Chapter Thirty-Eight | Garden

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"I DON'T FIND you around here often," Aunt Esme said, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

James inhaled the cigar once before exhaling. A cloud of white smoke gathered in front of him. He ignored the wrinkle of displeasure in Aunt Esme's eyes. "No, I don't make it a habit of visiting the gardens."

"Put that disgusting thing away," his great-aunt huffed as she settled down on the stone slab beside him, letting her walking cane lean against the small edge.

Scowling, James took one last drag before settling it beside his hat. The gardens were quite small compared to the luscious grounds of Chalcott manor, but the flowers still seemed to bloom brightly. He supposed the gardener's tender hands had done the place good.

His mind was filled with hundreds of thoughts. The most pressing one seemed to be about his betrothal. How was he supposed to proceed forward after the disappearance of Sophia? Did he need to hire someone to create a death certificate to be free of the wretched contract? What would the impact in the future be? Although James was vehemently against marriage right now, he was not foolish enough to believe that he would not require a duchess one day to continue the Lennox line.

"These gardens always remind me of your mother," Aunt Esme said a nostalgic smile.

James froze, not expecting the response. His great-aunt rarely spoke about his parents. Through the years, they had settled into the rhythm of skirting around the subject of his parents whenever it appeared. "Well, I do believe my mother had impeccable taste."

Aunt Esme's grey eyes bore into his, "No, this garden was actually constructed by your father, as a gift to the late duchess."

James's heart clenched upon hearing his father's name. He remembered the late duke as being a kind and fair man. He had vague memories of running away from his governess on more than one occasion to his father's study. James would slowly open the door, often struggling with the heavy brass. His father would hear him and turn the knob from the other side, letting him in.

The duke never turned away his son or yelled at him to return to his studies. Instead, he would perch James on his lap while continuing his work. James would pester him with questions about what he was reading or working on, and his father would answer them all patiently.

Sometime later, his mother would often appear at the study door with the governess in tow. He remembered his mother's face softening when she would see them together. She would smile and wink at them before shutting the door, leaving with a sputtering governess trailing behind her.

He had loved his father and hearing that the man had been murdered made James even angrier. The duke had done nothing but been a good man and he was taken away from his son and wife too early.

"Your mother missed the flowers that she grew in her own home and so your father constructed a garden of all her favourite flowers." Aunt Esme looked around the garden, "Every single flower here was chosen by your mother. Some of them, she planted herself. She would sit in the soil, dress covered in mud digging a hole to place the flowers. I almost had a heart attack the first time I saw her do so. It was unexpected of a duchess to be crawling among the worms and getting her fingers dirty, but your father wanted her to be happy and did everything in his power to ensure that she remained so."

James merely grunted in response, even as his own eyes took in the garden with a new light. To construct an entire garden for one person seemed rather ridiculous but his father had done it for his mother. Decades later, the garden was still thriving today, standing as a testament of time and a reminder of his parents.

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