I shook my head. “I was only making some tea.” As if on cue, the kettle behind me began to whistle.
“Something to help you sleep?”
I held up the chamomile.
In two bounds, he was across the kitchen, snatching it from me. He rummaged through the other tins, searching.
I tried not to recoil from his scent. There was an acrid bite of soil and damp moldering things, a thick, meaty funk of sweat, and beneath that all, something even worse, a foulness that burned my nostrils and made my stomach churn.
“This…this is just the thing,” he said, holding up a hexagonal tin. “Have you ever tried a blooming tea?”
“I’ve never even heard of it before,” I admitted, wishing there was a discreet way to cover my nose.
He pulled out a translucent glass teapot and dropped a great ball of twigs and leaves into it. It hit the glass bottom with a rasp, skittering across the curved center, like an insect. Reaching in front of me, Gerard retrieved the steaming kettle and poured the hot water over the curious object.
“Now,” he said, setting the kettle back in place and turning off the burners. “Watch carefully.”
I peered down. The dark bulb appeared to be shifting, responding to the water around it. A leaf unfurled from the body of the pod, then another and another, and suddenly the entire thing bloomed, turning into a gorgeous flower. Its petals stretched out, twirling in the water like a little spinning top.
“Oh my,” I murmured. The flower steeped, turning the water into a bright aqua-colored tea. “It’s beautiful.”
Gerard nodded, watching on. “And far more effective than that drivel Dauphine makes. You’ll have the best night’s sleep of your life with this, even if those peacocks continue their caterwauling.”
I smiled at that. “It’s curious you don’t hear them in this part of the house. They were so loud earlier, I’d have guessed half the manor would have been up.”
He cocked his head, listening, as he pulled down a cup and saucer from a shelf. “Perhaps the silly things finally tired themselves out.”
“Hopefully.”
He arranged a tray with the teapot, cup and saucer, a spoon, and a little jar of honey. “It may taste bitter at first.”
“Thank you.” I reached out to take it from him but he kept the tray on the counter, held firmly in place with his hands.
“Verity…I…I didn’t get the chance to truly speak with you in all of the excitement earlier, but I’m very pleased you’ll be joining our family. Alexander is quite…quite special and I’ve always known that whoever he chose to welcome into his heart would be as well.” He licked his lips. “I think he made an excellent choice.”
“Thank you, Lord Laurent. Gerard,” I amended.
“Father,” he offered. “Though, perhaps…that might be…” He sounded flustered. “Marriage can be a difficult undertaking, even in the best of circumstances, and I’m glad you have a working understanding of what our lives here are like. As a daughter of a duke—sister to a duchess—you understand that…familieslike ours have specific duties, obligations…. I assume you were given lessons as a girl…?”
I thought back to my school days, listening to our governess drone on and on about taxes and tenants, storerooms and stewardship. I nodded.
“Good. Good. Excellent. Then you know how things are passed along from parents to children, within estates such as ours.”
I felt my face instantly redden and prayed to Pontus that he was talking about landholdings and not genetics. Camille’s words burned as hotly in my mind now as the night she’d hissed them at me.
No one is going to want a mad little fiancée, for a mad little wife, issuing out mad little children.
As much as it pained me to admit it, she was right. No one would.
Becoming engaged to Alex was a step toward securing my future but it still could so easily be snatched out from under me with one wrong word, one careless moment.
I’d been so close to telling Gerard the terrible things I’d seen in the poison garden. I did not doubt that if I had, Alex’s ring would not be sparkling upon my finger now.
I needed to be more vigilant. I needed to make sure Annaleigh’s candles were kept burning.
“Of course,” I murmured when it became clear he was waiting for an audible response.
“What sorts of things do you think you’ll pass on to yours?”
