Page 20 of The Earl and the Reluctant Lady
Fletcher nodded.
More time with Agnes. He glanced down at the schedule and the first event was a poetry reading that evening at Lord Bartholomew’s library. And so it began. Christ. How was he going to keep his hands off her for two weeks?
…
“Agnes!” her mother squealed. “Come and see.”
She did not have the patience for her mother this morning. She’d been working on a new weapon design and had already tossed several sketches that weren’t quite right. Shortly after joining the Ladies of Virtue, it became clear that it was quite challenging for a lady to have any legitimate means of protection should she find herself in a bit of danger. Agnes had taken it upon herself to begin designing such items specifically for women and concealed in everyday items such as fans, parasols, and pieces of jewelry. Her fans had become quite popular with the cleverly hidden blades that released with a tiny lever. She’d sold out of them every time she made a new batch. This morning she’d been attempting to work on a new piece that would hide a thin, flexible blade inside a bracelet.
Setting aside her drawing, she made her way down the stairs to find her mother standing at the bottom holding a bouquet of flowers.
Agnes groaned internally. She especially didn’t have the fortitude to endure hearing her mother wax poetically about any of her special admirers, as she so fondly called them. Though everyone knew they were her lovers. Agnes wished, in that moment and not for the first time, that her father didn’t travel as much as he did. Perhaps if he were home more, her mother might be more discreet with her affairs.
Until her experiment with Fletcher, Agnes had always assumed that her mother merely didn’t understand how matters of the heart worked and she fancied herself in love with all of these men she entertained. Her mother’s fickle heart was a testament to how Agnes understood love. Now though, she suspected that her mother merely had no desire to control her lustful nature and baser desires. If she thought she didn’t understand her mother before, now she was even more perplexed.
“Yes, Mother?” Agnes said as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
“These just came for you.”
“Those are for me?” She glanced at the flowers, a frown weighing heavily on her brow.
Her mother’s smile widened. “Yes! It would seem you have a suitor. Finally!”
It was always astounding to Agnes how her mother could simultaneously sabotage any and all efforts from would-be suitors and be annoyed that none had ever pursued her with any seriousness. Though she had no proof, she felt certain that her mother had taken at least two of the men, who had initially showed interest in Agnes, into her bed.
“Come, let us go into the parlor and look at them in better lighting.” Her mother walked off, holding Agnes’s flowers, fully expecting her daughter to follow behind.
Who could have sent her flowers? Her heart stuttered at the thought that it could be Fletcher. Perhaps after the kiss they’d shared. Certainly, he had felt everything she had. Had he decided to pursue her in earnest?
Once in the parlor her mother rang for a maid to get a vase with some water. Agnes picked up the bouquet to inspect it closer. There was a variety of blooms, but something about them seemed familiar somehow.
“There wasn’t a card?” Agnes asked.
“No. Only a street urchin who’d been paid to deliver them to you. It would seem your admirer has decided to keep his identity secret for the time being.” She clapped her hands. “How very exciting.”
But the prickle of awareness at the base of Agnes’s neck spoke of anything but excitement. These flowers weren’t from Fletcher. He would send a note. No, these were from someone else entirely.
First the letter from Lady X, then the strange note she’d received the night before, and now these flowers. Had everything been sent from her? A warning of something?
Agnes glanced down at the blooms. She knew there were plenty of people who used particular flowers to bestow specific messages, but these seemed too haphazard for such a thing. The blooms all clumped together and secured with a bit of string.
“These are some of my favorite flowers,” her mother mooned. She leaned over and smelled the bouquet.
And that’s when Agnes realized her mother was right. These were her favorite flowers, the very same ones they had blooming in their gardens at that moment.
“Since you’re enjoying them so much, Mother, you should keep them in here. Set them on the piano so they soak up the sunshine from the windows,” Agnes said.
Her mother gifted her with a blinding smile. “Thank you, my dear.”
With that, Agnes turned and marched herself directly to the back gardens. The garden area that was completed closed off—surrounded by a rather tall stone wall—inaccessible except through their house. At least that was what she’d always thought. She made her way farther into the yard and found all the blooms in question and sure enough there were some freshly cut stems.
This mysterious suitor of hers had cut flowers from her own gardens. He—or she, if the flowers were from Lady X—had been inside her garden walls. With a blade sharp enough to neatly slice through the thick and woody stems of her mother’s prize roses.
Her mother might find the gesture grandly romantic. But, as always, Agnes and her mother with very different women.
Her blood chilled. It was time to call in reinforcements and meet with the Ladies of Virtue.
Agnes stood in the parlor with the rest of the crowd awaiting entrance into Lord Bartholomew’s library. She needed to speak to her friends and fellow members of the Ladies of Virtue about the flowers she’d received, but she couldn’t do so with this many people around to hear.
