Three Weddings and a Murder (31 page)

She’d expected a formal garden. But once inside the hedge, she saw only beds of dirt alongside the path, dark and rich and newly turned.

Some twenty yards away was a good-sized cottage; two stories, with neat white shutters over the windows and morning glory climbing up to the eaves. Pink and yellow rosebuds peeked out from glossy green bushes planted near its walls—indications that once there had been gardens here. But all other vegetation had disappeared.

At least it had for the present. A white-haired man sat on a bench beside a trowel and a burlap sack.

“Good morning, Father,” Simon said.

The man turned, and his face creased into a smile. “Simon. You managed to convince her to come. Miss… well, it’s not Miss Barrett any longer, is it? Mrs. Croswell. I would offer you my hand, but…” He held up the trowel, and showed her his dirty gardening gloves. “I was just finishing pulling the last of the primroses.”

He was going to be her father-in-law. She would see him at holidays. It was best if they started off right.

“By the by, Mrs. Croswell,” the elder Mr. Davenant offered, “you can have no idea how terribly sorry I am for what I did. In my defense, I believed it was nothing more than calf-love.”

“From Simon?” Ginny smiled. “Surely you knew that even at nineteen, he was too bullheaded to be a mere calf.”

His eyes twinkled at her. “I was still hoping, back then, that he’d grow past that. If I had known how difficult he would prove to be, I would have shoved him at you straight away and wished you well of him. But then, England wouldn’t have had its finest railways constructed, so I suppose it’s all for the best.”

Their eyes met. They shared a tentative smile. And in that moment, Ginny knew it was going to be well. They could be friends. They could share in a teasing affection.

“What are you planting?”

“Oh, these?” He looked down at the burlap sack. “Well, Simon. You’d better be the one to explain, as you won’t let me help.”

Simon upended the sack and wordlessly let its contents spill across the path. Ginny would have known those smooth, papery roots anywhere. It felt as if a giant fist closed gentle fingers around her heart.

“Tulip bulbs?” she asked.

“There are three more sacks in the carriage house, and what I had to do to find this many bulbs in early summer…” He gave her an easy smile, but there was a flicker of something deeper in his eyes. “I’ve been planting them, these last days.”

She took a breath, but her lungs couldn’t quite seem to contract properly.

He picked up a bulb. “You told me that the tulips at Barrett’s Folly made you think of madness—of money tossed away without thought for the future.”

His voice had grown a touch raspy. She turned to him.

“I was hoping that when you saw these, you would have different memories.” He took her hands in his. “I’m not done with it yet. But I planted every bulb with my own hands. And with every one, I make a promise. I promise that from here on forward, I will guard you from your darkest fears. I will keep you safe. I will hold you dear to me.”

Her eyes stung, and Ginny found herself blinking rapidly.

“You were right,” he said. “The lady always wins.”

“The lady,” Ginny said, reaching out to him, “can share.”

He took her hand. “I know. That’s why you should always win. Ginny, will you marry me?”

The tulip bulbs were strewn around them. Their hands were connected over fertile soil, rife with promise.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes. A million times yes.”

O
N THE GLORIOUS MORNING
three and a half weeks later when Simon finally made her his, he could think of nothing but his bride.

He scarcely noticed the blue and cloudless sky, nor the white stone of the church when he entered. He didn’t take note of the decorated chapel, of the sheaves of tulips that adorned the pedestals, or the petals that had been strewn down the aisles. It was the wedding of the Season, but he barely realized that his guests were streaming in. Instead, he focused on the doors where his bride would enter.

He almost couldn’t quite believe she would be here.

When the organ began playing, and the crowd rose, his whole heart swelled. And when she entered... Ah, sweet Ginny. She wore a gold gown of watered silk, swept up in complicated bows and flounces. She carried a simple bouquet of yellow tulips. And she came down the aisle, slowly, to stand before him.

He could scarcely breathe.

And then, she gave him a smile—a long, slow, mischievous smile that brought him back from the heavens opening up to angelic choirs. By the time the vicar made his way through the meandering ceremony, he’d remembered again and again why he most loved her—why nobody else had ever been able to complete him as she had.

And so when he spoke his vows, he didn’t just blurt them out. Just because the words were part of a sacred ceremony didn’t mean that they couldn’t be part of a game, too.

“With
this
ring,” he said, as solemnly as he could manage. “I thee wed.”

The emphasis was intentional. He hadn’t consulted her on the ring. He hadn’t even so much as made mention of it, and she’d simply trusted the details to him.

She should have known better. He pulled out a ring with an entirely too-realistic beetle on it, large, ostentatious stones set like bulbous orbs in its head. Her eyes widened.

To give her credit, she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even pull her hand away. She just met his eyes in a silent dare:
If you put that thing on me, so help me, I will…

Just because he’d put her first didn’t mean he couldn’t tease her a little. He’d practiced hiding the real ring in the palm of his hand for days. He slipped the weight onto her finger, and when she took her hand from his, she found he’d placed a single, perfect gold band on it instead.

Her only response was a faint, relieved huff and a twitch of her lip.

With one raise of her eyebrow, she let him know that he’d won this round—but that she’d be back for more. A lifetime of more.

Simon could hardly wait.

U
SUALLY I WRITE
about real places. But there are no such places as Chester-on-Woolsey, Anniston, Castingham, or Chapton. There is no Prince’s Canal, either. I made up locations because the British railway timeline didn’t fit my fictional needs. I either had to change history or change geography; I chose the latter.

But this story is still based on historical events. The 1840s in England saw fortunes being made (and lost) on railways, and there was a lot of animosity between competing methods of transportation. Canal owners and railway owners clashed, but there was also a good bit of railway-on-railway hostility. (“Railway-on-railway” sounds so dirty.)

In 1846, the railway bubble collapsed. Simon’s decision to diversify came at precisely the right time. But for those who might worry about it, in my version of Britain, Simon and Ginny’s company survived the collapse of the bubble—as did many of the major arterial connections.

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Courtney Milan is a
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and a
USA Today
bestselling author. Her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She's twice been a RITA® finalist, and her second book was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2010. Courtney lives in the Rocky Mountains with her husband, a medium-sized dog, and an attack cat. She’s working on a garden, an older house, and her next book.

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For my mother and father.

I love you.

I am deeply grateful to my family, Bill, Shannon, Erik, and Sarah for their love and support. I’d also like to say a great big thank you to the outstanding editorial team who worked on my story, Janine Allen and Martha Trachtenberg. Leigh, Courtney, and Tessa, as always, I count myself lucky to be your friend.

Saturday Evening

A
NNA
K
INCAID WAS
the turned-down pagecorner in the book of Charlie Drexler’s life. With a placeholder like Anna, he had to question his decision to skip ahead in the first place. But firefly nights of long ago and not-so-forgotten memories aside, the sight of Anna picking her way across the summer grass, precariously balancing a tray of, yes sir, those were deviled eggs all right, would still have knocked the wind out of him.

Dream girl walking.

The corn-silk hair she’d crimped as a teen whipped long and naturally straight behind her, maybe because straight hair was the current fashion, but he rather hoped it was because she’d finally realized she was goddamn beautiful in her own right. A white cotton dress with spaghetti straps slipping off bronzed shoulders conjured sensuality from innocence, and the curve of her hips, backlit by a setting sun, shamelessly reminded him he was a man who’d been buried in the books for far too long. His heartbeat hesitated and then kicked up with the wind that carried the familiar scent of her vanilla soap.