Dear Margaret—

Do you recall in my last letter I told you of a visiting lecturer coming to Greenwich? It was a Sir Kingsley, who spoke very eloquently on botany. I was so certain that you and he would be of like minds, I took the liberty of telling him about your latest experiment. He was so astounded by the progress you have made in hybridizing your rose that he said you should come to London and present it to them—did I mention Sir K——— is a member of the Horticultural Society of London?

Please don’t be angry with me or think I violated a confidence. I know you prefer your greenhouse in Lincolnshire. But if you are so inclined to come to London, Margaret . . . know I will do everything in my power to make the trip worthwhile.

At the age of twenty, Miss Margaret Babcock had discovered a few fundamental truths about herself.

She knew herself to be overly tall.

She knew she was most at home in her greenhouse.

She knew she was—as her mother had once termed it—a bit of a late bloomer.

When her mother had first said it, it made no sense to Margaret. She wasn’t a cherry tree that exploded in white and pink in the spring. She didn’t sprout or flower. She was a girl. A tall girl, true. She grew, would continue to do so until she stopped, and then be an adult.

But then, she started to notice something odd. Yes, she kept growing up, up, up . . . but some of the other girls in town were growing out. Becoming rounded like petals and their skin turning white and pink in patterns that seemed to force attention from the young men toward them. They would slide their gaze to the side like they knew something Margaret didn’t, laughing lightly at a joke Margaret couldn’t understand.

And Margaret just kept getting taller.

It was only when she was sixteen or so that the upward trend slowed. And she waited patiently for the outward trend to begin. And waited. And waited.

“Like I said, you’re just a late bloomer,” her mother had said then, as they repotted a ficus. “You’ll catch up.”

“But I’m already taller than everyone! Shouldn’t they be catching up to me?”

“Margaret,” her mother said, smiling. “Children aren’t simply smaller versions of adults. Growing up requires change, not just expansion. You’ll catch up to the others in your own time—but you don’t have to be in such a rush. I like you very much just as you are.”

As impatient as Margaret was, she knew her mother was right. She tended to be. So she went back to humming and planting and wondering when her mind and body and everything would change, and she would be let in on the secret that all the other girls seemed to know.

And change did come. But not how anyone had pictured it. Because that winter, Margaret’s mother fell ill. And the chill just wouldn’t leave her.

They buried her mother in the spring, in the family plot in the back corner of the garden. Margaret planted roses beside her headstone. It was the only time she had ever seen her father cry. And suddenly, Margaret didn’t want anything to change anymore.

She stayed in her greenhouse. She worked with her plants. Making things grow was what she and her mother always did.

It was strange, but watching her fruit trees and violets and roses move through their seasons was a kind of consistency. It was a pattern that could be predicted. And controlled.

But even with her head down, she noticed that as much as she wanted things to stay the same, everything around her was changing. First, her father decided to remarry and brought Leticia Churzy into their lives. She was a countess, and very beautiful, and she made Margaret realize that her old skirts had become too short and that just because she blushed when she thought of certain members of the opposite sex, it didn’t mean she was meant to marry them.

Just like Leticia was not meant to marry Margaret’s father, as it turned out.

And then, Dr. Rhys Gray came to stay with the Babcocks at Bluestone Manor for a few weeks.

A friend of Mr. Turner’s, the local miller, he’d come for a visit and ended up tending to Margaret’s father’s gout-riddled foot.

And Margaret discovered what it was like to have a friend.

Oh, she’d become friends with Leticia—eventually—and Miss Goodhue, the schoolteacher in Helmsley, who for some unknown reason seemed happy for Margaret’s companionship, but with Rhys, Margaret learned what it was to build a friendship out of shared interests and mutual understanding.

Every time she received a letter from him, her heart leapt a little as she broke the wax “G” that sealed the pages, a thrill of “yes!” running through her veins.

