munching.
“Lady!” she exclaimed, lunging for her beautiful letter from Tom.
But Lady—ever ravenous in her hunger for paper—would not be thwarted from her impromptu meal. She scampered away, chewing as she went, attempting to chew and swallow the note faster because she knew her mistress was hell-bent upon retrieving it from her jaws.
“Adelaide!” This time, she used her naughty pup’s full name, her voice rising sharply enough that Lady came to a halt. “Give me my note, you minx.”
Lady eyed her, chewing.
There was no help for it. Hyacinth sank to her knees and took Lady’s muzzle in a firm grip, forcing her jaws open. Lady’s tongue worked frantically as she attempted to swallow the remnants of the paper, but Hyacinth managed to pluck half of it from her, uneaten, but thoroughly soggy.
A cursory inspection revealed Lady had eaten the bottom portion of the note. The portion where Tom had declared his love. Of course the furred troublemaker had.
Hyacinth sighed. “Bad enough you are nibbling on my books, but now you are eating up my correspondence.”
Lady blinked at her adoringly and barked.
“You are going to have to stay in your basket with Pennington watching over you,” she told the pug sternly.
Lady blinked, her mouth falling open to reveal her canine smile.
Oh, why did she bother to have a dialogue with a pup? Tom had told her he loved her. And he had sent her a veritable field of herbs. She recognized the symbolism of such a gesture. Tom was gifting her the very thing Southwick had destroyed. And in so doing, he was giving her back the last piece of herself she had not realized was missing.
All this time, she had been telling herself she wanted her freedom. That marriage to any man—ever again—was more than she could bear. That she did not dare entrust her future to anyone else’s whims.
But what if Tom was her freedom? He had already set her heart free. He was the father of her child. The man she loved.
She needed to find him. To speak to him. To make sense of his proposal and grand gesture both. Her mind was whirling with all that had transpired since the day before when he had asked her to marry him.
She scooped Lady into her arms and rose. He had said the garden gate lock was still broken, had he not? Mayhap it was time for her to trespass into his territory.
It took Hyacinth scarcely any time to locate Pennington and settle Lady in her basket with him. Despite his habit of wearing an expression that suggested the world at large was a disappointment to him, he was inordinately fond of Lady. And the household ran ever so much more smoothly when Pennington was looking after the naughty minx.
She made her way through the gardens in a fog, thankful her morning queasiness had vacated her this afternoon. At least she could face Tom without fear of casting up her accounts upon his shoes. She slipped past a cavalcade of footmen carrying her new herbs and found her way behind the towering rosebushes. The gate was there.
And it was unlocked as promised.
Hyacinth winced as