11

GARDEN PARTY

1 June, AD 1744

Paris

My Dearest,

Having heard nothing to the contrary, I assume that all is well with you. I’ve received a special Request, through a Friend; an English Collector by the Name of Mr. Bloomer wishes to discuss a special Commission. His Letter, with Details of his Requirements, a List of Resources with which to meet those Requirements, and a Note of acceptable Payment, will follow under separate Covers.

Your most affectionate Father,

R. Rennie

“MR. BLOOMER” HAD SPECIFIED His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s residence at Kew for their meeting, on the twenty-first of June—Midsummer’s Day. Minnie’s diary carried a sketch of various flowers and fruits to mark the occasion; the White House (as it was casually known) had notable gardens, and a private tea (Admission by Invitation Only) was being held in said gardens by Princess Augusta, in support of one of that lady’s favorite charities.

It was a little outré for an unmarried young woman to go alone to such an event, Minnie reflected, dressing for the occasion, but Mr. Bloomer had specified that the agent do just that, sending a single ticket of invitation with his letter. Of course, he probably hadn’t realized that the agent would be a young woman.

It was a fine day out, and Minnie stepped down from the hansom at the end of the long avenue that led along the riverbank and up to the—quite large, if not quite palatial—house.

“I’ll walk from here,” she said to Rafe O’Higgins, who had accompanied her. “You can watch ’til I get in to the house, if you think you really must.” A number of colored parasols, broad-brimmed hats, and belled silk skirts were swaying slowly along the walks that edged a huge reflecting pool in the distance, like a parade of animated flowers—very appropriate to a garden party, she thought, amused.

“I’ll be picking ye up just here, then,” Rafe said, ignoring her gibe. He pointed to a carved-stone horse tank that stood in a small lay-by. “Just here,” he repeated, and looked at the sun. “It’s just gone two—will ye be done with your business by four, d’ye think?”

“I’ve no idea,” she said, standing on tiptoe to look as far as she could over the sea of green surrounding the house. Ornamental domes and shiny bits that might be glass or metal were visible through the trees, and she heard faint strains of music in the distance. She meant to explore the delights of Their Highnesses’ royal residence and its gardens to the full, once she’d dealt with Mr. Bloomer.

Rafe rolled his eyes but good-naturedly.

“Aye, then. If ye’re not here at four, I’ll come back on the hour ’til I find you.” He leaned down to address her nose to nose, hazel eyes boring into hers. “And if ye’re not here by seven, I’m comin’ in after you. Got that, have ye, Lady Bedelia?”

“Oh, piffle,” she said, but in a genial manner. She’d bought a modest parasol of ruffled green silk and now unfurled it with a flourish, turning her back on him. “I’ll see you anon.”

“And’s when anon, then?” he shouted behind her.

“Whenever I’m bloody ready!” she called back over her shoulder and strolled on, gently twirling.

The crowd was funneling in to a large central hall, where Princess Augusta—or so Minnie assumed the pretty, bejeweled woman with the big blue eyes and the incipient double chin to be—was greeting her guests, supported by several other gorgeously dressed ladies. Minnie casually faded into the crowd and bypassed the receiving line; no need to call attention to herself.

There were enormous refreshment tables at the back of the house, and she graciously accepted a glass of sherbet and an iced cake offered her by a servant; she nibbled as she wandered out into the gardens, with an eye to its design and the locations of various landmarks. She was to meet Mr. Bloomer at three o’clock, in the “first of the glasshouses.” Wearing green.

Green she was, from head to toe: a pale-green muslin gown, with a jacket and overskirt in a printed French calico. And, of course, the parasol, which she erected again once outside the house.

It was clever of Mr. Bloomer to choose green, she thought; she was very visible among the much more common pinks and blues and whites the other women wore, though not so uncommon as to cause staring. Green didn’t suit many complexions, but beyond that, green fabric tended to fade badly: Monsieur Vernet—an artist friend of her father’s, quite obsessed with whales—had told her once that green was a fugitive color, a notion that delighted her.

Perhaps that was why trees changed the color of their leaves in autumn? The green slipped away somehow, leaving them to fade into a brownish death. But why, then, did they have that momentary blaze of red and yellow?

