Beyond the Broken Angel

CHAPTER SEVEN

— the conservatory —

July 24th, 1937

THE CONSERVATORY WAS Giselle's favorite room in Dare Manor. It was a decent sized room with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides and a glass-paned roof for the sunlight to shine in. Plants were everywhere—some hanging from the ceiling in planters, others placed around the windows.

A small table with chairs sat in the center of the room, a floral couch opposite it and pushed to the wall.

She often liked to come curl up on the couch for a nap, or water the plants and tend to the herb garden Selene had planted.

It had been a week since Giselle had been shoved into the past. She had spent most of her time helping Selene out with chores and watching Dorothy and sometimes the other children when they came home from school.

She didn't see Will that often, only around dinner time when he got off of work.

That's why she was so surprised when he had shown up in the conservatory around lunchtime when he should've been working.

"What are you doing here?" Giselle asked, standing up with the metal watering can she held.

Will waved a book in his hand. "I came to read." He walked over to the couch, making himself comfortable by resting his head on the armrest and laying across it. "Keep doing what you were doing."

Giselle did, moving over to water the mint plant Selene had showed her how to repot earlier. "I meant what are you doing here. At the house," Giselle elaborated. "You're never here during the day."

Will opened his book, looking to it as he spoke. "My partner let everyone off early to throw a party. Apparently, he thought it was a swell idea to celebrate the company's twenty years by partying instead of working."

"Oh," Giselle said, moving onto the next plant. "And you didn't want to go?"

"No. It's a waste of time."

"Well you're a ray of sunshine," Giselle mumbled. She looked over her shoulder to meet Will's unamused eyes before he delved back into his book. "So, what exactly is your job?" She smiled when she heard him sigh in exasperation.

"I co-own Dare & Sandoval Lumber."

"Oh, how big is the company?"

"Fairly large," he replied, voice gruff with annoyance.

"So, what book are you reading?" Giselle inquired, finding the annoyed glare sent her way to be amusing more than anything.

"Bleak House," Will told her, brandishing the book cover. "Charles Dickens."

Giselle crinkled her nose. She hadn't read the book, and had vaguely recognized Charles Dickens'name from it having been brought up in a past English Lit class. Based off of what little she knew about Will and his personality, she guessed that it was probably a very boring book.

Will noticed her distaste. "What? Do you not like the book?"

"No, it just sounds boring."

Will frowned. "But you've only heard the title. How could it sound boring?"

"Because I feel like you would enjoy reading boring books. Then again—every book in this time seems boring to me. I mean, they're all pretty much classics."

"Well, what books do you enjoy?"

"I like crappy romance books. Sappy stuff. Tacky young adult fiction with all the cliches you could imagine," she told him. "You'd probably rather choke on a young adult romance book before you read one."