“I—I see some butterflies over there.” She hurried in the direction the sundial had pointed.
Henry fol owed. “We’l see what kind of nineteenth-century botanist you real y are.”
The trajectory led more or less right into a thick hedgerow, and Chloe stopped at the dead end. Now what? Butterflies flitted around her. She looked at her net, then back at Henry, who leaned on his butterfly net as if it were a walking stick. He was watching her. “I’ve never caught butterflies before,” she said.
“Real y? What about when you were little?” The cloud passed, and the sun beamed down on them again.
Chloe stood back to see if there was a way around the hedgerow. She laughed as she pushed her fist into the net, straightening it. “I spent most of my childhood being shuttled between bal et, piano, and voice lessons. I hardly had time for catching butterflies.” And she shouldn’t be taking the time now either, but Henry was on her. She better just catch one and be done with it. She raised the net and aimed for the blue one.
“Wait.” Henry reached from behind her and clasped her fist.
Her blue butterfly flew away. “Hey! I could’ve had him.”
Henry bent her arm and lowered the net. “Did your mum have you take tennis lessons, too?”
“How did you know?” She stepped back and looked at his hand wrapped around hers.
He put his other hand on her shoulder.
“You’re holding the net like a tennis racket. We’re not out to kil . Think of it as netting a fish out of a fishbowl. Like this. Gently.”
He guided her arm in slow, swishy, underhanded swoops. His minty breath felt cool on her warm neck. She shouldn’t be here, like this, with Henry, when the riddle needed to be solved. The sun shone in what had become a Tiffany-box-blue sky, the birds sang overhead, and she was, of al things, chasing butterflies with a captivating man. How a guy could’ve made catching butterflies look manly, sexy even, blew her mind.
“There. That’s better. Just relax.”
Easy for him to say, he didn’t have a stolen vibrator rattling around in his bonnet and a burning desire to find something that matched the description of a house without wal s.
He released his hand from hers, and even in this summer heat, her hand suddenly felt cold. “Mr. Wrightman, would you be so kind as to fix my tiara? I’m quite sure you could do it, after al .”
“I’m happy to do the smithing, but there isn’t enough time to have it ready for the bal .”
“That doesn’t matter. I’l have a footman bring it to you before you leave. Please, though, don’t let Lady Grace help you with it.”
“Did Mr. Darcy al ow Caroline Bingley to mend his pen?”
Chloe laughed. Did this mean he saw Grace as a Caroline Bingley type?! Chloe knew she couldn’t be the only one who’d noticed a similarity between Grace and the Jane Austen character.
He pointed to a couple butterflies across the lawn in the lavender, and motioned her toward them, but then stopped and squinted toward the rose garden. “You’re wearing my glasses and I’m nearsighted—is Mrs. Crescent trying to get your attention?”
“No. Not real y.” Chloe pretended not to see Mrs. Crescent, who stood now under the shady bower of roses, and waved Chloe in like a jumbo jet on a foggy runway. As Mrs. Crescent waddled toward them, Chloe’s arm went limp and the net fel to her side. She didn’t catch a single butterfly and she wasn’t able to go beyond the hedgerow. She took a step back and crushed a clump of lavender behind her.
Fifi trotted up to Chloe as Henry bowed to Mrs. Crescent. “Thank you for releasing your charge for a few moments, Mrs. Crescent.” He reached for the butterfly net in Chloe’s hand, but she moved it behind her back and pushed it into the lawn as if she were staking her claim.
The servants had set up a green-and-white striped canopy above the clover patch.
Mrs. Crescent wiped sweat from under her cap with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Miss Parker, the mantua-maker is here to work on your gown.” She lifted her watch from her chatelaine and tapped on it. “I would’ve sent a servant to tel you, but I thought I’d deliver the message personal y, so you understand the sense of urgency.”
Chloe looked back at the hedgerow. “Mrs. Crescent, Mr. Wrightman, you must excuse me. I’l be right with you. Just wait here!” She curtsied, held on to her bonnet, and ran al the way to the end of the hedgerow.
“Obstinate girl!” she heard Mrs. Crescent say.
“Is she, real y?” Henry asked.
“I implore you, Mr. Wrightman, to please get her back here immediately.”
Chloe heard al this, because she was on the other side of the hedgerow, exactly where the shaft of light would’ve pointed, and she found herself looking at a gazebo she had never noticed before.
“A house without wal s,” she said to herself.
By the time Henry caught up with her, she had discovered a fountain on the other side of the gazebo. It was in the form of a statue, a merman tipping a seashel , but the fountain was dry. She looked frantical y for a secret door of some kind, but the fountain was solid.
“What are you doing?” Henry asked.
“Admiring this fountain,” Chloe said. She was stil looking for some kind of secret door when she stepped on a smal metal square with a green patina. It must’ve had something to do with accessing the plumbing for the fountain.
“Your chaperone is growing very impatient. I think you’ve pushed her to her limit.”
Chloe yanked on the weathered ring that was set into the metal until the smal square creaked open. There, just under the lid, was a basket with a note that read,