Such concerns were far from the plants surrounding her; it was midsummer, and everything was so verdant that, far from being conspicuous, had she stopped moving in the midst of all this burgeoning flora, she would have been almost invisible.

She found the glasshouses without difficulty. There were five of them, all in a row, glittering like diamonds in the afternoon sun, each one linked to its fellow by a short covered passageway. She was a bit early, but that shouldn’t matter. She furled the parasol and joined the people passing in.

Inside, the air was heavy and damp, luscious with the smell of ripening fruit and heady blossom. She’d seen the king’s Orangerie at Versailles once; this was much less impressive but much more appealing. Oranges and lemons and limes, plums, peaches and apricots, pears…and the intoxicating scent of citrus blossom floating over everything.

She sighed happily and drifted down the graveled pathways that led among the rows, murmuring apology or acknowledgment as she brushed someone in passing, never meeting anyone’s eyes, and, finding herself momentarily alone beneath a canopy of quince trees, stopped to breathe the perfume of the solid yellow fruits overhead, the size of cricket balls.

A flash of red caught her own eye through the trees, and for an instant she thought it was an exotic bird, lured by the astonishing abundance of peculiar fruits. Then she heard male voices above the well-bred hum of the largely female guests, and a moment later her red bird stepped out into the wide graveled patch where the pathways intersected. A soldier, in full-dress uniform—a blaze of scarlet and gold, with shining black boots to the knee and a sword at his belt.

He wasn’t tall; in fact, he was rather slight, with a fine-boned face seen in profile as he turned to say something to his companion. He stood very straight, though, shoulders square and head up, and there was something about him that reminded her of a bantam cock—something deeply fierce, innately proud, and completely unaware of its relative size. Ready to take on all comers, spurs first.

The thought entertained her so much that it was a moment before she noticed his interlocutor. The companion wasn’t dressed as a soldier but was certainly very fine, too, in ocher velvet with a blue satin sash and some large medallion pinned to his chest—the Order of Something-or-Other, she supposed. He did, however, strongly resemble a frog, wide-lipped and pale, with rather big, staring eyes.

The sight of the two of them, rooster and frog, engaged in convivial conversation, made her smile behind her fan, and she didn’t notice the gentleman who had come up behind her until he spoke.

“Are you fond of opuntioid cacti…madam?”

“I might be, if I knew what they were,” she replied, swinging round to see a youngish gentleman in a plum-colored suit gazing at her intently. He cleared his throat and cocked an eyebrow.

“Um…actually, I prefer succulents,” she said, giving the agreed-upon countersign. She cleared her throat, as well, hoping she remembered the word. “Particularly the, um, euphorbias.”

The question in his eyes vanished, replaced by amusement. He looked her up and down in a manner that might in other circumstances have been insulting. She flushed but held his gaze and raised her brows.

“Mr. Bloomer, I presume?”

“If you like,” he said, smiling, and offered her his arm. “Do let me show you the euphorbias, Miss…?”

A moment of panic: who should she be, or admit to being?

“Houghton,” she said, seizing Rafe’s mocking nickname. “Lady Bedelia Houghton.”

“Of course you are,” he said, straight-faced. “Charmed to make your acquaintance, Lady Bedelia.”

He bowed slightly, she took his arm, and together they walked slowly into the wilderness.

They passed through minor jungles of philodendrons—but philodendrons that had never graced anything so plebeian as a parlor, with ragged leaves each half as large as Minnie herself, and a thing with great veined leaves the color of green ink and the look of watered silk.

“They’re rather poisonous, philodendrons,” Mr. Bloomer said, with a casual nod. “All of them. Did you know?”

“I shall make a note of it.”

And then trees—ficus, Mr. Bloomer informed her (perhaps he hadn’t chosen his nom de guerre at random, after all), with twisted stems and thick leaves and a sweet, musty smell, some of them with vines climbing their trunks with convulsive force, sturdy root-like hairs clinging to the thin bark.

And then, sure enough: the bloody euphorbias, in person.