So when the butler brought Rhys’s latest letter into the greenhouse, that same joy lifted the corners of her mouth as she used a relatively clean garden spade to break the seal.

She stared at the letter in her hands, reading it for the seventh time in as many minutes. Then she folded it up and tossed it on her workbench.

Then she snatched it up again and reread it once more, her eyes flitting to certain phrases automatically, confirming for the eighth time that they were, indeed, real.

. . . your latest experiment . . .

. . . Horticultural Society . . .

. . . come to London, Margaret . . .

“Margaret, here you are, we’ve been waiting for you for—achoo!—for tea,” Leticia Churzy—now Leticia Turner—said as she poked her head around the greenhouse door.

Margaret hurriedly put the letter in the pocket of her apron.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes, Leticia,” she said, turning her attention back to little vines she had been potting into individual containers. “I just need to finish this.”

“Well, of course your . . . green peas?—they simply cannot wait,” Leticia said with a slightly sardonic smile.

“No, they cannot,” Margaret retorted. Rare was the person who understood that while plants seemed unmoving and patient, in truth timing was everything. Leticia, for all her good qualities, was not one of those people. “I’m testing a new formula for my fertilizer—there’s a different amount of fish guts in the soil of each of these pots. If I plant them all at different times, it adds another variable to the experiment and ruins everything.”

Leticia turned visibly green at the mention of fish guts, but still came forward. “Well, you’re almost done. I can keep you company while you . . . fertilize.”

Margaret’s mouth tipped up at the corners. “And you can make sure I don’t lose track of time and make it in time for tea, correct?”

“I admit to having ulterior motives. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy your—achoo!—company.” She gulped again. “Oh heavens, that smells.”

“You must, if you’re willing to brave your sensitivity to flowers to be in here,” Margaret replied, smiling.

It was so strange. A year ago, when Margaret first met Leticia, it had been in this very greenhouse, and it had been rather dramatically different. Margaret had been deeply angry to find anyone in her greenhouse, let alone someone professing to be her soon-to-be stepmother.

It was the first time she was forced to realize that the world had gone on turning since her mother’s death. That it had continued to turn for her father, Sir Barty. She had been an angry, lost girl, who lashed out with her tongue and her recalcitrant nature.

Over those weeks that Leticia had been engaged to Sir Barty, Margaret had been convinced that Leticia was changing not only everything at Bluestone, but that she was actively trying to change Margaret. Her too-short dresses were out-of-date—made for girls in their youth, and not a young woman. That she should present herself for dinner with the family. That she should take tea with the ladies in the town. That she should be a part of things—and it was a notion that made Margaret distinctly uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until Leticia had a pair of trousers made for Margaret to work in—the trousers she was currently wearing—that Margaret realized she wasn’t trying to change her. Not in fundamentals. Just that Leticia had been trying to find her way to friendship with Margaret. To understand each other.

They became much better friends after that. Margaret could almost be sad that Leticia had not ended up her stepmother. Almost. But seeing how happy she was as the wife of Mr. Turner, the owner of the local mill, and that her father had found a happy companion in Helen, Mr. Turner’s widowed mother, Margaret felt that everything was as it should be.

Except . . .

When the five of them sat down to dinner—Leticia and Mr. Turner were often guests—it was cozy and happy, but Margaret couldn’t help feeling like there was still a chair empty, next to hers.

She wondered whom it was that was meant to fill it. For a time she thought it was her mother, but now . . . she wondered if it was something else.

Maybe it wasn’t that there was a chair empty, but instead that the table was too full. Maybe, she thought, there was somewhere else she was supposed to be.

Absentmindedly, she reached inside her pocket, and felt for the paper—that didn’t seem to be there.

“What’s this?” Leticia asked, stooping to pick up the folded letter down by Margaret’s feet. Drat it all, in her rush to hide the letter, she must have missed her pocket.

“Nothing,” Margaret said quickly, reaching for it. Leticia, to her credit, handed it over immediately. “Just a letter.”

