"I was not always like this," he heard himself say. The words came from somewhere deep and hidden, a place he had sealed off years ago. "Before my father died, I was different. I had friends, or I thought I did. But when I became the earl, they looked at me differently. They wanted things from me, and I could not. I could not be what they wanted."
He stopped, horrified by his own confession. He had not spoken of these things to anyone, not even in the dark privacy of his own mind. But Daisy was watching him with an expression so gentle, so entirely free of pity, that the words kept coming.
"There was a woman," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Lady Margaret Ashford. I thought she cared for me. She laughed at my jokes and listened to my opinions on books, and I believed, foolishly, that she saw something worth loving. But she was only waiting, waiting to see if I would inherit, if I would be enough. And when I became the earl, she made her interest clear. But it was not me she wanted. It was the title, the house, the position."
Daisy was very still. Her hand rested on the stone wall between them, close enough that Steven could feel the warmth of it without touching.
"I ended the courtship," Steven continued. "She was angry. She said things, cruel things, about my character, my intelligence, my manhood, and I realized that she had never seen me at all. So I stopped giving them the chance."
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of something settling, of a truth finally released into the air. Daisy reached over and placed her hand on his arm. Her palm was warm, calloused from her gardening, and the contact sent a shock through Steven's entire body. He could not remember the last time someone had touched him with kindness.
"They were fools," she said quietly. "All of them. You are not difficult to see, my lord. You are simply hiding, and you have been hiding for so long that you have forgotten how to step into the light."
Steven turned to look at her. The afternoon sun was behind her, setting her dark hair aflame with gold. She was not beautiful in the classical sense. Her nose was too strong, her mouth too wide, her chin too stubborn. But in that moment, she was the most extraordinary thing he had ever seen.
"Why are you here?" he asked. "In Yorkshire, I mean. Alone."
Daisy's smile flickered. For the first time since he had met her, she looked away. Her hand withdrew from his arm, and she clasped both hands in her lap as if steadying herself.
"That is a longer story," she said, "and one I am not ready to tell. But I will say this. I am here because I needed to be somewhere no one knew my name, somewhere I could start over." She met his eyes again, and her gaze was steady. "Perhaps we are not so different, you and I."
Steven did not know what to say to that. So he said nothing. He simply sat beside her on the stone bridge, watching the water flow beneath them, and allowed himself to feel, for the first time in 7 years, that he was not entirely alone.
By the end of August, something had shifted between them. Steven still spent most of his days in the study, but the door was often open now, and Daisy had taken to appearing in the doorway with cups of tea and questions about whatever book he was reading. She had a habit of perching on the edge of his desk, a liberty no one else would have dared, and swinging her feet while she listened to him explain one afternoon after he had spent 20 minutes describing the differences between Stoic and Epicurean philosophy.
"Why do you hide it?"
"I am not hiding it," he said a little defensively. "I am simply not parading it."
"Same thing," she said, stealing a biscuit from his tray. "Knowledge is meant to be shared. Otherwise, it is just hoarding."
Stephen had no answer for this. He was beginning to realize that Daisy had an answer for everything and that her answers were often infuriatingly correct. She invited him to see her garden. He went, telling himself it was only politeness.
The garden at Rose Cottage was indeed a wonder, a riot of color and texture that seemed to defy the heavy Yorkshire soil. Daisy had planted hollyhocks and delphiniums, lavender and rosemary, and in the vegetable patch, the peas were climbing their supports with determined vigor. Marigolds lined the path, their bright orange heads nodding in the breeze. A small apple tree at the far end had begun to fruit, the first hints of red appearing on its green orbs.
"I started this garden the day I arrived," she said, gesturing with pride. She knelt to pull a weed from between two rows of carrots, her hands moving with practiced efficiency. "My aunt always said that the best way to a broken heart was to put your hands in the dirt. She was right."
Stephen looked at her sharply.
"Broken heart?"
Daisy's expression shuttered just for a moment. Her hands stilled on the weed and she stared at the soil as if it might offer her an escape. Then she smiled, though the smile did not quite reach her eyes.
"Everyone has a story, my lord. I told you that."
She did not elaborate and Stephen did not press. But the question lingered between them, a ghost at the feast.
The truth came out on a rainy Tuesday in September. Daisy had taken shelter in the manor's conservatory after being caught in a sudden downpour. Stephen found her there, dripping onto the flagstones, her hair plastered to her face and her boots leaving muddy prints on the floor. Mrs. Holloway would have been appalled. Stephen found himself fighting a smile.
"You are a disaster," he said, handing her a cloth from the shelf.
"I am a drowned rat," she agreed, laughing. She dabbed at her face with the cloth, succeeding only in smearing the mud across her cheek. "But the roses are grateful. They have been begging for rain for weeks."