She hadn’t known things like that existed. Many of them didn’t even look like proper plants, and some that did were strange perversions of the plant kingdom, with thick bare stems studded with cruel thorns, things that resembled lettuce—but a ruffled white lettuce with dark-red edgings that made it look as though someone had used it to mop up blood—

“They’re rather poisonous, too, the euphorbias, but it’s more the sap. Won’t kill you, but you don’t want to get it in your eyes.”

“I’m sure I don’t.” Minnie took a better grip on her parasol, ready to unfurl it in case any of the plants should take it into mind to spit at her; several of them looked as though they’d like nothing better.

“They call that one ‘crown of thorns,’ ” Mr. Bloomer said, nodding at one particularly horrid thing with long black spikes sticking out in all directions. “Apt.” He noticed her expression at this point and smiled, tilting his head toward the next house. “Come along; you’ll like the next collection better.”

“Oh,” she said, in a small voice. Then, “Oh!” much louder. The new glasshouse was much bigger than the others, with a high, vaulted roof that filled the air with sun and lit the thousand—at least!—orchids that sprang from tables and spilled from trees in cascades of white and gold and purple and red and…

“Oh, my.” She sighed in bliss, and Mr. Bloomer laughed.

They weren’t alone in their appreciation. All of the glasshouses were popular—there had been a fair number of people exclaiming at the spiny, the grotesque, and the poisonous—but the orchid house was packed with guests, and the air was filled with a hum of amazement and delight.

Minnie inhaled as much as she could, sniffing. The air was scented with a variety of fragrances, enough to make her head swim.

“You don’t want to smell that one.” Mr. Bloomer, guiding her from one delight to the next, put out a shielding hand toward a large pot of rather dull green orchids with thick petals. “Rotting meat.”

She took a cautious sniff and recoiled.

“And why on earth would an orchid want to smell like rotting meat?” she demanded.

He gave her a slightly queer look but smiled.

“Flowers put on the color and scent they require to attract the insects that pollinate them. Our friend the Satyrium there”—he nodded at the green things—“depends upon the services of carrion flies. Come, this one smells of coconut—have you ever smelt a coconut?”

They took their time in the orchid house—they could hardly do otherwise, given the slow-moving crowd—and despite Minnie’s regret at leaving the exotic loveliness, she was relieved to pass into the last glasshouse in the row and find it nearly deserted. It was also cool, by contrast with the tropical heat created by so many bodies, and she breathed deep. The scents in here were subtle and modest by contrast, the plants small and ordinary-seeming, and quite suddenly she realized Mr. Bloomer’s strategy.

The orchid house served as a sieve or barrier. Here they were quite alone, though standing in the open, where they could easily see anyone coming in time to alter their conversation to innocuous chat.

“To business, then?” she said, and Mr. Bloomer smiled again.

“Just so. You first or me?”

“You.” It would be an exchange rather than a sale, but her half of the bargain was concrete, and his was not. “Tell it to me,” she said, focusing her concentration on his face—rather narrow but not displeasing; she could see humor in the creases near his mouth.

“You’re quite sure you can remember?” he said dubiously.

“Certainly.”

He drew breath, gave a short nod of his own, and began to talk.

Once more she took his arm, and they paced the aisles of the glasshouse, walking through patches of sun and shadow, while he told her various bits of information. She memorized these, repeating them back to him, now and again asking for clarification or repetition.

Most of the information had to do with financial matters, banking and the Exchange, the movement of money—between persons and between countries. A few tidbits of political gossip, but not many.

That surprised her; the information he was dealing for was all political in nature, and quite specific. Mr. Bloomer was hunting Jacobites. Particularly in England and Paris.

I can’t think why, her father had remarked in the margin of his list. It’s true, Charles Stuart has come to Paris, but that’s common Knowledge, and besides, everyone knows he’ll never get anywhere; the Man’s an Idiot. Still, you don’t make Money by refusing to sell People what they want….

She was relieved when Mr. Bloomer finished. It hadn’t been a long nor yet a complicated account, and she was sure that she had all the names and the necessary numbers securely fixed in mind.

“All right,” she said, and took her own list—sealed—from the secret pocket sewn inside her jacket. She handed it over, making sure to meet his eyes as she did so. Her heart was beating fast and her palm was slightly moist, but he didn’t appear suspicious.