“Forgive me, but did I recognize Dr. Gray’s handwriting? He often corresponds with my dear John, you know.”

Caught, Margaret couldn’t lie. Not that she hadn’t tried in the past, but she was terrible at it. She never knew where to look, and she would blush like mad, giving herself away. “Yes, it’s from Dr. Gray.”

Leticia’s look became concerned. “Is it your father’s gout again? Helen says she’s encouraged him to stay away from rich sauces but Mrs. Dillon says Cook has caught him more than once in the larder.”

“No, it has nothing to do with Father,” Margaret answered. And seeing Leticia’s completely not-interested look of interest, she knew she had to explain. “We’ve been corresponding.”

“Corresponding?” Leticia’s eyebrow went up to the ceiling. “You’ve been corresponding with a man?”

“No . . . not like that. It’s an academic correspondence.” Oh blast, she was blushing. At one point in time she thought that if a man made her blush, it meant they were meant to be together forever. But now, she knew it to be an inconclusive theory, because almost any awkwardness made her blush. And explaining her letters with Rhys was definitely awkward.

“Academic?” Leticia repeated. “He asks about your work, and such?”

“Yes,” she replied. “He sent me a pamphlet on African scrub bushes once that inspired me to have the arid greenhouse built. And . . .”

Leticia blinked, waiting. “And . . .”

“And . . . well, I don’t know what to do, because . . .” Margaret bit her lip, and then made a decision. “Read this, please.” She held out the letter.

Leticia gingerly took the paper from her. She unfolded it, and kept her expression stoically neutral as she read.

It was a short missive, from Rhys. Sometimes, he could fill up both sides of the page with cross writing if he had a particularly interesting experiment he wished to explain. But Leticia was done reading before Margaret could so much as plant another pea pod.

“Well, this is something, isn’t it?” Leticia said, smiling. “What a marvelous opportunity.”

“Is it?”

“To go to London, of course. And show the Horticultural Society your . . . flowers.”

“It’s not just flowers, Leticia,” Margaret replied impatiently. “They are hybridized reblooming roses! And there’s no way I can take them to London.”

She flung her hand out toward the small, meticulously cultivated rose plant that sat in its pot on the stand near the north-facing windows. Its blooms were delicate and white, and it was perhaps the most important plant in the entire greenhouse.

It was her mother’s China rose. Her mother had been quite the rosarian, and when a cultivator brought seeds back from the Far East, her father had purchased them (at an alarming price, he was always sure to mention) for her mother’s birthday several years ago.

Only one of the seeds took, and grew into the potted shrubbery that sat on Margaret’s windowsill that day. The China rose was not hardy like their English and European varieties, but it bloomed continually through the summer months and into the fall. It had begun to flower just last month—pretty little white things with wide petals. But Margaret knew all those blooms came at a cost, and if she took the plant outside, for even a day, she risked it withering into nothing.

But she had great hopes for the children of the China rose.

They were planted in the earth right outside the north windows, where—as Margaret liked to think—the China rose could keep an eye on them. They had sprouted into tangled stems and thorns, and now, the newest set of flowers was beginning to bud. She’d mated the China rose to stockier English rose varieties. For the past three years, she’d tried—and failed—to produce a rose that would bloom and be able to live outside of a conservatory . . . but this year, she might have done it.

The light pink blossoms on the bramble didn’t look like much, not yet. But they had survived a late frost last month. And they had more and more buds sprouting every day.

A rose that bloomed all summer long. And could survive outside in the English climate.

She shouldn’t be surprised that the Horticultural Society was interested. But to ask her to come to London . . .

“Why can you not take them to London?” Leticia asked cautiously. “It seems Dr. Gray thinks it quite the accomplishment.”

