The walls enclosing this garden were the same gray stone as the Lodge itself, but rough-hewn and haphazard, and settled into place by time. Twisting, gnarled crabapple trees grew in each corner, their boughs bright with new green leaves and filled with the chirps of the songbirds who’d wisely chosen this haven in which to build their nests. In the center of the garden stood a small bronze sundial, and sitting beneath it on a stone was a flat pan of water for birds to bathe in. No matter whether Rivers was here or in London, his orders were that that pan be filled freshly each day, as it had been for all his life and more. “No roses here, I fear,” he said, wanting to defend this humble garden, and hoping she wouldn’t find it lacking by comparison. “But I much prefer the exuberance of these wildflowers.” “I do, too, my lord,” she said, sunlight filtering through the straw brim of her hat to dapple her face with tiny freckles of brightness. “I’m more a wildflower than a rose myself.”