Not that there was really anything wrong with what she’d done—she wasn’t cheating Mr. Bloomer. Not exactly. Everything on her list was just as her father had specified…save that when she’d written it out fair, she’d left out James Fraser’s name and the bits of information regarding his movements and interactions with Charles Stuart and his followers. She felt rather possessive, not to say protective, of Mr. Fraser.

Mr. Bloomer wasn’t a fool; he opened the document and read it through, at least twice. Then he folded it up and smiled at her.

“Thank you, my dear. A pleasure to—”

He stopped suddenly and drew back a little. She turned to see what had struck him and saw the soldier, the bantam cock, coming in from the passage that led from the orchid house. He was alone, but his scarlet and gold made him glow like a tropical parrot as he stepped through a patch of sun.

“Someone you know?” she asked, low-voiced. And someone you don’t want to meet, I daresay.

“Yes,” Mr. Bloomer replied, and retired into the shadows of a tree fern. “Will you do me a service, my dear? Go engage His Grace there in conversation for a few moments, while I take my leave.”

He nodded encouragingly toward the advancing soldier, and as she took a hesitant step in that direction, he blew her a kiss and stepped round behind the tree fern.

There wasn’t time to think what to say.

“Good afternoon,” she said, smiling and bowing to the officer. “Isn’t it pleasant in here, after all that crush?”

“Crush?” he said, looking faintly puzzled, and then his eyes cleared, focusing on her for the first time, and she realized that he hadn’t actually seen her until she spoke to him.

“In the orchid house,” she said, nodding toward the doorway he’d just come through. “I thought perhaps you’d come in here as I did, for refuge from the Turkish bath.”

He was in fact sweating visibly in his heavy uniform, a bead of perspiration rolling down his temple. He wore his own hair—dark, she saw, in spite of the remnants of rice powder clinging to it. He seemed to realize that he’d been socially remiss, for he made her a deep bow, hand to his heart.

“Your servant, ma’am. I beg your pardon; I was…” Straightening, he trailed off with a vague gesture at the plants around them. “It is cooler here, is it not?”

Mr. Bloomer was still visible, near the door leading to the orchid house. He’d stopped, to her surprise, and she was somewhat displeased to realize that he was listening to her conversation—insipid as it was. She narrowed her eyes at him; he saw, and one corner of his long mouth turned up.

She moved closer to the soldier and touched his arm. He stiffened slightly, but there was no sign of repulsion on his face—quite the opposite, which was reassuring—and she said chattily, “Do you know what any of these plants are? Beyond orchids and roses, I’m afraid I’m a complete ignoramus.”

“I know…some of them,” he said. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I actually came in here to see a particular flower that His Highness recommended to me just now.”

“Oh, indeed?” she said, impressed. Her recollections of the frog in the ocher coat were undergoing a rapid readjustment, and she felt slightly faint at the thought that she’d been that close to the Prince of Wales. “Er…which flower was that, do you mind telling me?”

“Not at all. Pray let me show it to you. If I can find it.” He smiled quite unexpectedly, bowed again, and gave her his arm, which she took with a small thrill, turning her back on the distant Mr. Bloomer.

“Go engage His Grace…” That’s what he’d said: “His Grace.” It had been a long time since she’d lived in London, and she’d rarely had occasion to use English titles, but she was almost sure that you said “Your Grace” only to a duke.

She stole a quick sideways look at him; he wasn’t tall but had a good six inches on her. Young, though…She’d always thought of dukes (when she thought of them at all) as gouty old men with paunches and dewlaps. This one couldn’t be more than five-and-twenty. He was slender, though he still radiated that rooster-like fierceness, and he had a very striking face, but there were deep shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks had lines and hollows that made him seem older than she thought he probably was.

She felt suddenly sorry for him, and her hand squeezed his arm, quite without her meaning to do it.

He glanced down at her, surprised, and she snatched her hand back, diving into her pocket for a handkerchief that she pressed to her lips, feigning a coughing fit.

