Page 4 of A Bloom for a Blacksmith

“Mr. Jones?” she prompted.

“I met him at his stall at the Covent Garden Market when I was buying flowers for you. The usual flower girl he employs wasn’t there that day, and we started discussing trees. He mentioned wanting to offer them—thought they would be popular amongst those here in town who have conservatories and country houses—but he couldn’t afford the import costs. I agreed to cover the expense, and he is going to plant them in the greenhouse we constructed on his property last month.”

It was Stella’s turn to scoff. “You covered the cost of a greenhouse?” For a moment, she wondered how she had been unaware of her husband’s involvement with the Jones’ Nursery. She had been at the bookshop most days from morning until dusk, though, preparing the ground floor of the building she had purchased on Ave Maria Lane and working with a furniture maker to create the designs for the bookshelves that would house her collection of books and folios.

“It wasn’t a fortune, I assure you,” Darius commented.

“The glass…”

“Oil cloth,” he interrupted. “Which isn’t taxed like glass panes are.”

“The framework?”

Darius waved to Angus. “Wrought iron, thanks to Mr. Thompson. He set up a forge next to their existing glasshouses and saw to the construction.”

Aware his name had been spoken, Angus looked up from his sweeping. “Sir?”

“Mrs. Agremon has informed me the tree seedlings have arrived,” Darius said. “Your greenhouse is about to become a tree nursery.”

Angus’s eyes rounded. “Glad to hear it, sir,” he said, grinning as he returned to his task.

“So… you’re treating these trees as an investment?” Stella guessed.

“If only half of those seedlings survive, we’ll still make a fortune,” he claimed, keeping his voice low.

Knowing Darius’s instincts had served them well during their long lives—they had rarely lacked the means to live well—she didn’t doubt his belief. “Will you plant one in our back garden?” she asked. “If I promise to see to it the gardener doesn’t pluck it out?”

He turned and seemed to think on the question for a moment before he said, “I suppose we could make room for one,” he hedged. “In fact,” he glanced down at his soot-covered overalls, “I should do it now.”

Stella grinned, her attention caught by Mr. Thompson. He had once again paused in his sweeping to regard them with a curious expression. “Don’t keep Mr. Thompson too late this evening, darling,” she said. “He probably has plans.”

Darius glanced over at the blacksmith. “No doubt. I’ll be up in a half hour or so.”

Tittering softly—she knew the “or so” meant more like an hour—Stella said a farewell to Angus and took her leave of the workshop to make her way into the house.

“Is he dead?” Mrs. Crabbe called out from where she was still cutting up the hunk of beef. She might as well have added, “This time?” because it was clear from her tone that explosions due to the master’s inventions should have killed him at least once. Some people were more observant than others.

“You’ll be happy to learn they are both quite alive,” Stella replied, not bothering to pause as she made her way past the kitchen door.

Although she was fairly sure she would never have to replace her husband, she had a thought she might have to find a new cook.

Mrs. Crabbe was certainly living up to her name.

Chapter Two

End with a Whimper

Meanwhile, in Covent Garden Market

“If you spent as much time seein’ to your posies as ya’ do ta those books you’re always readin’, you might actually make some blunt.”

Iris O’Connor looked up from the tattered book she held open in one hand to glance around her flower stall in the recently constructed Covent Garden Market. “I’m not sure what more I could do,” she replied, grinning at the sour-faced older woman who sold trinkets and knickknacks in the stall next door to hers. Miss Crabbe always seemed to live up to her name, her manner quite the opposite of Iris’s usual happy nature. “I’m nearly out of stock.”

As the only employee selling florals for the Jones’ Nursery in Chiswick, Iris usually arrived at the neoclassical building by four o’clock in the morning. There she met the greenhouse owner, Walter Jones.

Since most female customers favored roses, primroses, and potted plants for decorating their homes and the male customers tended to purchase bouquets or boutonnieres, that’s what Mr. Jones brought her every day. Mrs. Jones rarely made the trip with him, opting instead to see to the plants in the greenhouse.

Iris had the stems in wooden buckets of water by half past the hour, and by three o’clock in the afternoon, the majority of stock had been bought up by housekeepers from Mayfair’s elite homes, costermongers, and young flower girls for resale in other neighborhoods.