“But . . . what if they don’t survive the journey? They would have to be uprooted and balled. Balled, Leticia! And what if they don’t have the right kind of soil or fertilizer in London? What if it’s—”

“Margaret,” Leticia said, in that tone she’d used so often last year when she was trying to impress her stepmother-wisdom on her. “There are flowers in London, so there is plenty of fertilizer and soil, I assume. And you out of anyone can keep a plant alive for a short trek south. Of all the things for you to worry about, I would not think your talent with plants would be one of them.” Leticia eyed her. “So I wonder what it is about London that really concerns you.”

“I . . . well, for heaven’s sake, can you imagine me in London?” Margaret said, her cheeks blazing hot as she tugged on the end of her long braid that fell over her shoulder. “It’s one thing to go to public balls in Claxby, but in London everything is so very fine, I would stick out like a . . . like a weed in a hothouse. What on earth would I do there?”

Leticia took a step forward and gently brought Margaret’s hand down from worrying her braid to shreds. “Goodness, is that all?” she said, a wry smile twisting the corner of her mouth.

Margaret shot her a look of disdain for the entire three seconds she could maintain it.

“First of all, of course I can imagine you in London. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. You are a young lady of excellent family. You have been stepping out of your shell. And when you are not in your work clothes, you present yourself very well. Not like—”

Leticia stopped herself before finishing that sentence, but it was too late.

“Not like last year?” Margaret replied dryly.

As difficult as it might be to acknowledge, Margaret’s dress sense had shifted for the better in the past year. And though Leticia might have wanted to hold her down and force her into petticoats of the appropriate length immediately upon their meeting, it had happened much more gradually than that.

And it happened because of her mother.

Ever since Margaret had been made aware of her late-bloomer status, she found herself a little hesitant to try anything new. To even go out into Helmsley, lest she be marked as a curiosity. But her mother knew her better and knew the one thing that would coax Margaret into the world.

She would lean down and whisper three magic words into Margaret’s ear.

I dare you.

Margaret was not the kind of person to respond to something as childish as a dare. Normally, she was the exact opposite. But there was something about the way her mother leaned over and met Margaret’s stare with a twinkle in her eye. Then she would nudge a hair further by asking, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

And Margaret knew there would be nothing to fear.

It had been years since she had heard those words. And with no one to whisper them to her, she retreated into herself, into her greenhouse, where it was safe and everything was within her control.

But then, after Leticia’s wedding to Mr. Turner, and when Helen came to sit at their dining table with such frequency, Margaret had begun to wonder if there weren’t some things she had missed out on.

It started when she wandered by Mrs. Robertson’s dress shop. There was a gown in the window, in a violent shade of watermelon. Something about it spoke to Margaret, and had her looking down at her old faded gown that she had let the hem out of three times. She was used to clinging to the safety of that old gown. But then, she caught sight of something in the window—it looked like her mother. And the twinkle in her eyes said “I dare you.”

It took her a few seconds to realize that it was not her mother, but her own reflection. But the twinkle was still there. What’s the worst that could happen?

The worst that could happen was that the watermelon shade of the gown would make her look strangely ill. And that was it. She didn’t buy the gown. But since she was in the store, Mrs. Robertson convinced her to look at a different material in a similar cut. And then another. And then Leticia showed up—no doubt alerted to the situation by Mrs. Robertson’s shopgirl—and helped her choose another few.

Then that Sunday Miss Goodhue, the sister of the vicar’s wife, asked if she was considering going to the assembly that next week in a town over. And she caught a look at her reflection in the church window, and the twinkle in her eyes.

Then Molly, the little laundry maid who’d become Leticia’s lady’s maid, but had to go back to the laundry when Leticia married Mr. Turner, asked if she could practice putting up Margaret’s hair, seeing as she was going to apply as a lady’s maid for another local family.

There was no way Margaret could say no.

And so her long hair—usually worn in a braid down her back—was pinned up. And she went to a dance. And she sometimes took tea in Helmsley with Miss Goodhue. And she spent every Sunday after church with Leticia and Mr. Turner at the mill. And her life began to open up by just a crack.

It was terrifying.