“Are you all right, madam?” he asked, concerned. “Shall I fetch you—” He turned to look toward the door that led back through the line of glasshouses, then turned back, courteously straight-faced. “I fear that were I to go and fetch you an ice, you’d be dead long before I returned. Shall I thump you on the back instead?”

“You shall not,” she managed to say, and giving one or two small, ladylike hacks, dabbed her lips with the handkerchief and tucked it away. “Thank you, anyway.”

“Not at all.” He bowed but didn’t offer her his arm again, instead nodding her to precede him toward a low table filled with an assortment of beautiful chinoiserie. One more amazement, she thought, seeing the array of delicate blue and white and gilded porcelain. Any one of these delicately painted bowls would cost a fortune, and here they were, filled with dirt, and used to display quite unremarkable flowers.

“These?” she said, turning to look at His Grace—ought she to ask his name? Offer hers?

“Yes,” he said, though his voice now seemed hesitant, and she saw him very briefly clench his fists before advancing to the edge of the table. “They were brought from China—very…very rare.”

She glanced at him, surprised at the catch in his voice.

“What are they, do you know?”

“They have a Chinese name…I don’t recall it. I know a botanist, a Swedish fellow…he calls them chrysanthemum. Chrystos—gold, that is—and anth, anthemon. Means…flower.”

She saw his throat bob above the edge of his leather stock as he swallowed and noticed with alarm that he was very pale.

“Sir?” she said, reaching tentatively for his arm. “Are you quite—are you well?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, but his breath was coming fast, and the sweat was trickling down his neck. “I’m…I’ll be…quite all ri—” He stopped suddenly, gasping, and leaned heavily on the table. The pots shifted a little and two of them chimed together, a high-pitched ringing that set her teeth on edge and made her skin jump.

“Perhaps you’d best sit down,” she said, seizing him by the elbow and trying to lead him back a step, lest he fall face-first into hundreds of pounds of priceless porcelain and rare flowers. He stumbled back and sank to his knees in the gravel, clutching her arms, a heavy weight. She looked wildly about for help, but there was no one in the glasshouse. Mr. Bloomer had disappeared.

“I—” He choked, coughed, coughed harder, gulped air. His lips were slightly blue, which scared her. His eyes were open, but she thought he couldn’t see; he let go of her and fumbled blindly at the skirts of his coat. “Need—”

“What is it? Is it in your pocket?” She stooped, pushed his hand away, groped through the folds of fabric, and felt something hard. There was a small pocket in the tail of his coat, and she thought for an instant that she hadn’t expected it to be quite this way the first time she touched a man’s buttocks, but she found her way into the pocket and extracted a blue enameled snuffbox.

“Is this what you want?” she asked dubiously, holding it out. Snuff seemed the very last thing likely to be helpful to a man in his state, surely….

He took it from her, hands shaking, and tried to open the box. She took it back and opened it for him, only to find a tiny corked vial inside. With no idea what to do—she glanced wildly toward the entrance again, but no help appeared—she took the vial in hand, pulled the cork, and gasped, recoiling as the stinging fumes of ammonia rushed out.

She held the vial to his nose, and he gasped in turn, sneezed—all over her hand—then grabbed her hand and held the vial closer, taking one heroic breath before he dropped it.

He sat down heavily in the gravel, hunched over, and wheezed and snorted and gulped, as she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her petticoat.

“Sir…I’m going to go and find someone to help,” she said, and made to do so, but his hand had shot out and grasped the fabric of her skirt. He shook his head, speechless, but after a moment got enough breath to say, “No. Be…all…right now.”

She doubted that very much. Still, being conspicuous was the last thing she wanted, and he did seem, if not exactly better, at least less in danger of dying on the spot.

She nodded uncertainly, though she didn’t think he saw her, and after looking about helplessly for a moment sat down gingerly on the rim of a raised bed full of what looked like pincushions, varying from things that would have fit in the palm of her hand (had they not been equipped with quite so many thorns) to ones much larger than her head. Her stays felt tight, and she tried to slow her breathing.

As her alarm subsided, she became aware of the distant chatter in the orchid house, which had just become noticeably louder and higher-pitched.

“Fred…rick,” said the hunched form at her feet.

“What?” She bent over to look at him. He was still a bad color and breathing noisily, but he was breathing.

