Edwards. Spotting his head gardener perched on a branch and wielding a saw, Gyles halted.
Francesca saw him-she glanced his way, then Edwards said something and she looked back at the tree.
Gyles walked nearer, but kept at Edwards’s back. If Francesca was working her wiles on the old codger, he didn’t want to be appealed to for help. Finding Edwards in the orchard was no surprise-the orchard contained trees. In all the years he’d been head gardener, getting him to acknowledge the existence of plant life smaller than a sapling had defeated Gyles, his mother, and even Wallace. If Francesca had any chance of succeeding, Gyles had no intention of queering her pitch.
He waited while she listened to a gruff explantion of why that particular limb in that particular tree needed to come off. Listened to her laugh, smile, cajole, and finally get Edwards’s grudging agreement to consider the state of the flower beds before the forecourt.
The flower beds before the forecourt were empty, had been for as long as Gyles could recall. They resembled miniature barrows, mounds covering the dead remains.
Gyles shifted, impatience growing as Edwards began another long ramble. Francesca glanced his way, then looked up at Edwards-a minute later, she smiled, waved to Edwards, and started toward him.
About time, said his mind. At last, said his senses.
“I’m sorry.” Smiling, she joined him. “He’s very long-winded.”
“I know. He relies on the fact to drive off anyone thinking to give him instructions.”
She looped her arm through his. “Have you finished inside?” She looked down, shaking leaves from her hem.
“I was just out for a walk, to get some air.” He hesitated. “Have you been to the folly?”
She lifted her head. “I didn’t know there was one.”
“Come. I’ll show you.”
He turned her toward the river, the man within ridiculously pleased to see her eyes light with the expectation of pleasure, with anticipation over spending time with him.
“Before I forget.” She glanced briefly at his face. “I wanted to ask if you would mind if I invited Charles and Ester, and Franni, too, for a visit?”
Francesca looked down as she descended the steps to a flagged walk above the river, grateful for the support of Gyles’s hand and the fact he was watching her steps, rather than her face.
“For how long?”
His tone suggested he didn’t really care.
“A week. Perhaps a little longer.”
It was the obvious solution to her worry over Franni. She would write to Charles and insist he read her invitation to Franni. She would make it clear that if Franni didn’t wish to come, she’d understand.
And she would. Franni had enjoyed traveling in the coach. The only reason she’d refuse another journey would be if she had indeed been upset by Gyles marrying Francesca, having imagined that he was interested in her.
“I thought I’d write tomorrow, then they could come up in a few weeks.”
Gyles considered, then nodded. “If you wish.”
He didn’t wish, but voicing his reasons for wanting to keep her to himself, keeping others at bay, was beyond him. And the last thing he wanted was to disturb the moment, having successfully escaped to spend some time alone with her, away from the house, away from his responsibilities, and hers, away from their servants and all other interested eyes.
Time alone with her had become precious.
“This way.” He turned her sharply, to where another path joined the one they’d been following.
“Good heavens! I would have walked right past and not known this path was here.”
“It was created like that. The folly’s hidden, very private.”
They descended a series of steps traversing the bluff. The stone steps were clear of leaves courtesy of the army of undergardeners, all more attuned to their noble employer’s wishes than Edwards. The path led to a wide ledge jutting out from the bluff, much closer to the river than the top of the bluff yet still well above the flood line.
The ledge was thickly grassed. Shrubs lined its edge, while closer to the wall of the towering bluff, trees grew and leaned out, casting their shade over the path and the folly at the path’s end. A solid structure built of the same grey stone as the castle, the folly filled the end of the ledge, stretching from the bluff wall to the drop to the river. It was not an open structure, but had windows and a proper door.