But it was also not terrifying. All the fear she had piled on to being pointed out as something freakish and unbloomed turned out to be nothing. And as she became more comfortable in the role, she became more confident in it.

But London was still an entirely different animal.

“And as for your second question,” Leticia continued, drawing Margaret’s thoughts back to the present, “what would you do in London?” She smiled in that feline way she had, as if she were four steps ahead of you in the dance. “I imagine you would do whatever you wanted.”

“Whatever I wanted?” Margaret asked.

“Of course. You would not be going to town for a season. Just to speak to these Horticultural Society gentlemen. So you would not need bear the social rigmarole, if you didn’t wish to. But you don’t need to be dancing across the ton to go to the opera or a play, if that was of interest. Or the gardens of Vauxhall.”

Margaret’s head popped up at that. The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens would certainly be something interesting to do . . . if she had to go to London, that is.

“And if you did find that you wanted to attend a party or two, I’m certain we could introduce you to the right people, and you would be more than welcome at any social event.”

Well, that thought killed off a bit of Margaret’s enthusiasm . . . but not all of it.

“And of course, Dr. Gray will be there,” Leticia said nonchalantly. She glanced back down at the letter from Rhys she still held in her hand. “From the tone of this letter, he is quite eager to make your stay a memorable one.”

“Perhaps . . . perhaps a dance or two would not be so bad,” Margaret mused. After all, she had been to the balls in Claxby and they were admittedly on the right side of enjoyable. And if she could dance with Rhys, someone she knew—and had verification he was at least her height, if not a half inch or so taller—she would not disgrace herself or her father.

“Yes, you might even enjoy yourself,” Leticia said, smiling. “And I imagine Rhys would enjoy himself too.”

“I hope so,” Margaret replied, her eyes falling to her pea pods again, so she did not notice the mischievous look in Leticia’s eyes for some moments.

But when she did finally see it, her own gaze shuttered.

“No, Leticia,” she said.

“No, what?” Leticia replied. “I said nothing.”

“You didn’t have to say anything. I can see it in your face.”

“What is it you think you see?”

“I think I see someone trying to conjure up a romance between two people who are merely . . . academic correspondents!”

Leticia gave her a look of supreme skepticism. “Admittedly, my experience with academic correspondence is virtually nil, but this does not sound like Rhys is writing to a dusty old chemist or astronomer. And he’s not. He’s writing to a vital young woman. Who harbored a bit of a crush on him at one point, no?”

Margaret felt her cheeks go hot. Yes, when she first met Rhys, he had caused her to blush. But ever since then, her thoughts of him were far more cerebral—or rather, far less girlish—that she decided it was just a passing fancy.

“That was a year ago; I was a full year younger. And it was of very short duration. He’s been in Greenwich and I here—and we are much better as friends than otherwise.”

“Friends?” Leticia’s eyebrow went up. “Not academic correspondents?”

“Friends and academic correspondents,” Margaret replied. “But here’s another problem we haven’t considered. If I go to London, what will I do about father? He’ll crow and rail about the expense, and having to travel . . .”

“You leave your father to me—or rather to Helen and me— and I know she will be absolutely delighted that you have been invited to town by an eligible gentleman.”

“For the last time, Rhys—Dr. Gray—is my friend. That’s all.”

“Just friends?”

“Leticia . . .”

“All right, all right,” she replied, holding up her hands in a gesture of peace. When she did, the letter slipped out of her grasp, and tumbled into one of the little pots for the peas—which was freshly filled with fertilizer.

“Oh hell!” Margaret cried, as she dove for the note, fishing it out. “Please don’t let it be ruined.”

“For someone who is just friends, you’re awfully worried about a letter,” Leticia said wryly.

Margaret flushed again, but this time, she kept her eyes down on the pots in front of her and managed to do something she never thought possible.

She told the littlest white lie.

“You assume I’m worried about the letter, when I could just as easily be worried about my pea pods.”