“Prince…” He flipped a hand toward the distant noise.

“Oh.” She thought he meant that the Prince of Wales had come in to view the orchids, this causing the rising tide of excitement next door. In that case, she thought, they were probably safe from interruption for the present—no one would abandon His Royal Highness in order to look at pincushions and Chinese…whatever-they-weres.

His Grace had closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating on breathing, which she thought a good thing. Moved by the desire to do something other than stare at the poor man, she rose and went over to the Chinese bowls.

All her attention had been for the porcelain, to start with, but now she examined the bowls’ contents. Chrysanthemum, that’s what he’d said. Most of the flowers were smallish, little tufty ball-like blossoms in cream or gold, with long stems and dark-green leaves. One was a pretty rusty color, though, and another bowl held a profusion of small purple blossoms. Then she saw a larger version, snowy white, and realized what she was looking at.

“Oh!” she said, quite loud. She glanced guiltily over her shoulder, then put out a hand and touched the flower very gently. There it was: the curved, symmetrical petals, tightly layered but airy, as though the flower floated above its leaves. It—they—had a noticeable fragrance, so close to. Nothing like the voluptuous, fleshy scents of the orchids; this was a delicate, bitter perfume—but perfume, nonetheless.

“Oh,” she said again, more quietly, and breathed it in. It was clean and fresh and made her think of cold wind and pure skies and high mountains.

“Chu,” said the man sitting in the gravel behind her.

“Bless you,” she said absently. “Are you feeling better?”

“The flowers. They’re called chu. In Chinese. I apologize.”

That made her turn round. He’d made it up onto one knee but was swaying a bit, plainly gathering his strength to try to rise. She reached down and gripped his hand as solidly as she could. His fingers were cold, but his grip was firm. He looked surprised but nodded and, with a wheezing gasp, staggered to his feet, releasing her hand as he did so.

“I apologize,” he said again, and inclined his head an inch. More than that and he might have fallen again, she thought, bracing herself uneasily to catch him if he did. “For discommoding you, madam.”

“Not at all,” she said politely. His eyes were rather unfocused, and she could hear his breath creaking in his chest. “Er…what the devil just happened to you? If you don’t mind my asking.”

He shook his head, then stopped abruptly, eyes closed.

“I—nothing. I shouldn’t have come in here. Knew better.”

“You’re going to fall down again, I think,” she said, and took him by the hand once more, guiding him to the raised bed, where she made him sit and sat beside him.

“You should have stayed at home,” she said reprovingly, “if you knew you were ill.”

“I’m not ill.” He ran a trembling hand over the sweat on his face, which he then wiped carelessly on the skirts of his coat. “I—I just…”

She sighed and glanced at the doorway, then behind her. No other way out, and the chatter in the orchid house was still going strong.

“You just what?” she said. “I’m not dragging it out of you one word at a time. Tell me what’s the matter with you, or I’m going in there and fetching His Highness out to look after you.”

He gave her an astonished look, then started to laugh. And to wheeze. He stopped, fist to his mouth, and panted a bit, catching more breath.

“If you must know…” he said, and gulped air, “my father shot himself in the conservatory at our house. Three years ago…today. I…saw him. His body. Among the glass, all the plants, the—the light—” He looked up at the panes overhead, blinding with sun, then down at the gravel, patterned with the same light, and closed his eyes briefly. “It…disturbed me. I wouldn’t have come—” He paused to cough. “Pardon me. I wouldn’t have come here today, save that His Highness invited me, and I needed very much to meet him.” His eyes, bloodshot and watering, met hers directly. They were blue, pale blue.

“In the unlikely event that you haven’t heard the story: my father was accused of treason; he shot himself the night before they planned to arrest him.”

“That’s very terrible,” Minnie said, appalled. Terrible in a number of ways—not least in the realization that this must be the Duke of Pardloe, the one her father had in mind as a potential…source. She avoided even thinking the word “victim.”

“It was. He was not a traitor, as it happens, but there you are. The family was disgraced, naturally. His regiment—the one he had raised, had built himself—was disbanded. I mean to raise it again.” He spoke with a simple matter-of-factness and paused to mop his face with his hand again.

