“All right, out with it. Where are you taking me? Because we both know there’s no such place as Paradise Court.”
The smile he sent her was full of mischief, as if he knew the last line of a joke and could barely wait to deliver it. But being the irritating, enigmatic brute that he was, he ignored her question entirely.
“Have you ever considered that mapmakers like youneedsailors like me?”
She raised her brows at his cocky, self-congratulatory tone. “Oh, really? How so?
“Because we’re the ones who fill in all your empty spaces.”
Her pulse stuttered at the double meaning in those words, and she wondered if he’d used them deliberately. Knowing Morgan, the answer was undoubtedly yes. He rarely did things without purpose.
And it was true. He filled her. Not just from a crude, physical standpoint, but emotionally too.
He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees, narrowing the gap between them.
“The greatest sailing expeditions have unfurled the edges of the world. Sailors like me have shown what lies in the places where all it said was ‘Here Be Dragons.’”
Harriet was determined to match his teasing tone. “So you could say that ‘sailors like you’ are guilty ofruining the mystery. ‘Here Be Dragons’ allows people to dream. You, good sir, have killed the romance. You’ve banished the dragons and replaced them with boring old rivers and hills.”
He grinned at her, clearly loving the fact that she was countering him at every turn. “I think you should reserve judgment on how dead romance is until we arrive at our destination.” He glanced out of the window and lifted his brows. “Ah, Grosvenor Square. Perfect. I’ve given the driver directions to go around the back.”
Harriet peered through the glass as Maddie’s house sped by, then the knockerless black door of the Duke of Evesham’s property. Lights shone from Maddie’s front room, but the Evesham place was its usual dark shell. The carriage turned the corner and slowed as the driver maneuvered the horses into the narrow lane that led to the mews behind the houses.
The carriage rocked to a stop and Morgan jumped down impatiently, then reached up and helped Harriet down the steps.
She peered around, not entirely certain what she was expecting to see. A few lamps illuminated the stables on one side of the lane, and on the other side the imposing brick walls surrounded the row of gardens attached to each house.
Morgan still hadn’t relinquished her hand. He drew her forward until he stopped in front of a narrow wooden door in the wall. From its position Harriet estimated it must lead directly into the Duke of Evesham’s garden.
She frowned. The door looked new. The bricks around it had been disturbed, and the mortar was a different color from the rest of the wall.
Morgan squeezed her hand and she turned her attention to him. “You said my love for you was as real asyour Paradise Court.” He caught the iron door handle, swung the door open, and tried to pull her through.
Harriet resisted. “We can’t go in there; we’ll be trespassi—”
Her protest was cut off with a gasp of shock as she saw what lay within.
Chapter Forty-One
Harriet stopped short only a few steps through the gate. She’d expected a dark and unkempt garden. What she saw was Paradise Court.
She gazed around, utterly lost for words. The scene was magical, like some fairy-tale dream. A cherry tree had been planted in the center of the courtyard. Its pale blossoms gleamed in the light from scores of lanterns that had been hung from its branches, each one containing a flickering candle. Beneath her feet a gravel path led around the tree on both sides, bypassing the flower beds that had been planted in each corner with pleasing geometric symmetry. Four smaller pathways branched off in the four directions of the compass.
Exactly as she’d drawn on her map.
Her heart started to pound. What a grand, foolish, wonderful gesture.
An iron bench had been placed at the far end of the walk, and more lanterns glowed on either side of it, suspended from metal stakes pushed into the ground.
“Ah, I’m glad the candles are still alight,” Morgan said softly. “We took longer than expected at your house.”
She could feel his gaze on the side of her face. He still hadn’t let go of her hand.
“You’ve been busy,” she managed breathlessly. “How on earth did you convince the duke to let you do this to his garden?”
Morgan’s soft chuckle made her stomach swoop. “I didn’t have to convince him of anything. It’s not his garden anymore.”
That made her turn. “What do you mean?”