“Haven’t you got a handkerchief? Here, have mine.” She squirmed on the rough stones, digging for her pocket.

“Thank you.” He wiped his face more thoroughly, coughed once, and shook his head. “I need support—patronage from high quarters—in that endeavor, and a friend managed an introduction to His Highness, who was kind enough to listen to me. I think he’ll help,” he added, in a meditative sort of way. Then he glanced at her and smiled ruefully. “Wouldn’t help my cause to be found writhing on the ground like a worm directly after speaking to him, though, would it?”

“No, I can see that.” She considered for a moment, then ventured a cautious question. “The sal volatile—” She gestured at the vial, fallen to the ground a few feet away. “Do you often feel faint? Or did you just…think you might need it today?”

His lips pressed tight at that, but he answered.

“Not often.” He pushed himself to his feet. “I’m quite all right now. I’m sorry to have interrupted your day. Would you…” He hesitated, looking toward the orchid house. “Would you like me to present you to His Highness? Or to Princess Augusta, if you like; I know her.”

“Oh. No, no, that’s quite all right,” Minnie said hastily, getting up, too. Regardless of her own desires, which didn’t involve coming to the notice of royalty, she could see that the very last thing he wanted to do was to go anywhere near people, disheveled, shaken, and wheezing as he was. Still, he was pulling himself together before her eyes, firmness straightening his body. He coughed once more and shook his head doggedly, trying to rid himself of it.

“Your friend,” he said, with the decisive air of one changing the subject, “do you know him well?”

“My fr—oh, the, um, gentleman I was talking to earlier?” Apparently Mr. Bloomer hadn’t been quite fast enough in his disappearing act. “He isn’t a friend. I met him by the euphorbias”—she gestured airily, as though she and the euphorbias were quite good chums—“and he began telling me about the plants, so we walked on together. I don’t even know his name.”

That made him look sharply at her, but it was, after all, the truth, and her look of innocence was apparently convincing.

“I see,” he said, and it was obvious that he saw a good deal more than Minnie did. He thought for a moment, then made up his mind.

“I do know him,” he said carefully, and wiped a hand under his nose. “And while I would not presume to tell you how to choose your friends, I don’t think he’s a good man with whom to associate. Should you meet him again, I mean.” He stopped, considering, but that was all he had to say on the subject of Mr. Bloomer. Minnie would have liked to know Bloomer’s real name but didn’t feel she could ask.

There was a short, awkward silence, in which they stared at each other, half-smiling and trying to think what to say next.

“I—” Minnie began.

“You—” he began.

The smiles became genuine.

“What?” she asked.

“I was going to say that I think the prince has likely left the orchids to their own devices by now. You ought to go along, before anyone comes in. You don’t want to be seen alone in my company,” he added, rather stiffly.

“I don’t?”

“No, you don’t,” he said, his voice softer, regretful but still firm. “Not if you have any desire to be accepted in society. I meant what I said about my father and the family. I mean to change that, but for now…” Reaching out, he took her hands and drew her toward him, turning so they faced the entrance to the orchids. He was right; the conversation there had subsided to the mildly threatening hum of bumblebees.

“Thank you,” he said, still more softly. “You’re very kind.”

There was a smudge of rice powder on his cheek; she stood a-tiptoe and wiped it off, showing him the white on her thumb.

He smiled, took her hand again, and, to her surprise, kissed the tip of her thumb.

“Go,” he said, his voice very low, and let go her hand. She drew a deep breath and curtsied.

“I—all right. I’m…very happy to have made your acquaintance, Your Grace.”

His face changed like lightning, startling her terribly. Just as fast, he got it—whatever “it” was—under control and was once more the civil king’s officer. For that split second, though, he’d been pure rooster, an enraged cock ready to throw himself at an enemy.

“Don’t call me that. Please,” he added, and bowed formally. “I have not taken my father’s title.”

“I—yes, I see,” she said, still shaken.

“I doubt it,” he said quietly. “Goodbye.”

He turned his back on her, took a few steps toward the Chinese bowls and their mysterious flowers, and stood still, gazing down at them.

Minnie seized her fallen fan and parasol, and fled.